Grandi Racconti Italiani / Great Italian Stories
A short story collection that I picked up on my recent trip to Italy. The cool thing about it is, the stories are published as “parallel texts,” with the original Italian prose printed on the left (even-numbered) pages, and the English translation printed on the right (odd-numbered) pages. I don’t know Italian, beyond briefly dabbling in Duolingo, but I still tried to scan my eyes across the two pages to make connections between the vocabularies. I think it would be a great learning aid for someone picking up a new language.
It made me think about the process of translation as a whole. For this book, they seemed to have tried to maintain a strict alignment, i.e., the paragraphs start and end at the same vertical position on both sides of the page. I wonder if they were particularly rigorous because of the format of this book. If they didn’t need to present both texts side-by-side, would they take more liberties with sentence length and structure?
I’ll mention a couple of highlights from the stories, which all seem to lean on nostalgia, evoking a romantic vision of the past. Many of them take place in small villages and pastoral settings.
“Invitation to Dinner” by Alba de Céspedes
A family welcomes a British soldier to their home for a meal. Of all the stories, only this one explicitly addresses the Italian national identity. The British guest represents the rest of the world’s view of Italy after World War II. Everyone knows that Nazi Germany were the villains, whereas the soldier’s attitude towards Italy seems to say: “You’re good people who were misguided and chose the wrong side. But we’ll help you get better!” It’s well-meaning, but ultimately condescending, and the Italian narrator of the story reacts with a complex mixture of shame, anger, and sadness.
“The Hind” by Grazia Deledda and “The Hen” by Umberto Saba
The collection ends with a pair of stories about men (one old, one young) who become obsessed with an animal (a deer and a chicken, respectively). There’s almost a hint of romance in the way they’re drawn to the animals. The animals bring the two protagonists peace and joy, as opposed to other humans, who are seen as a threat.
I’m not sure what the larger connection is (if any) to the Italian psyche, but it’s notable that two stories with a similar theme close out this book.
