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The Dry Heart
The Dry Heart begins and ends with the matter-of-fact pronouncement: “I shot him between the eyes.” As the tale—a plunge into the chilly waters of loneliness, desperation, and bitterness—proceeds, the narrator’s murder of her flighty husband takes on a certain logical inevitability. Stripped of any preciousness or sentimentality, Natalia Ginzburg’s writing here is white-hot, tempered by rage. She transforms the unhappy tale of an ordinary dull marriage into a rich psychological thriller that seems to beg the question: why don’t more wives kill their husbands?
88 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1947
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About the author
Natalia Ginzburg
139 books1,574 followersNatalia Ginzburg (née Levi) was an Italian author whose work explored family relationships, politics during and after the Fascist years and World War II, and philosophy. She wrote novels, short stories and essays, for which she received the Strega Prize and Bagutta Prize. Most of her works were also translated into English and published in the United Kingdom and United States. An activist, for a time in the 1930s she belonged to the Italian Communist Party. In 1983 she was elected to Parliament from Rome as an Independent.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,896 reviews
October 3, 2021
i just think that most of women’s problems would diminish if men just ceased to exist.
July 30, 2021
In this short novel Natalia Ginzburg reveals herself to be a kind of Italian Muriel Spark.
In the first line the narrator asks her husband to tell her the truth. He evades the question. She shoots him between the eyes.
Then she sets about trying to tell us the truth. It's a laconic wry account of a failed marriage brimming with fabulous insights. While Alberto courts her he reads her Rilke poems and sketches her. He makes a show of being interested in what she has to say. All the courting tricks and tools of the male are soon dropped when they are married. The novel is no less critical of women though. How women can playact themselves into a state of amorous longing for a man which has no true basis, but rather whose origin is a creative imagination on the one hand and frustration at the limited opportunities provided for women on the other. Eventually the playacting creates an inescapable reality. There's a shown disjuncture between the motivation and the act - just as is the case when she shoots her husband. The narrator has a friend, a modern sexually liberated woman but opportunity is defined and delimited for her too by sex. A brilliant novel of why women had to liberate themselves from the suffocating templates imposed on them by a patriarchal establishment.
In the first line the narrator asks her husband to tell her the truth. He evades the question. She shoots him between the eyes.
Then she sets about trying to tell us the truth. It's a laconic wry account of a failed marriage brimming with fabulous insights. While Alberto courts her he reads her Rilke poems and sketches her. He makes a show of being interested in what she has to say. All the courting tricks and tools of the male are soon dropped when they are married. The novel is no less critical of women though. How women can playact themselves into a state of amorous longing for a man which has no true basis, but rather whose origin is a creative imagination on the one hand and frustration at the limited opportunities provided for women on the other. Eventually the playacting creates an inescapable reality. There's a shown disjuncture between the motivation and the act - just as is the case when she shoots her husband. The narrator has a friend, a modern sexually liberated woman but opportunity is defined and delimited for her too by sex. A brilliant novel of why women had to liberate themselves from the suffocating templates imposed on them by a patriarchal establishment.
June 30, 2025
The main character is a woman who just shot her husband between the eyes. It is not a spoiler as we are told this at the very beginning. Then the unnamed protagonist starts to reminisce about her past, and the whole story gradually unfolds.
The Dry Heart revolves around a lonely woman in a loveless marriage. We see everything from the wife's perspective. She is both the narrator and the protagonist.
She decides to marry Alberto, a much older man who does not love her. He does not hide the fact that he is in love with another woman. Since the woman he is passionate about treats him callously, he agrees to marry the young woman who seems like an agreeable companion.
Why did the protagonist marry this man? It seems that what she needed most was to fill the void in her life and find meaning in her existence. She thought that the only way to do so was to find a man. Deep down, she is not attracted to Alberto.
In addition to the prevalent social norms of the time (the story takes place in the late 1940s), which expected women to marry and have children, the narrator likely has low self-esteem. She has not learned to love herself and value herself. She has a vivid imagination, and perhaps it is her imagination that draws her to this man.
Soon she discovers that her husband is "a man who tired quickly of everything." Alberto comes across as someone who is indecisive and rather shallow. The author compares him to "a cork bobbing on the surface of the sea." Before their marriage, he showed the main character attention and tried to please her. Now, he no longer cares about his wife's feelings. He doesn't admit to being unfaithful, and he doesn't seem to care what his wife thinks or feels.
The ability to tell the truth and create sincere, deep communication is one of the central themes of Ginzburg’s novel. There was a troubling lack of communication between the protagonist and her husband.
This gloomy short novel is told with low-key intensity and pent-up rage. There are no villains here. While I felt that the protagonist was mostly sincere about what she chose to reveal, some important things may have been left untold. This makes the drama more believable because even a genuinely honest confession often reveals only half-truths and can obscure valuable information. Ultimately, only the narrator herself knows what the final straw was that made her pull the trigger that day.
The Dry Heart revolves around a lonely woman in a loveless marriage. We see everything from the wife's perspective. She is both the narrator and the protagonist.
She decides to marry Alberto, a much older man who does not love her. He does not hide the fact that he is in love with another woman. Since the woman he is passionate about treats him callously, he agrees to marry the young woman who seems like an agreeable companion.
Why did the protagonist marry this man? It seems that what she needed most was to fill the void in her life and find meaning in her existence. She thought that the only way to do so was to find a man. Deep down, she is not attracted to Alberto.
In addition to the prevalent social norms of the time (the story takes place in the late 1940s), which expected women to marry and have children, the narrator likely has low self-esteem. She has not learned to love herself and value herself. She has a vivid imagination, and perhaps it is her imagination that draws her to this man.
Soon she discovers that her husband is "a man who tired quickly of everything." Alberto comes across as someone who is indecisive and rather shallow. The author compares him to "a cork bobbing on the surface of the sea." Before their marriage, he showed the main character attention and tried to please her. Now, he no longer cares about his wife's feelings. He doesn't admit to being unfaithful, and he doesn't seem to care what his wife thinks or feels.
The ability to tell the truth and create sincere, deep communication is one of the central themes of Ginzburg’s novel. There was a troubling lack of communication between the protagonist and her husband.
This gloomy short novel is told with low-key intensity and pent-up rage. There are no villains here. While I felt that the protagonist was mostly sincere about what she chose to reveal, some important things may have been left untold. This makes the drama more believable because even a genuinely honest confession often reveals only half-truths and can obscure valuable information. Ultimately, only the narrator herself knows what the final straw was that made her pull the trigger that day.
January 9, 2024
(Titolo originale È stato così)
The protagonist shoots her husband between the eyes in the very first paragraph, turning the rest of the novella into a whydunnit - a challenging form, to say the least.
Written in simple, spare language - which suits perfectly the narrator's limited horizons - the story picks up pace page by page and turns into a heart-rending, Chekhovian meditation on the evolution of unhappiness.
The protagonist shoots her husband between the eyes in the very first paragraph, turning the rest of the novella into a whydunnit - a challenging form, to say the least.
