Volume 56, Number 2 · February 12, 2009
The Dark in the Piazza
By Tim Parks
Woman of Rome: A Life of Elsa Morante
by Lily Tuck
Harper, 263 pp., $25.95
House of Liars
by Elsa Morante, translated from the Italian by Adrienne Foulke, with the editorial assistance of Andrew Chiappe
Harcourt, Brace, 565 pp. (1951)
Arturo's Island
by Elsa Morante, translated from the Italian by Isabel Quigly
Steerforth Italia, 351 pp. (2002)
History
by Elsa Morante, translated from the Italian by William Weaver and with a foreword by Lily Tuck
Zoland, 740 pp., $24.95 (paper)
Aracoeli
by Elsa Morante, translated from the Italian by William Weaver
Random House, 311 pp. (1984)
In the summer of 1942 a recently married couple strolled around the island of Capri in the Bay of Naples, he with an owl on his shoulder, she with a Siamese cat on a leash. Alberto Moravia was thirty-five and the celebrated author of Gli indifferenti (The Uncaring Ones[1]); Elsa Morante had just published a collection of fantasy children's stories written in her adolescence. Now she was thirty. An owl, for Italians, is emblematic of grumpiness; Elsa would always complain of Alberto's 'incurable detachment.' A Siamese cat on a leash could hardly help but seem exotic. Elsa shunned reality, Alberto remarked, the way her many cats shunned water.
Review, 4244 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |