Literature

«Antonia, a Madame Bovary in sixties Palermo

3 reading minutes

written by Loris S. Musumeci · April 30, 2019 · 0 comment

Tuesday books - Loris S. Musumeci

Brief but effective. And efficiency isn't just about profit. It's not even a question of education or culture. Gabriella Zalapì offers an experience. In ninety-nine pages, she slips us into the shoes of Antonia, a young bourgeois writing her diary from February 21, 1965 to November 3, 1966. A young bourgeois, but not the only one. If Antonia does indeed come from the bourgeoisie, her aspirations go beyond her social standing. She has to get out of the box. Because she's suffocating in it.

She is English, from a family that has lived in Palermo for three generations. Her husband, Franco, is a true Palermo native. In every way. Conservative above all, and macho; like any good Sicilian male. His wife is nothing more than a vase to make a good impression in the eyes of the world, in the eyes of the «people».

«When I mentioned my desire to work, Franco replied: ‘But what would people say? You have everything you need. Women of your standing are in charge of organizing social events, and you've got a lot of progress to make in that area.’ He understands nothing, nothing, nothing. I'm 29. My desires are falling, sinking into soundlessness. Impossible to envisage a life of perfect house wife for the rest of my life. I'd like to abandon this corset, this posture of wife of, mother of. I don't want to pretend anymore.»

Feminist vein, yes. Provided that any impulse to liberation on the part of a woman is necessarily rallying to feminist ideology. I have my doubts about that. But let's not take Antonia and Gabriella Zalapì's word for it. Good for them. To their credit, the story touches and resonates with reality.

Antonia is as real as Madame Bovary. Because it reveals something universal. The disappointment of a woman who thought big, dreamed big, imagined herself dancing in the noble ball of life's exhilarating adventures. This bovarian bitterness - or antonienne - you really feel it from cover to cover. And while Zalapì is obviously no match for Flaubert, she seems to have understood him and to deliver him with dignity to contemporary readers, who have a direct link to the Sixties and the evolution they have undergone up to the present day.

«Terrible headache. Dissolved once more in the sheets. Franco slept in the guest room. There's no more oxygen between him and me. We have nowhere to put our thoughts, our ideas, our desires in common. Even our bodies no longer move each other. I married Franco blinded by the desire to be loved. I was mistaken.»

Antonia, Diary 1965-1966, without pretending to be anything more than what it is, also lets you take an exotic trip to an already modern Palermo, and yet still smelling of fish, howling with bustle, on the road, at the market, in front of the kiosks. The towns of southern Italy all have one thing in common, and they take it for granted: they are grandi bordelli. A bit like brothels, but brighter and crazier. A few points of historical or cultural evocation also wander here and there in the diary. The main thing, though, is Antonia's quickening breath; to breathe at last, for passion. To catch even a glimpse of the vague, empty, immense sun that is freedom.