{"id":20438,"date":"2019-04-30T19:32:42","date_gmt":"2019-04-30T18:32:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/?p=20438"},"modified":"2025-07-29T22:45:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T20:45:23","slug":"antonia-a-madame-bovary-in-sixties-palermo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/en\/litterature\/antonia-une-madame-bovary-dans-la-palerme-des-annees-soixante\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00abAntonia, a Madame Bovary in sixties Palermo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday books - Loris S. Musumeci<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brief but effective. And efficiency isn't just about profit. It's not even a question of education or culture. Gabriella Zalap\u00ec 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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<\/em>; 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 \u00abpeople\u00bb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00abWhen I mentioned my desire to work, Franco replied, \u2018But what would people say? You have everything you need. Women of your standing are supposed to organize social events, and you have a lot of room for improvement in that area.\u2019 He doesn\u2019t understand a thing\u2014nothing, nothing, nothing. I\u2019m 29 years old. My desires fade away, sinking into silence. It\u2019s impossible to imagine a life of perfect house wife <\/em>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.\u00bb<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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 Zalap\u00ec's word for it. Good for them. To their credit, the story touches and resonates with reality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/em> - you really feel it from cover to cover. And while Zalap\u00ec 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00abTerrible 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.\u00bb<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Antonia, Diary 1965-1966<\/em>, without pretending to be anything more than it is, also takes the reader on an exotic journey through a Palermo that is already modern, yet still redolent with the smell of fish and bustling with activity\u2014on the streets, at the market, and in front of the newsstands. The cities of southern Italy all have one thing in common\u2014which they, incidentally, embrace: they are grandi bordelli<\/em>. 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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