ITALIAN SEASONINGS

Yesterday I ventured into Boston’s North End not for a Mediterranean dining experience—my usual reason for visiting that enclave—but for a relatively rare literary event in that otherwise culturally rich community. The event, held at the local branch of the Boston Public Library, was a reading by Canadian novelist Nino Ricci, whose most recent novel, The Origin of Species, was awarded Canada’s highest literary recognition, the Governor General’s Award. But Ricci was in the North End to read not from that novel (which will be released in the U.S. by Other Press in the Spring of 2010) but from his first novel, The Book of Saints (originally published in Canada as Lives of the Saints), which won the Governor General’s Award back in 1990.

While I have known Ricci’s name for a good decade-and-a-half, I had not read any of his work until a couple of weeks ago, when I tossed The Book of Saints into my carry-on bag as I headed out the door for an overseas flight—an apt choice, as it is truly a transporting novel. Set in the fictionalized southern Italian village of Valle de Sole in 1960, it dramatizes the scandal that grows around Cristina, a young mother who becomes pregnant again after her husband has emigrated to North America for work. Narrated from the first-person perspective of her young son Vittorio Innocente, the novel records in rich detail the texture of life in the village—not just its physical properties but more importantly the social fabric that would enwrap Cristina and Vittò and suffocatingly define them by the mother’s indiscretion. Compellingly plotted and beautifully written (and tastefully seasoned with Italian phrases throughout), The Book of Saints is thoroughly engaging—really one of the most satisfying novels I have read this year. I was happy to learn that the novel is the first volume of a trilogy: I look forward to tracking Vittò’s story further in the sequels, In a Glass House and Where She Has Gone.

An unexpected bonus at yesterday’s reading was the screening of a couple of video clips from Lives of the Saints, the made-for-TV movie adaptation of the trilogy. While Ricci admitted that the movie takes great liberties with the original narratives, it nonetheless brings the physical world of the books to life in visually pleasing ways—not the least of which is Sophia Loren, whose star power led to the creation of a role in the film that does not exist in the books. Interestingly, though, Ricci shared with yesterday’s audience that when he was writing The Book of Saints and imagining into literary life the strong character of Cristina, he had the person of Sophia Loren in his mind’s eye.

Anyway . . . I am so taken by Nino Ricci’s writing—and was so taken by his reading yesterday as well—that I hope to bring him to UMass Boston for a reading when he returns to the area to promote the U.S. edition of The Origin of Species in April.

In the meantime . . . while I read Ricci’s novel on my transatlantic flight to London a couple of weeks ago, I read another Italy-centered book on my return flight from Paris a week later. Pietro Grossi’s Fists fell, almost literally, into my hands from a crowded shelf in the legendary Shakespeare & Company bookshop in the Latin Quarter right on the Seine: with the reviewers’ blurbs declaring it “A perfect book” and “The greatest addition to Italian literature for a very long time,” I decided to give it a chance. Originally published in Italian as Pugni in 2006 and just released by Pushkin Books in a translation by Howard Curtis, this gathering of three short stories—“Boxing,” “Horses,” and “The Monkey”—is truly exquisite. In one sense, as narratives involving young men coming-of-age, the stories read like parables. But they are so gracefully composed and so winningly developed that they ultimately sit between the covers of this beautifully produced book (I must confess my weakness for French flap covers!) as enduring works of finely crafted and fully realized literature.