The Little Virtues
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- CHF 11.00
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- CHF 11.00
Beschreibung des Verlags
“As far as the education of children is concerned,” states Natalia Ginzburg in this collection of her finest and best-known short essays, “I think they should be taught not the little virtues but the great ones. Not thrift but generosity and an indifference to money; not caution but courage and a contempt for danger; not shrewdness but frankness and a love of truth; not tact but a love of one’s neighbor and self-denial; not a desire for success but a desire to be and to know.” Whether she writes of the loss of a friend, Cesare Pavese; or what is inexpugnable of World War II; or the Abruzzi, where she and her first husband lived in forced residence under Fascist rule; or the importance of silence in our society; or her vocation as a writer; or even a pair of worn-out shoes, Ginzburg brings to her reflections the wisdom of a survivor and the spare, wry, and poetically resonant style her readers have come to recognize.
“A glowing light of modern Italian literature . . . Ginzburg’s magic is the utter simplicity of her prose, suddenly illuminated by one word that makes a lightning streak of a plain phrase. . . . As direct and clean as if it were carved in stone, it yet speaks thoughts of the heart.” —The New York Times Book Review
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Considered among the best writers in contemporary Italy, Ginzburg should appeal to a wide American audience with this collection of essays, in Davis's empathetic translation. There are 11 entries reprinted from Italian journals; the latest, dated 1960, is the title piece, the concern of which is educating children, teaching "not the little virtues but the great ones: not thrift but generosity; not shrewdness but frankness and a love of truth . . . .'' Friendships, family life, all kinds of human concerns are subjects that Ginzburg's lyricism makes unforgettable. There is salty wit in some of the essays, particularly the writer's uncharmed eye on things British in ``England: Eulogy and Lament.'' But a deeply affecting essay recalls ``Winter in the Abruzzi'' where the Ginzburgs were exiles during World War II. The piece ends with a stark, devastating report on the ``solitary death'' of the author's husband in prison under the Nazis.
