Fiction – paperback; Daunt Books; 157 pages; 2019. Translated from the Italian by D.M. Low.

Voices in the Evening, by Italian writer Natalia Ginzburg (1916-1991), was first published in 1963.

This edition, reissued by Daunt Books, comes with an introduction by Colm Toibin, who says Ginzburg’s imagination was “irrevocably” marked by Fascism and the Second World War, but when the war was over, she became “interested in more mundane manifestations of conflict”, usually within families.

In many ways, this novella, which is set in a small Italian village, is like a short-form soap opera with multiple characters at loggerheads with one another, caught up in unsuitable marriages or forbidden love affairs, or unable to resist spreading rumours and speculation about others. There’s a lot of judgment and gossip in these pages; people are unpleasant, unhappy or both; and many are simply resigned to their fate and struggle to reject societal norms.

In short, it’s a story underpinned by a quiet despair.

Elsa’s love affair

The meandering narrative is anchored by the story of Elsa, a 27-year-old woman who still lives at home with her parents.  Her mother frets that Elsa will never marry,  unaware that her daughter is in a secret relationship with Tommasino, the son of the wealthy De Francisci family.

The blurb suggests that this love affair is the central focus of the book, but that is misleading. Yes, Elsa’s love life, told in the first person, is part of the overall story of the fictional village in which Voices in the Evening is set, but there are other characters and narrative threads holding it all together and these are told in the third person.

There is the story of Old Balotta, for instance, who comments on the lives of the other villagers, often cruelly and mean-spiritedly, and whose five children — Gemmina, Vincenzio, Mario, Raffaella, and Tommasino — provide him with plenty of fodder upon which to gossip and complain. Here’s a good example:

Vincenzino returned to La Casetta from the sea quite restored to health. He placed a portrait on the table in his room. It showed a girl standing up, in profile, wearing evening dress with a rope of pearls. She had a long neck, a huge black chignon and a feather boa.
‘My fiancée,’ he said.
Balotta said to his wife, ‘Is he engaged, that clown there?’
He went to look at the portrait when Vincenzino was out.
‘What a long neck,’ he said.
And in the morning when he was hardly awake he said to his wife,
‘That young woman will cover him with horns from his head to his feet and from his feet to his head.’ (page 47)

He describes his daughter Gemmina as having “no sex appeal” and a “very bad complexion” (page 36), and detests Mario’s wife, stating:

“Did you see how ugly she is? How can Mario go to bed with her?’ (page 57)

Understated style

Written in Ginzburg’s typical understated style, the book explores how people become trapped by circumstance, whether by their own doing, family obligations or lack of social mobility.

It also delves into the complexities of love and marriage at a time when “marriage is the finest destiny” (page 121) for a woman while also showcasing the compromises, disappointments and misogyny present in many of the romantic entanglements depicted here.

Other themes deftly fleshed out by Ginzburg’s perceptive eye include the oppressive nature of small-town life, the insidious nature of gossip and the way judgements keep people in their place. She is very good at revealing people’s unspoken sorrows and disappointments without necessarily spelling them out.

But for all the novella’s strengths, I found the piecemeal narrative and the fragmented way in which the characters’ lives are revealed too ephemeral. There wasn’t a strong enough hook, and I came away from Voices in the Evening feeling ambivalent about what I’d just read. None of the characters and their personal dramas, for instance, have lingered in my mind.

I read this book for Women in Translation Month, an annual celebration of women writers who write in languages other than English, started by Meytal Radzinski in 2014. Visit my #womenintranslation tag to read all my previous reviews.

This is also my 10th book for #20booksofsummer 2024. I purchased it in Melbourne earlier this year.