Written in simple, spare language - which suits perfectly the narrator's limited horizons - the story picks up pace page by page and turns into a heart-rending, Chekhovian meditation on the evolution of unhappiness.
August 6, 2021
Tell me the truth.
What truth?
The truth can turn out as hard to bear as secretiveness. Both can be lethal in the explosive context of marriage.
Review to come.
What truth?
The truth can turn out as hard to bear as secretiveness. Both can be lethal in the explosive context of marriage.
Review to come.
March 6, 2023
Valerie Solanas was the woman who shot Andy Warhol. She had previously formed the Society for Cutting Up Men (SCUM) (she was the only member) and wrote a big manifesto which pointed out that all men are highly injurious to all women and if they all died tomorrow it wouldn’t be the worst thing, in fact we might look into the possibility. Regarding her difficult life, she said
I couldn’t take living like a lobotomized brood cow, and the world around me couldn’t take that.
And she also said
If they could put one man on the moon, why not all of them?
Valerie would have liked this novel, a short, bitter account of why this lady shot her husband. She would have said - yes, this is exactly what I mean.
If you know any young ladies who are thinking of getting married, you might give them a copy of this very short novel. It could help.
I couldn’t take living like a lobotomized brood cow, and the world around me couldn’t take that.
And she also said
If they could put one man on the moon, why not all of them?
Valerie would have liked this novel, a short, bitter account of why this lady shot her husband. She would have said - yes, this is exactly what I mean.
If you know any young ladies who are thinking of getting married, you might give them a copy of this very short novel. It could help.
January 3, 2023
4.5
a book that begins with ‘i shot him between the eyes’ is always going to be good. read this in one sitting and loved it.
a book that begins with ‘i shot him between the eyes’ is always going to be good. read this in one sitting and loved it.
December 1, 2021
This book opens with our protagonist asking her husband a question: "Tell me the truth."
He doesn't. She shoots him between the eyes, and walks out for a coffee.
Then, she proceeds to tell the truth. Indeed, the Italian title of Natalia Ginzburg's haunting 1947 novella is È stato cosi, or "It was like that," and there is a precision to the way her unnamed narrator tells us her story—a mastery of well-paced and breviloquent prose—which commends it.
In a mere 100 pages, Ginzburg draws out the psychological portrait of a stifled woman: lonely, frustrated, and without prospects, she is unattached to and disdainful of her home in the country, and lives out her days teaching children in a city school. When she meets a man who walks her along the river, takes interest in her life, and tells her nothing about himself, she tries giving meaning to her empty, mundane life by convincing herself he loves her and, crucially, that she is in love with him. The 'dry heart' of this book's English title really is both of these characters: him, secretive and easily bored; her, bound by the templates of insecurity that society places on women. Troubled by his ambivalence regarding their future, she asks him to marry her, and he does. Such are the bases on which their four-year-long marriage begins—and you already know how it ends.
She shoots him between the eyes.
Between the walks along a river and this, there lies much disconnect, betrayal, trauma and grief, and it is through her spare and yet artful elaboration of these that Ginzburg meditates on marriage, motherhood, cruelty, the contrariness of our desires, and the dangerous spaces these squeeze people into.
Personally, what drew me into this book and still keeps me thinking about it is the starkness with which it presents the protagonist's loneliness. From the very first moment on, when the trigger is pulled, we are plunged into her inner world, full of listlessness, desperation, and a lack of direction—emotions that brim inside her and come up in the way she goes about and interacts with the world outside, with which she begs a connection but cannot find any. It is this lack that she fills with her imagination, except that her imagination is limited only to the ideals permitted to women by society: love, marriage, companionship, children, all of which end up trapping her into a reality that becomes more inescapable than ever.
For most women throughout history, this was it: a loveless/ luckless marriage, and a miserable life thereafter. The only reason why our protagonist is driven to find her escape, even through a means as extreme as murder, is because of tragedies pushing her to the brink. However, her decision to marry isn't a thoughtless one either, but rather one informed by too much thought: without the prospect of marital bliss, her only alternative would have been to carry on as she always had.
There are, of course, women who choose other paths in the novel: the protagonist's cousin Francesca is an artist who shuns marriage and indulges in free love, and there too is Giovanna, who is married with kids and yet develops a relationship with another man. Crucially, these are the women we know by name, whereas the protagonist remains nameless even as we get to know her intimately. Her identity is first reduced and then erased.
It is hard to overlook the feminist undertones Ginzburg works with here, given the potency with which she gives them a literary articulation: from its concerns (immersed in a woman's lived-experience and its ramifications for her psyche) to the manner in which it is written (a slim volume with prose divested of any decorative and melodramatic pretensions), The Dry Heart seems to be positioned in opposition to the romantic narratives historically penned-down and centered upon men. It crafts a distinct female voice (as Rachel Cusk says in her blurb for the book), while also casting a critical eye at the ways in which women walk, seemingly agentically, into the traps laid out for them. In other ways, too, this is an exercise in literary excellence: the characters are properly fleshed out and multidimensional, and the reader taken for a ride so deep within the protagonist's perspective that one almost feels a sense of affirmation when she finally pulls the trigger.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
He doesn't. She shoots him between the eyes, and walks out for a coffee.
Then, she proceeds to tell the truth. Indeed, the Italian title of Natalia Ginzburg's haunting 1947 novella is È stato cosi, or "It was like that," and there is a precision to the way her unnamed narrator tells us her story—a mastery of well-paced and breviloquent prose—which commends it.
In a mere 100 pages, Ginzburg draws out the psychological portrait of a stifled woman: lonely, frustrated, and without prospects, she is unattached to and disdainful of her home in the country, and lives out her days teaching children in a city school. When she meets a man who walks her along the river, takes interest in her life, and tells her nothing about himself, she tries giving meaning to her empty, mundane life by convincing herself he loves her and, crucially, that she is in love with him. The 'dry heart' of this book's English title really is both of these characters: him, secretive and easily bored; her, bound by the templates of insecurity that society places on women. Troubled by his ambivalence regarding their future, she asks him to marry her, and he does. Such are the bases on which their four-year-long marriage begins—and you already know how it ends.
She shoots him between the eyes.
Between the walks along a river and this, there lies much disconnect, betrayal, trauma and grief, and it is through her spare and yet artful elaboration of these that Ginzburg meditates on marriage, motherhood, cruelty, the contrariness of our desires, and the dangerous spaces these squeeze people into.
Personally, what drew me into this book and still keeps me thinking about it is the starkness with which it presents the protagonist's loneliness. From the very first moment on, when the trigger is pulled, we are plunged into her inner world, full of listlessness, desperation, and a lack of direction—emotions that brim inside her and come up in the way she goes about and interacts with the world outside, with which she begs a connection but cannot find any. It is this lack that she fills with her imagination, except that her imagination is limited only to the ideals permitted to women by society: love, marriage, companionship, children, all of which end up trapping her into a reality that becomes more inescapable than ever.
For most women throughout history, this was it: a loveless/ luckless marriage, and a miserable life thereafter. The only reason why our protagonist is driven to find her escape, even through a means as extreme as murder, is because of tragedies pushing her to the brink. However, her decision to marry isn't a thoughtless one either, but rather one informed by too much thought: without the prospect of marital bliss, her only alternative would have been to carry on as she always had.
