All Our Yesterdays

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So many meaningful characters appear in this novel and they each play a role, that is, they appear with a defined purpose. In Part One, Ginzburg focuses her gaze on an ensemble cast – two families living in a smaller town in Northern Italy. Then there’s Ippolito’s sister Concettina, a young woman who has many men vying for her attention, of which one is Danilo – a man who stands by the gate of the house in a manner that disconcerts Signora Maria, their housekeeper. To save her reputation, she marries an eccentric older family friend, Cenzo Rena, and they move to his village in the south.

This powerful novel, set against the background of Italy from 1939 to 1944, from the anxious months before the country entered the war, through the war years, to the Allied victory with it trailing wake of anxiety, disappointment, and grief. The European Literature Network was created with the mission of championing great writing from Europe in the UK – and doing it together. Having been scattered across the country, and Europe, by the upheaval of war, the final scene sees the survivors regather and reflect on the recent past – ‘thinking of all those who were dead, and of the long war and the sorrow and noise and confusion’. San Costanzo receives four Jewish internees under this initiative – three old women and a Turkish Jew, who ultimately becomes Cenzo Rena’s friend.

Unexpectedly for her, she finds herself confessing to Cenzo Rena who suggests that they marry so that she can keep the child. At my maternal grandparents’ ruby wedding in 1981, when I was eleven years old, my grandfather gave a speech in which he mentioned the people who could not be with us to celebrate.

Užliūlioja ta šeimyninė rutina, ir nors žinai, kad fone karas - vis tiek labiau pergyveni dėl kasdieninių rūpesčių ir jausmų. As Germany steadily begins invading countries beginning with Poland and moving westwards, Emanuele et al are wracked with tension, and the fall of France is the final straw precipitating Ippolito’s descent into a crippling depression. There are some lovely touches of dry humour throughout, as the author maintains a wry sense of detachment from life’s absurdities, despite the gravity of events. But in the other half, jam jars filled just the previous afternoon by my great-grandmother, and coins she’d piled in stacks for that week’s various bills, all remained intact.Signora Maria's character is a kind of symbol, as is Ippolito, the brother, Cenzo Rena, the family friend who they believe owns a castle, and Franz, the stepmother's ex-lover who marries the step-daughter. Shy and reserved in nature, Anna’s very young age and reticent demeanour mean that she is hardly noticed in the house, but she notices various aspects of her family the significance of which she does not always comprehend. Tik nesupratrau vieno - kodėl knygos pradžioje, įžangoje, kuri apkalba kūrinį yra išduodamos net kelios siužeto detalės, kurių tikrai nereikėjo žinot iki skaitant knygą. It was incredible how fear and danger never produced ignoble words but always true ones, words that were torn from your very heart. The Glass Pearls, his second novel, is less innovative structurally than his screen work: it’s a fairly straight suspense story.