The Beautiful Summer
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2.0 • 1 Rating
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
'An astonishing portrait of an innocent on the verge of discovering the cruelties of love... there are whispers here of the future work of Elena Ferrante' Elizabeth Strout, from the introduction
'Life was a perpetual holiday in those days...'
It's the height of summer in 1930s Italy and sixteen-year-old Ginia is desperate for adventure. So begins a fateful friendship with Amelia, a stylish and sophisticated artist's model who envelops her in a dazzling new world of bohemian artists and intoxicating freedom. Under the spell of her new friends, Ginia soon falls in love with Guido, an enigmatic young painter. It's the start of a desperate love affair, charged with false hope and overwhelming passion - destined to last no longer than the course of a summer.
The Beautiful Summer is a gorgeous coming-of-age tale of lost innocence and first love, by one of Italy's greatest writers.
'Pavese, to me, is a constant source of inspiration' Jhumpa Lahiri
'One of the few essential novelists of the mid-twentieth century' Susan Sontag
'[Pavese writes books of] extraordinary depth where one never stops finding new levels, new meaning' Italo Calvino
'For my trip to Los Angeles, I'm packing The Beautiful Summer, a slender account of love in 1930s Italy' Jessie Burton, bestselling author of The Miniaturist and The Muse
Customer Reviews
Bewildering
This novella has got a deceptive title: “The beautiful summer” , suggestive of a wonderful love story, set outdoors. Unfortunately, the reader gets bitterly disappointed, as there is hardly any love here. Ginia, the main character, is on the search for it and she finds a companion in Amelia, an older and more worldly young woman, who has got access to male painters seeking her as a Model. Ginia discovers slowly what it is that
Amelia does in the studio with two painters and she falls for Guido, a painter/soldier. However,she remains bewildered by this new bodily world of unknown roles and behaviour. Desire, shame, humiliation, contempt are feelings she has to go through. To the reader it seems to be a very frustrating world without meaningful relationships, also, with people seemingly without roots and pasts. (All we know of Guido is that he is from the countryside, Ginia has got a living-in-brother, but there is no past history and Amelia seems completely rootless and stranded.) When Amelia then also contracts Siphylis, the tale tips over into an “Ugly summer”, the title possibly meant in a satirical way.
Although these four people seem to be permanently meeting each other during this summer, their connection appears fraud.
What a shame.