There are, of course, women who choose other paths in the novel: the protagonist's cousin Francesca is an artist who shuns marriage and indulges in free love, and there too is Giovanna, who is married with kids and yet develops a relationship with another man. Crucially, these are the women we know by name, whereas the protagonist remains nameless even as we get to know her intimately. Her identity is first reduced and then erased.
It is hard to overlook the feminist undertones Ginzburg works with here, given the potency with which she gives them a literary articulation: from its concerns (immersed in a woman's lived-experience and its ramifications for her psyche) to the manner in which it is written (a slim volume with prose divested of any decorative and melodramatic pretensions), The Dry Heart seems to be positioned in opposition to the romantic narratives historically penned-down and centered upon men. It crafts a distinct female voice (as Rachel Cusk says in her blurb for the book), while also casting a critical eye at the ways in which women walk, seemingly agentically, into the traps laid out for them. In other ways, too, this is an exercise in literary excellence: the characters are properly fleshed out and multidimensional, and the reader taken for a ride so deep within the protagonist's perspective that one almost feels a sense of affirmation when she finally pulls the trigger.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
January 10, 2024
A very short novel that is very intense.
On the first page “I shot him between the eyes” states the narrator speaking of her husband… a union that never should have taken place.
She married him out of loneliness already knowing that he loved someone else, who was unavailable.
So.. the grief, loneliness, bitterness and losses in this story… makes it somewhat of a psychological thriller.
First published in Italy in 1947 ….but reads like it could be a modern day story.
Fabulous writing.
On the first page “I shot him between the eyes” states the narrator speaking of her husband… a union that never should have taken place.
She married him out of loneliness already knowing that he loved someone else, who was unavailable.
So.. the grief, loneliness, bitterness and losses in this story… makes it somewhat of a psychological thriller.
First published in Italy in 1947 ….but reads like it could be a modern day story.
Fabulous writing.
July 27, 2025
A shot is fired in the opening scenes of “ The Dry Heart.” From the moment the bullet meets its target, a mystery unfolds that introspectively seeks to discover why the trigger was pulled. The person in quest of this answer is an unnamed narrator who fired the gun that killed her husband. She had asked him to tell her the truth. When his answer did not satisfy, she shot him between the eyes. Her next actions provide a clue to the narrator’s emotional underpinnings.
“I put on my raincoat and gloves and went out. I drank a cup of coffee at the counter of a cafe and walked haphazardly about the city….I sat down on a bench in the park, took off my gloves and looked at my hands. Then I slipped off my wedding ring and put it in my pocket.”
Our narrator then begins a restrained, emotionally detached monologue that delves into her past and seeks to uncover the mysteries and heretofore unarticulated truths surrounding her marriage. She has been trapped in a loveless marriage to Alberto, an older man of short stature who is emotionally manipulative and self serving. He has been mired in a long term relationship with Giovanna, his married lover. His marriage to the narrator is a palliative intended to mitigate the frustrations of his illicit relationship with Giovanna. He has been courtly and attentive during the pursuit of his quarry. The narrator, who has never felt loved, does not realize that she is a salve for Alberto’s wounded pride. Once the couple has settled into marriage, reality begins to intrude on any previously held illusions.
The narrator deflects reality through fantasy and imagination. The result is a relationship fraught with misunderstandings and unfulfilled yearnings. They are locked in a quest for validation and intimacy that can not be achieved in their mutual relationship. Neither is the true object of the other’s desire. Both live in a state of quiet despair,reliving the frustrations of Tantalus while reaching for the unattainable fruits of satisfaction.
Natalia Ginzburg has taken the reader on a journey of frustration and yearning told in spare economical prose that conveys complex emotions in visceral form shrouded in ellipsis. The simplicity of the narrator’s monologue belies the cauldron of emotions seething below her exterior. She is a modern woman living in an age where the vistas of freedom seem much greater than those of her mother and grandmother. Yet they remain frustratingly out of reach because the vise of patriarchy has not weakened.As she reviews her sudden violent actions, she also glimpses a sliver of empowerment that solves the mystery of how she came to pull the trigger.
“I put on my raincoat and gloves and went out. I drank a cup of coffee at the counter of a cafe and walked haphazardly about the city….I sat down on a bench in the park, took off my gloves and looked at my hands. Then I slipped off my wedding ring and put it in my pocket.”
Our narrator then begins a restrained, emotionally detached monologue that delves into her past and seeks to uncover the mysteries and heretofore unarticulated truths surrounding her marriage. She has been trapped in a loveless marriage to Alberto, an older man of short stature who is emotionally manipulative and self serving. He has been mired in a long term relationship with Giovanna, his married lover. His marriage to the narrator is a palliative intended to mitigate the frustrations of his illicit relationship with Giovanna. He has been courtly and attentive during the pursuit of his quarry. The narrator, who has never felt loved, does not realize that she is a salve for Alberto’s wounded pride. Once the couple has settled into marriage, reality begins to intrude on any previously held illusions.
The narrator deflects reality through fantasy and imagination. The result is a relationship fraught with misunderstandings and unfulfilled yearnings. They are locked in a quest for validation and intimacy that can not be achieved in their mutual relationship. Neither is the true object of the other’s desire. Both live in a state of quiet despair,reliving the frustrations of Tantalus while reaching for the unattainable fruits of satisfaction.
Natalia Ginzburg has taken the reader on a journey of frustration and yearning told in spare economical prose that conveys complex emotions in visceral form shrouded in ellipsis. The simplicity of the narrator’s monologue belies the cauldron of emotions seething below her exterior. She is a modern woman living in an age where the vistas of freedom seem much greater than those of her mother and grandmother. Yet they remain frustratingly out of reach because the vise of patriarchy has not weakened.As she reviews her sudden violent actions, she also glimpses a sliver of empowerment that solves the mystery of how she came to pull the trigger.
March 26, 2023
"Yazı masasının çekmecesinden tabancayı aldım ve ateş ettim. Alnının ortasına ateş ettim."
Spoiler değil, Natalia Ginzburg'un "İşte Böyle Oldu" romanı bu cümlelerle başlıyor ve sonrasında anlatıcımız olan kadını adamı öldürmeye götüren süreci okuyoruz. Natalia Hanım ile tanışma kitabım oldu bu kitap, çok da güzel oldu.
Kadın yazınının önemli kalemlerinden biri Natalia Ginzburg, Italo Calvino onun için boşuna "Natalia Ginzburg yeryüzünde kalan son kadındır. Öbür insanların tümü erkektir" demiyor. Bu tekinsiz kitap da mutsuz bir ilişkinin içindeki mutsuz bir kadının öyküsünü epey derinlikli biçimde anlatıyor. Kadınların toplum tarafından beyinlerine kazınan ezberlerin, tanımların, sosyal zorunlulukların ne kadar yıkıcı olabileceğine dair bir anlatı bu.
