RaveBook PostI couldn’t read her novels fast enough. She is an original, no doubt, and partly by virtue of her sharpness, the peculiarly direct and needlelike precision of her prose ... The Dry Heart starts out with a bang, as a neglected and betrayed wife shoots her husband between the eyes. What follows is the bleak history ... Beautifully rendered, there’s not a ray of hope in this account ... The way Ginzburg uses the resources of language is all her own. There’s no metaphoric flourish, no manipulation of tempo and syntax to create excitement; there is simply the juxtaposition of conflicting feeling in simple statements that miraculously add up rather than confuse.
Natalia Ginzburg, Trans. by Minna Proctor
RaveBook PostShe is an original, no doubt, and partly by virtue of her sharpness, the peculiarly direct and needlelike precision of her prose ... The way Ginzburg uses the resources of language is all her own. There’s no metaphoric flourish, no manipulation of tempo and syntax to create excitement; there is simply the juxtaposition of conflicting feeling in simple statements that miraculously add up rather than confuse ... Was this loss and unimaginable suffering the fire from which the author emerged with such a passion for truth? Perhaps so, but it’s the rare writer who, over a long career, never loses sight of this aim.
