Or what's a heaven for?
Francis King
THE LAMENT OF THE LINNET by Anna Maria Ortese Harvill, f15.99, pp. 325 Described by her publishers as 'the doyenne of Italian writers', the author of this rich, mysterious, tantalising novel is, at the age of 83, one of those rare and lucky people, like William Trevor and Penelope Fitzgerald, whose creative gifts become stronger, instead of diminishing, with the inexorable encroachment of old age. Indeed, if one knew nothing about her, one would guess, on the evidence of her book, so ambitious in its overall concep- tion, so complex in its story and so lavish in its detail, that here was a writer at the out- set, not near the close, of her career. Typi- cally youthful too is the sense that, for much of the time The Lament of the Linnet is being extemporised, one improbable rev- elation succeeding another, out of an imagination in a constant state of undisci- plined ferment.
The book begins soberly, in the manner of some historical novel of a time long past:
Towards the end of the 18th century, or Age of Enlightenment, three young gentlemen, the Prince de Neville, the sculptor Dupre, and the wealthy merchant Nodier, all of them citizens of Liege ... resolved to under-
. and the kids send their love!'
take a journey to Naples, for a reason which could scarcely be taxed as reprehensible.
But, although there are many references to the conflict between Napoleon and the Bourbon monarchy and between the new Enlightenment and the ancient faith, Ortese is far less concerned with history than with myth.
Having once arrived at their destination, her three young gentlemen are at once irresistibly drawn to the beautiful and chill- ingly enigmatic Elmina, daughter of a wealthy merchant, whom they surmise to be burdened with some secret sorrow or guilt. It is her declared belief that 'happi- ness is evil. Loving other creatures is evil.' After the sculptor Dupre has married her, the Prince becomes obsessed with the task of solving the mystery of a nature so strange, so magnetic and so formidable.
Aided by the necromancy of a friend of his, a Polish duke resident in Naples, he constantly seems to be in possession of the solution, only to be obliged to replace that solution with another, and so on and on. Nothing is ever as it first seems to him; every relationship, whether of blood or of emotion, undergoes a series of increasingly baffling transmogrifications. Meanwhile he becomes aware that the Naples of that time is inhabited not merely by the living but by generations of the dead, swarming and susurrating everywhere like invisible birds. No less disconcertingly, there eventually emerges as a key figure in the story a 300- year-old elf from Germany, cherished by Elmina, who will die if not adopted legiti- mately by human parents.
The style of Ortese's book — since he is such a gifted translator, one must assume that Patrick Creagh has accurately repro- duced it in his English version — is that of the age in which it is set. Thus, a typical passage, selected at random runs:
He, arranging his every lineament in an expression of infinite placidity (the which, save for stony hearts, to witness was to understand), and even of amused and toler- ant compassion, pronounced as follows ...
Over more than three hundred closely printed pages, such self-conscious archaism becomes increasingly trying.
As magical events multiply — the English author whom Ortese most obvious- ly resembles is Angela Carter — and as one improbable explanation is succeeded by one even more improbable, the reader may well ask himself, in growing bewilderment and even exasperation, 'What does this all signify?' To do so would be futile. At the heart of the story is the linnet of the title: at one moment, a real linnet, belonging to Elmina's younger, dying sister, which the older girl wantonly destroys; at another a mechanical linnet; at yet another merely a spirit. What do the linnet and its song rep- resent? Hope, innocence, love, life's essen- tial beauty, life's essential sadness? One can never be sure. At one point, the Prince decides that truth is 'always changeable, tongue-wagging and contradictory, always as misleading as a joke or a devil-sent dream'. Such is the chameleon 'truth' of Ortese's story.
Either the reader will surrender himself to an unending succession of what the author grandiloquently calls 'the complex and ridiculous events which weave the star- ry web of our splendid human passions', or, like myself, he will increasingly resist them. But in resisting them, he will certainly nonetheless pay tribute to many passages, by turns poignant, brutal and heartening, of soaring imagination.
Previous page