Her ne kadar bir kadın hikayesi olsa da, ben asıl erkek karakterden bahsetmek istiyorum, Alberto'dan. Çünkü Alberto çok tanıdık biri. Kıymeti kendinden menkul, sevmeyi bilmeyen, kendini gerçekleştiremediği için hayatlarına girdikleri tüm kadınları mutsuz eden erkekler sürüsünün maalesef ki çok tanıdık bir örneği o. Büyümemiş, büyümeyi reddetmiş, inisiyatif almaktan aciz, acı çekmekten ve aslında çektirmekten haz alan erkekler onlar. Maalesef onları tanıyoruz ve zaman zaman kendimizi onlardan korumayı başaramıyoruz. Ginzburg'un ta 1947'de yazdığı bu kitaptaki bir adamın bunca tanıdık olması ne hüzünlü diye düşündüm okurken.
Yazarın kısa, kesik cümlelerle kurduğu anlatı, kitabın her yerine bir huzursuzluğun ve noksanlığın sinmesini sağlamış ki kitabın anlattığı öyküyü düşününce müthiş tamamlayıcı oluyor bu dil.
Ben epey sevdim ve Ginzburg ile sonunda tanışmış olmaktan ötürü çok memnunum. İşte böyle (oldu). :)
Spoiler değil, Natalia Ginzburg'un "İşte Böyle Oldu" romanı bu cümlelerle başlıyor ve sonrasında anlatıcımız olan kadını adamı öldürmeye götüren süreci okuyoruz. Natalia Hanım ile tanışma kitabım oldu bu kitap, çok da güzel oldu.
Kadın yazınının önemli kalemlerinden biri Natalia Ginzburg, Italo Calvino onun için boşuna "Natalia Ginzburg yeryüzünde kalan son kadındır. Öbür insanların tümü erkektir" demiyor. Bu tekinsiz kitap da mutsuz bir ilişkinin içindeki mutsuz bir kadının öyküsünü epey derinlikli biçimde anlatıyor. Kadınların toplum tarafından beyinlerine kazınan ezberlerin, tanımların, sosyal zorunlulukların ne kadar yıkıcı olabileceğine dair bir anlatı bu.
Her ne kadar bir kadın hikayesi olsa da, ben asıl erkek karakterden bahsetmek istiyorum, Alberto'dan. Çünkü Alberto çok tanıdık biri. Kıymeti kendinden menkul, sevmeyi bilmeyen, kendini gerçekleştiremediği için hayatlarına girdikleri tüm kadınları mutsuz eden erkekler sürüsünün maalesef ki çok tanıdık bir örneği o. Büyümemiş, büyümeyi reddetmiş, inisiyatif almaktan aciz, acı çekmekten ve aslında çektirmekten haz alan erkekler onlar. Maalesef onları tanıyoruz ve zaman zaman kendimizi onlardan korumayı başaramıyoruz. Ginzburg'un ta 1947'de yazdığı bu kitaptaki bir adamın bunca tanıdık olması ne hüzünlü diye düşündüm okurken.
Yazarın kısa, kesik cümlelerle kurduğu anlatı, kitabın her yerine bir huzursuzluğun ve noksanlığın sinmesini sağlamış ki kitabın anlattığı öyküyü düşününce müthiş tamamlayıcı oluyor bu dil.
Ben epey sevdim ve Ginzburg ile sonunda tanışmış olmaktan ötürü çok memnunum. İşte böyle (oldu). :)
June 22, 2022
A short murder story — 88 pp. Not a mystery; rather a why-do-it than a who-done-it. Astonishing narrative symmetry. Reminds one a little of The Prime of Miss Jean Brody in its brevity and fragmented chronology. The subject matter tends to be humorless. Worth reading though? Yes, because of the mastery of voice.
October 25, 2023
The Dry Heart is about as sad a story as I have ever read. It opens with a wife’s confession that she has shot her husband between the eyes. What follows is an account of everything leading up to this event. Throughout, I wondered how many people there are out there living with people they neither know nor understand, and yet hoping that there will be success just around the corner if they can just hold on long enough.
It would be easy to dislike the husband here, but there is a theme that runs from beginning to end that screams “we are all caught”. Our narrator, the wife, is unreliable, telling the story from the traumatic aftermath of having committed murder and having suffered the other life altering events she relates; and the story is hers alone, no other voices.
Ginzburg just went on my list of authors I fear I can never have enough of. Like Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth Bowen and Maggie O’Farrell, she captures my imagination and stirs both my heart and my mind. There might be dry hearts in her stories, but I suspect hers was not dry at all.
Thank you again, Antoinette.
It would be easy to dislike the husband here, but there is a theme that runs from beginning to end that screams “we are all caught”. Our narrator, the wife, is unreliable, telling the story from the traumatic aftermath of having committed murder and having suffered the other life altering events she relates; and the story is hers alone, no other voices.
Ginzburg just went on my list of authors I fear I can never have enough of. Like Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth Bowen and Maggie O’Farrell, she captures my imagination and stirs both my heart and my mind. There might be dry hearts in her stories, but I suspect hers was not dry at all.
Thank you again, Antoinette.
January 11, 2023
think more women in literature need to shoot their husbands on page 1 tbf
June 18, 2025
4,5*
Disse-me que tinha de me curar daquele vício que eu tinha de olhar sempre, fixamente, para dentro de mim.
Este livro que começa com um homicídio deixou-me tão triste, que nem sei bem o que dizer sobre ele. É verdade que gosto de histórias deprimentes e de protagonistas desajustadas, mas não sabia ao que ia quando peguei neste livro, um dos muitos que meti no saco na banca da Cotovia na FLL, sabendo da morte anunciada desta editora tão especial.
A protagonista de “Foi Assim” conta-nos que se casou com Alberto sabendo que ele não a amava e que ele tinha há muito um caso com uma mulher casada. As consequências de um acto desesperado como esse são previsíveis, mas a forma como ela reage às ausências e ao regresso do marido é descoraçoante. Já li muitos livros sobre casamentos infelizes e traições, mas o que me aflige neste é que a narradora não tem um único momento de felicidade nem sequer quando se torna mãe. Esta mulher é baça, é um vácuo, alguém que não tem nada antes, durante ou depois de pôr fim ao casamento.
Antes de nos casarmos quando íamos ao café juntos ou passeávamos, sentia-se bem comigo e gostava de mim apesar de não me amar. Saía de casa para me procurar, saía mesmo com chuva para estar comigo. Desenhava a minha cara no bloco e ouvia-me falar. Mas depois de casarmos já não desenhava a minha cara. Desenhava animais e comboios. Perguntei-lhe se desenhava comboios por ter vontade de se ir embora. Começou a rir e disse que não. Mas um mês depois de termos casado, foi-se embora. Esteve fora dez dias.
Disse-me que tinha de me curar daquele vício que eu tinha de olhar sempre, fixamente, para dentro de mim.
Este livro que começa com um homicídio deixou-me tão triste, que nem sei bem o que dizer sobre ele. É verdade que gosto de histórias deprimentes e de protagonistas desajustadas, mas não sabia ao que ia quando peguei neste livro, um dos muitos que meti no saco na banca da Cotovia na FLL, sabendo da morte anunciada desta editora tão especial.
