Also It Ends with a Poem to the Narrator’s Beloved Cat

I’ve been on a bum streak when it comes to novels for the better part of the last six months, a curse that began with reading the raven tower in august and has more or less extended to this point now. Happily, my recent McPhee journey eventually led me to consider the works of his daughters, both novelists. Jenny McPhee is also a translator who has recently published the translation of Lies and Sorcery by Elsa Morante through the NYRB publishing arm.

The way people have introduced Lies and Sorcery in the English speaking world tends to be along the lines of, well, Elena Ferrante loves Morante the novelist and took much inspiration from her and we also think she is quite excellent in a similar yet different way, with some recommendations tossing in, “Morante wrote this during ww2 as a direct repudiation of her countrymen and of fascism and its aesthetic styling.” Frankly, as someone who can’t read for shit in any other language, I have no ability to comment on whether Italian neo-realism is actually as plainly written or lacks artifice (in opposition to the pomposity/grandeur of fascist propaganda) as the New Yorker Morante review claims (implied in this, I think, is a justification for reading this: look at this age, see the parallels, see how you can stop this! which is a silly reason to read a novel of fiction), but I can confirm that Lies and Sorcery is lurid, melodramatic, and fantastical about the way that people delude themselves about class, love, and what’s needed for a happy life. It’s a very 19th century novel in scope and telling, written with strong forward propulsion. Each chapter moves through thought and action with speed, wrangling grotesque extremes of emotion and self-satisfied self-flagellation or terrible scheming.

I’m not sure I’d describe Lies and Sorcery as compassionate, at least not in the way that we might understand it in contemporary works, with its ethical inflections. Rather, it’s compassionate in the sense of it understands human logic and feelings. Characters are foolish, mad with passion, and frequently more in love with the hopes of a better that will never come; they are embittered and hopeful, furious and delighted, hateful and forgiving.

I don’t think Morante holds her characters in contempt, even at their most venial and pathetic. It’s a wonderfully complete picture of the way self-regard, pride, and ambition defeats solidarity and the fantasy of something “better” (understandably, “better” is often correlated with “relief from miserable poverty”) triumphs over what good may be before you. It’s a novel that understands and depicts betrayal extraordinarily well, the betrayal between friends, lovers (or tormenter and object), and parent and child (or subject and thrall).

Lies and Sorcery spans three generations of women and finds new heights/depths of humiliation at every turn. Really an extraordinary piece of work. I read it for more or less two and a half weeks straight at the exclusion of nearly every other book. really good… I think you should put a hold on it at the library right now.