A protagonista de “Foi Assim” conta-nos que se casou com Alberto sabendo que ele não a amava e que ele tinha há muito um caso com uma mulher casada. As consequências de um acto desesperado como esse são previsíveis, mas a forma como ela reage às ausências e ao regresso do marido é descoraçoante. Já li muitos livros sobre casamentos infelizes e traições, mas o que me aflige neste é que a narradora não tem um único momento de felicidade nem sequer quando se torna mãe. Esta mulher é baça, é um vácuo, alguém que não tem nada antes, durante ou depois de pôr fim ao casamento.
Antes de nos casarmos quando íamos ao café juntos ou passeávamos, sentia-se bem comigo e gostava de mim apesar de não me amar. Saía de casa para me procurar, saía mesmo com chuva para estar comigo. Desenhava a minha cara no bloco e ouvia-me falar. Mas depois de casarmos já não desenhava a minha cara. Desenhava animais e comboios. Perguntei-lhe se desenhava comboios por ter vontade de se ir embora. Começou a rir e disse que não. Mas um mês depois de termos casado, foi-se embora. Esteve fora dez dias.
November 25, 2025
Es mi primer acercamiento a la obra de la autora. No será el último.
Mis impresiones.
Novela corta escrita en 1947, en un momento personal que la autora describe como de profunda tristeza.
Con un comienzo impactante, en pocas páginas nos cuenta la historia de un matrimonio desgraciado, un matrimonio que nunca debió de ser. Está bien escrita con una prosa directa y fluida. Se desenvuelve con un ritmo ágil.
Es notable como un libro tan corto consigue transmitir tantas cosas y caracterizar tan bien a los personajes. De hecho la fuerza de la novela se basa precisamente en eso.
La protagonista es una mujer de esa época, matrimonio e hijos son la meta. Está enamorada de la idea de estar enamorada y acepta un matrimonio en el que sabe que serán tres. Un matrimonio que al final la desborda. Del conformismo pasa al desengaño, del desengaño a la sensación de no hay salida y de esta, a una reacción que nadie esperaba. Ella es la que nos cuenta en primera persona la historia.
El protagonista masculino es un egoísta de libro. Sus necesidades, sean las que sean, son lo único que cuenta.
Francesca, la prima de la protagonista, es el contrapunto. Vive la vida que quiere vivir más allá de las convenciones sociales.
El final enlaza con el principio y, al menos a mí, me dejó una indefinible sensación de tristeza.
En conclusión. Novela corta, bien escrita que es como una mirada breve pero profunda a las convenciones del matrimonio de esa época. Recomendable.
Mis impresiones.
Novela corta escrita en 1947, en un momento personal que la autora describe como de profunda tristeza.
Con un comienzo impactante, en pocas páginas nos cuenta la historia de un matrimonio desgraciado, un matrimonio que nunca debió de ser. Está bien escrita con una prosa directa y fluida. Se desenvuelve con un ritmo ágil.
Es notable como un libro tan corto consigue transmitir tantas cosas y caracterizar tan bien a los personajes. De hecho la fuerza de la novela se basa precisamente en eso.
La protagonista es una mujer de esa época, matrimonio e hijos son la meta. Está enamorada de la idea de estar enamorada y acepta un matrimonio en el que sabe que serán tres. Un matrimonio que al final la desborda. Del conformismo pasa al desengaño, del desengaño a la sensación de no hay salida y de esta, a una reacción que nadie esperaba. Ella es la que nos cuenta en primera persona la historia.
El protagonista masculino es un egoísta de libro. Sus necesidades, sean las que sean, son lo único que cuenta.
Francesca, la prima de la protagonista, es el contrapunto. Vive la vida que quiere vivir más allá de las convenciones sociales.
El final enlaza con el principio y, al menos a mí, me dejó una indefinible sensación de tristeza.
En conclusión. Novela corta, bien escrita que es como una mirada breve pero profunda a las convenciones del matrimonio de esa época. Recomendable.
March 23, 2024
herhangi bir şey okumakta inanılmaz zorlandığım bir dönemde çok iyi geldi bu kitap bana. sırf bu yüzden değil, tek başına da çok çok iyi bir kitap. 1947’de değil sanki dün yazılmış gibi. erkekleri öldüreceyiz hazır olun. ayrıca ben italyan edebiyatında sadece kadınlarla anlaştığımı fark ettim NEDEN ACABA
October 20, 2023
This book was intense! It started off with a bang! Literally.
“Tell me the truth”, I said.
“What truth?” He echoed.
I shot him between the eyes.
After shooting her husband, our unnamed narrator leaves the house, goes for a coffee and wanders around the city. She reflects on her marriage and what led to this pivotal moment.
I loved this from the back of the book: “ Natalia Ginzburg transforms the unhappy tale of an ordinary dull marriage into a rich psychological thriller that seems to beg the question: why don’t more wives kill their husbands.”
There is a spareness to Ginzburg’s writing that drew me right in. I was in the unnamed narrator’s mind- I could feel what she was feeling and how her mind was working to understand the situation she was in. She considers the highs and lows , mostly lows, of her relationship with Alberto, her husband.
This book examines the truths and lies in a relationship as well as the truths and lies we tell ourselves.
I loved when she confronted Alberto:
“No one can love you. Do you know why? Because you have no courage. You’re a little man who hasn’t enough courage to get to the bottom of anything. You’re a cork bobbing on the surface, that’s what you are. You don’t love anybody and nobody loves you.”
This is an 88 page novella that I could have read in one sitting- it was so gripping. But I chose to pause half way so I could reflect on what I had read.
I highly recommend this book. Natalia Ginzburg’s writing is sublime. The translation by Frances Frenaye seems perfect to me!
Published: 1947
“Tell me the truth”, I said.
“What truth?” He echoed.
I shot him between the eyes.
After shooting her husband, our unnamed narrator leaves the house, goes for a coffee and wanders around the city. She reflects on her marriage and what led to this pivotal moment.
I loved this from the back of the book: “ Natalia Ginzburg transforms the unhappy tale of an ordinary dull marriage into a rich psychological thriller that seems to beg the question: why don’t more wives kill their husbands.”
There is a spareness to Ginzburg’s writing that drew me right in. I was in the unnamed narrator’s mind- I could feel what she was feeling and how her mind was working to understand the situation she was in. She considers the highs and lows , mostly lows, of her relationship with Alberto, her husband.
This book examines the truths and lies in a relationship as well as the truths and lies we tell ourselves.
I loved when she confronted Alberto:
“No one can love you. Do you know why? Because you have no courage. You’re a little man who hasn’t enough courage to get to the bottom of anything. You’re a cork bobbing on the surface, that’s what you are. You don’t love anybody and nobody loves you.”
This is an 88 page novella that I could have read in one sitting- it was so gripping. But I chose to pause half way so I could reflect on what I had read.
I highly recommend this book. Natalia Ginzburg’s writing is sublime. The translation by Frances Frenaye seems perfect to me!
Published: 1947
November 19, 2020
Reading this novella was almost like reading Barbara Comyns, though without the latter’s theme of poverty and with a more sophisticated prose style, though Ginzburg’s too is deceptively simple. Both share a propulsive style, a naïve narrator, and a deep darkness at the core of their work.
I’ve read that there’s humor in Ginzburg’s other works, but I’d be hard pressed to find any here, except maybe in the character of the narrator’s younger cousin. But she’s more of a foil to the narrator, an example of another way of living, than she is comic relief. Despite her example, the narrator felt she was left with an either-or choice: Conventionality or murder.
I’ve read that there’s humor in Ginzburg’s other works, but I’d be hard pressed to find any here, except maybe in the character of the narrator’s younger cousin. But she’s more of a foil to the narrator, an example of another way of living, than she is comic relief. Despite her example, the narrator felt she was left with an either-or choice: Conventionality or murder.
August 7, 2019
Adorei este pequeno romance! Foi a minha estreia no universo de Natalia Ginzburg. Que história tão triste!
A protagonista é uma mulher com pouca ou nenhuma autoestima, que embarca num casamento condenado à partida por uma traição.
Numa linguagem simples, ao sabor do pensamento, esta mulher sem nome conta tudo o que se passou antes daquele "tiro nos olhos".
"Tinha vergonha e nojo quando ele fazia amor comigo, mas pensava que isso acontece a todas as mulheres nos primeiros tempos. Disse-lhe como me sentia ao fazer amor e perguntei-lhe se todas as mulheres se sentem assim. Disse-me que tinha de me curar daquele vício que eu tinha de olhar sempre, fixamente, para dentro de mim."
4,5*
A protagonista é uma mulher com pouca ou nenhuma autoestima, que embarca num casamento condenado à partida por uma traição.
Numa linguagem simples, ao sabor do pensamento, esta mulher sem nome conta tudo o que se passou antes daquele "tiro nos olhos".
"Tinha vergonha e nojo quando ele fazia amor comigo, mas pensava que isso acontece a todas as mulheres nos primeiros tempos. Disse-lhe como me sentia ao fazer amor e perguntei-lhe se todas as mulheres se sentem assim. Disse-me que tinha de me curar daquele vício que eu tinha de olhar sempre, fixamente, para dentro de mim."
4,5*
January 16, 2023
Hiç sınırlarımızın genişliğini düşündünüz mü? Beklemenin, sabretmenin, sevmenin ve nefret etmenin sınırlarını?
‘İşte Böyle Oldu’ bana bunları düşündürdü. ‘Ne kadar- nereye kadar – nasıl ve en önemlisi neden’ dayanmalıyız?
Örneğin bir susma anı gelir onca kavganın ardından, bilirsiniz onu değil mi? Konuşsanız faydası yoktur çünkü çok fazla denemişsinizdir. Yine yeniden başlamak için gücünüz de kalmamıştır.
Tamam da nerede dururuz biz? Nerede tüm o yükleri bir kenara kaldırıp ‘artık ne olacaksa olsun’ deriz?
Natalia Ginzburg, önceleri sadece vakit geçirmek için buluştuğu bir adamla evlenen bir kadını anlatıyor ve hikayenin sonunu baştan söylüyor.
Sonu hazırlayan sürecin daha önemli olduğunu düşünüyor belki de..
.
Karakterlerinin tüm yüzlerini, yaralarını anlatmasıyla çok sevdim ‘İşte Böyle Oldu’yu.
.
Şemsa Gezgin çevirisi, Utku Lomlu kapak tasarımıyla ~
‘İşte Böyle Oldu’ bana bunları düşündürdü. ‘Ne kadar- nereye kadar – nasıl ve en önemlisi neden’ dayanmalıyız?
Örneğin bir susma anı gelir onca kavganın ardından, bilirsiniz onu değil mi? Konuşsanız faydası yoktur çünkü çok fazla denemişsinizdir. Yine yeniden başlamak için gücünüz de kalmamıştır.
Tamam da nerede dururuz biz? Nerede tüm o yükleri bir kenara kaldırıp ‘artık ne olacaksa olsun’ deriz?
Natalia Ginzburg, önceleri sadece vakit geçirmek için buluştuğu bir adamla evlenen bir kadını anlatıyor ve hikayenin sonunu baştan söylüyor.
Sonu hazırlayan sürecin daha önemli olduğunu düşünüyor belki de..
.
Karakterlerinin tüm yüzlerini, yaralarını anlatmasıyla çok sevdim ‘İşte Böyle Oldu’yu.
.
Şemsa Gezgin çevirisi, Utku Lomlu kapak tasarımıyla ~
May 21, 2020
For the first two or three months, I didn't mind being locked down at all. In fact, to tell you the truth, I actually enjoyed it. There has always been a part of me — and I'm sure I can't be the only one — that has wanted to hit "pause" on life, to stop time from moving in order to read more, relax more, stop moving more, and in some ways the coronavirus pandemic has allowed me to do that. I've certainly read more in the past three months than I've read over any three-month period, and I haven't even left my house other than to go on the occasional run through the neighborhood. I'm quite fortunate that I work online, as my life hasn't been affected in the way that the lives of so many have.
But I'm now at that point where, while a temporary break from social obligations was initially much welcomed, I've started to somewhat miss interacting with people. Nice people, mind you, not the type who don't even bother to wave when they walk past where I'm sitting on the patio or whatever. I mean, how hard is it just to wave? It's not like your odds of contracting something go up by making such a casual gesture, is it?
So when I received in my inbox last week a newsletter from one of the bookshops I visited at some point last year — in this case, the wonderful Rebel Heart Books in Jacksonville, Oregon — I perused it, as I do, and found that their "Book Lights Book Club" was meeting virtually this week to discuss the Natalia Ginzburg novella, "The Dry Heart."
Now, I've got a kind of love/hate thing with book clubs. I love discussing books with people, hence the reason I interact with people on a site like Goodreads in the first place, but I definitely don't enjoy having to read whatever the club tells me I have to read, at least not when I have 100+ books on my shelf that I haven't yet read but am dying to get to.
But, as it happens, "The Dry Heart" was both one of the books I had on my shelf that I hadn't yet read and was dying to get to AND the selected book for this week's virtual book club. So why not take part?
I'm glad I did. It was nice to speak with people, especially about books, even though Zoom and every other video calling service is a poor replacement for actual face-to-face interaction, but it's not like we can do much of the latter these days.
Marcella, one of the people in the virtual book club, brought up the fact that "The Dry Heart" reads very much like a police report, and that's certainly true. It's not giving anything away by telling you that the book is about a woman who kills her husband, because we find that out on the very first page.
Titles, and naming generally, fascinate me. I love a good title. But more specifically to this novel, which is translated from the original Italian, I'm incredibly curious as to who decides that the title of a foreign work ought to be changed. The publisher, probably, but why? If it's a play on an expression in that language, or some sort of internal reference point, then I get it. But most of the times this doesn't seem to be the reason.
I remember reading that the Swedish title of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is actually translated as "Men Who Hate Women." Now, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is a significant title in its own right, and has spawned an entire genre of (mostly intensely shitty) novels with "girl" in the title (think "Gone Girl," "The Girl on the Train," "The Girl With All the Gifts," etc etc etc) but let's not kid ourselves — "Men Who Hate Women" is an INFINITELY better title, for reasons I don't think I have to go into.
The Italian title of "The Dry Heart" is also, I think, a much better title. "È stato cosi" or, in English, "It was like that." That lends some credence to Marcella's point that the events of "The Dry Heart" are laid out like a police report, and thus give us a different perspective on them.
Italy, for the somewhat fantastical image that foreigners have of it — cultivated largely by Fellini, ancient monuments, and Italian food — produces some of the world's best cold-blooded literature. I'm thinking of the novels of Alberto Moravia, whose "Contempt" feels like a kind of companion piece to "The Dry Heart" and Elena Ferrante, whose "Neapolitan Quartet" owes a great debt to Ginzburg.
I don't agree with some of the sentiment expressed in other Goodreaders' reviews, for example that Alberto, the husband of our nameless protagonist, deserved to die. There is plenty of blame to go around for the absurd, loveless marriage our protagonista finds herself in, but most of it belongs to her alone.
Our protagonista repeatedly expresses disdain for "the country," being from a rural village herself, and her greatest fear, it would seem, is to be labeled "a simple country girl."
Our protagonista is intensely self-loathing, and her strong desire to marry comes not from love, but to "know at every hour of the day where he was and what he was doing." She expresses similar sentiments on multiple occasions, so that it becomes clear that what she wants most of all is to drown out her mundane existence by attaching herself to someone she views to be interesting.
This novella runs to just 88-pages. It's an easy read, but it's also a cold one, as lacking in emotion as the corpse of the woman's dead husband.
It is, though, worth pausing time for.
But I'm now at that point where, while a temporary break from social obligations was initially much welcomed, I've started to somewhat miss interacting with people. Nice people, mind you, not the type who don't even bother to wave when they walk past where I'm sitting on the patio or whatever. I mean, how hard is it just to wave? It's not like your odds of contracting something go up by making such a casual gesture, is it?
So when I received in my inbox last week a newsletter from one of the bookshops I visited at some point last year — in this case, the wonderful Rebel Heart Books in Jacksonville, Oregon — I perused it, as I do, and found that their "Book Lights Book Club" was meeting virtually this week to discuss the Natalia Ginzburg novella, "The Dry Heart."
Now, I've got a kind of love/hate thing with book clubs. I love discussing books with people, hence the reason I interact with people on a site like Goodreads in the first place, but I definitely don't enjoy having to read whatever the club tells me I have to read, at least not when I have 100+ books on my shelf that I haven't yet read but am dying to get to.
But, as it happens, "The Dry Heart" was both one of the books I had on my shelf that I hadn't yet read and was dying to get to AND the selected book for this week's virtual book club. So why not take part?
I'm glad I did. It was nice to speak with people, especially about books, even though Zoom and every other video calling service is a poor replacement for actual face-to-face interaction, but it's not like we can do much of the latter these days.
Marcella, one of the people in the virtual book club, brought up the fact that "The Dry Heart" reads very much like a police report, and that's certainly true. It's not giving anything away by telling you that the book is about a woman who kills her husband, because we find that out on the very first page.
Titles, and naming generally, fascinate me. I love a good title. But more specifically to this novel, which is translated from the original Italian, I'm incredibly curious as to who decides that the title of a foreign work ought to be changed. The publisher, probably, but why? If it's a play on an expression in that language, or some sort of internal reference point, then I get it. But most of the times this doesn't seem to be the reason.
I remember reading that the Swedish title of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is actually translated as "Men Who Hate Women." Now, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is a significant title in its own right, and has spawned an entire genre of (mostly intensely shitty) novels with "girl" in the title (think "Gone Girl," "The Girl on the Train," "The Girl With All the Gifts," etc etc etc) but let's not kid ourselves — "Men Who Hate Women" is an INFINITELY better title, for reasons I don't think I have to go into.
The Italian title of "The Dry Heart" is also, I think, a much better title. "È stato cosi" or, in English, "It was like that." That lends some credence to Marcella's point that the events of "The Dry Heart" are laid out like a police report, and thus give us a different perspective on them.
Italy, for the somewhat fantastical image that foreigners have of it — cultivated largely by Fellini, ancient monuments, and Italian food — produces some of the world's best cold-blooded literature. I'm thinking of the novels of Alberto Moravia, whose "Contempt" feels like a kind of companion piece to "The Dry Heart" and Elena Ferrante, whose "Neapolitan Quartet" owes a great debt to Ginzburg.
I don't agree with some of the sentiment expressed in other Goodreaders' reviews, for example that Alberto, the husband of our nameless protagonist, deserved to die. There is plenty of blame to go around for the absurd, loveless marriage our protagonista finds herself in, but most of it belongs to her alone.
Our protagonista repeatedly expresses disdain for "the country," being from a rural village herself, and her greatest fear, it would seem, is to be labeled "a simple country girl."
Our protagonista is intensely self-loathing, and her strong desire to marry comes not from love, but to "know at every hour of the day where he was and what he was doing." She expresses similar sentiments on multiple occasions, so that it becomes clear that what she wants most of all is to drown out her mundane existence by attaching herself to someone she views to be interesting.
This novella runs to just 88-pages. It's an easy read, but it's also a cold one, as lacking in emotion as the corpse of the woman's dead husband.
It is, though, worth pausing time for.
July 23, 2019
“I shot him between the eyes.”
This is on the first page of this 1947 Italian novella about marriage, expectations, and the parts people play without stopping to think.
This will be a quick read for Women in Translation month!
I had a copy of the reprint from the publisher through Edelweiss; it came out June 25, 2019.
This is on the first page of this 1947 Italian novella about marriage, expectations, and the parts people play without stopping to think.
This will be a quick read for Women in Translation month!
I had a copy of the reprint from the publisher through Edelweiss; it came out June 25, 2019.
August 12, 2015
دومین کتابی که از گینزبورگ تجربه کردم. جمع و جور، نثر ساده و فاقد توصیف، به دور از پیچیدگی و خوشخوان. این اثر رو هم زنانه دیدم نه به خاطر این که زن قصه روایتگر داستانی زنانه- ازدواجش و مشکلات زندگی مشترکش- بوده بلکه بیشتر به این دلیل که با گینزبورگ نمیشه به درون مردان قصه ش رسوخ کرد. اشخاصی هستند که بخش عظیمی از اتفاقات به خاطر وجود انهاست ولی درونشون، تمایلاتشون، دلایل و خواسته هاشون دست نیافتنیه. اون قدر که تونستم با زنان گینزبورگ همراه شم با مردانش نتونستم و پیامی که ناخودآگاه دریافت می کردم این بود که نویسنده هم اون قدر که همجنسانش رو می شناسه غیرهمجنسانش رو نمیشناسه- که شاید طبیعی باشه- ولی تلاشی هم برای شناختنشون نداشته
با همه ی اینها شنیدن دلمشغولی و نگرانی های دختری تنها با درآمدی معمولی و قیافه ای معمولی تر جالبه. جذابیتش برای من اونجا بود که داستان خاصی نیست که به ندرت اتفاق بیفته. داستان تکراری روزمره ی بسیاری از دخترانه. یه همچین دختری برای فرار از تنها موندن و داشتن خانواده و رسیدن به شخصیتی که جامعه از ش طلب میکنه به دنبال ازدواجه ولی برای دستش برای انتخاب چه قدر بازه؟
نمی فهمیم زندگی تا قبل از ازدواجش جهنم بوه یا زندگی بعد از ازدواجی که ظاهرا تنها گزینه ممکنش بوده... تو همین اثر مثلن رفتارهای زن قصه و واکنش هاش برام ملموس و باورپذیر بود- تن به ازدواج دادنش، سکوت مقابل دروغ شنیدن، نادیده گرفتن اتفاقات، تحمل بیش از حد و از یه جایی به بعد انگار که منفجر شدن از شدت درد این رندگی- ولی همیشه تشنه ی داشتن درک بیشتری از مرد قصه بودم. دوست داشتم بتونم بیشتر بفهممش.
شنیدن این دردهای تکراری زنانه رو از زبان گینزبورگ دوست دارم
با همه ی اینها شنیدن دلمشغولی و نگرانی های دختری تنها با درآمدی معمولی و قیافه ای معمولی تر جالبه. جذابیتش برای من اونجا بود که داستان خاصی نیست که به ندرت اتفاق بیفته. داستان تکراری روزمره ی بسیاری از دخترانه. یه همچین دختری برای فرار از تنها موندن و داشتن خانواده و رسیدن به شخصیتی که جامعه از ش طلب میکنه به دنبال ازدواجه ولی برای دستش برای انتخاب چه قدر بازه؟
نمی فهمیم زندگی تا قبل از ازدواجش جهنم بوه یا زندگی بعد از ازدواجی که ظاهرا تنها گزینه ممکنش بوده... تو همین اثر مثلن رفتارهای زن قصه و واکنش هاش برام ملموس و باورپذیر بود- تن به ازدواج دادنش، سکوت مقابل دروغ شنیدن، نادیده گرفتن اتفاقات، تحمل بیش از حد و از یه جایی به بعد انگار که منفجر شدن از شدت درد این رندگی- ولی همیشه تشنه ی داشتن درک بیشتری از مرد قصه بودم. دوست داشتم بتونم بیشتر بفهممش.
شنیدن این دردهای تکراری زنانه رو از زبان گینزبورگ دوست دارم
January 31, 2025
To be a woman is to perform, for yourself, others, and especially men who claim to like you only to have their interest extinguished the moment they lay claim to you.
Tear it all down.
Tear it all down.
July 20, 2024
“I thought how all of us are always trying to imagine what someone else is doing, eating our hearts out trying to find the truth and moving about in our own private worlds like a blind man who gropes for the walls and the various objects in a room.”
This is an extremely sad and very well written novel. I definitely would read Natalia Ginzburg again. Thanks to GR friends without whom I would never have known about this book.
This is an extremely sad and very well written novel. I definitely would read Natalia Ginzburg again. Thanks to GR friends without whom I would never have known about this book.
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November 3, 2024This little story reminded me very much of the Italian film Divorce Italian Style . Ginzburg's story isn't quite as funny, but it made me smile, at least up until about three quarters of the way through. But let's forget about Divorce Italian Style, which shares with this only the fact that the way to divorce in Italy then was via prison, as you served time for the murder of your spouse. A better comparison maybe is with another film La Dolce Vita both share a rather bleak view of the interior of relationships, of the state of the hearts of those locked inside of them. All of the marital relationships here seem unhappy to different extents , the best to hoped for is that it is not too obvious to others. The only bright note is when for a while the narrator's friend comes to stay and wanders around the house for half the day with cold cream on her face.
I recently read La Petite Fadette. In that George Sand novel, problems are reconcilable because humans are subject to reason. Here problems are irreconcilable, because while reason exists, it's irrelevant. The human person is not able to disentangle their own emotional needs from the network of social and cultural assumptions that they have internalised. They are doomed ever to be lost in the four right changes of their own hearts. This is a pre- and post-Freud understanding of human life. Here the characters are doomed to suffering and unhappiness, but at least safe from nineteenth century happy endings.
On which note I really enjoyed Ginzburg's depiction of post war Italy. This is a cold place, there are frequent mentions of fires, sitting near ovens, putting braziers in rooms to warm them. It's a shabby place, clothes are worn or passed on. People have servants and often no discernable income, kept alive perhaps by the charity of future generations.
I recently read La Petite Fadette. In that George Sand novel, problems are reconcilable because humans are subject to reason. Here problems are irreconcilable, because while reason exists, it's irrelevant. The human person is not able to disentangle their own emotional needs from the network of social and cultural assumptions that they have internalised. They are doomed ever to be lost in the four right changes of their own hearts. This is a pre- and post-Freud understanding of human life. Here the characters are doomed to suffering and unhappiness, but at least safe from nineteenth century happy endings.
On which note I really enjoyed Ginzburg's depiction of post war Italy. This is a cold place, there are frequent mentions of fires, sitting near ovens, putting braziers in rooms to warm them. It's a shabby place, clothes are worn or passed on. People have servants and often no discernable income, kept alive perhaps by the charity of future generations.
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July 16, 2023natalia ginzburg’un şimdiye kadar okuduğum en farklı romanı ki ilk romanlarından olduğu için böyle sanırım. hiçbir biçimde politik değil, ginzburg politik bir yazar ve bu okuduğum diğer kitaplarına bolca yansıyordu.
burada “öldürülen kocasının yasını tutmaya çalışan bir yazar” olarak yazdığı bu kitap beni çok ilgilendirdi. içeriği, finali -kocasını alnının çatından vurduğunu- en başta söyleyip sonra oraya yavaşça sarmal bir biçimde geri dönmesi, anlatımının o döneme göre basit olması, kadınlık- erkeklik hallerini eşelemesi de beni çok etkilemedi.
ama en başta yazdığı “not” bence çok önemli. tabanca fikri, mutsuzluğu, mutsuz ben’ini otlamaya yolladığını söylemesi… burada üç çocukla dul kalmış bir kadının kendi yaşamına hiç benzemeyen bir mutsuzluk çizmesi, ilk romanındaki genç kızın bu hayalperest ve ne istediğini bilmeyen kadına dönüşmesi (calvino’ya göre) ve bir türlü olduramaması çok önemli. aldatılan ve aldatan kadının birbirini anlamaları belki o dönem için çokça cesur, çizilen erkek karakter alberto çokça şerefsiz ve tanıdık, ginzburg bir gözlem ustası belli ki… ama ana karakterin kızının ölümünü anlattığı sayfalar ve çektiği yas duygusu bence bu romanın asıl önemi. ginzburg’un mutsuzluğu, öldürülen kocası, yaşayamadığı yası ve aklından çıkaramadığı tabanca fikri ona bu romanı yazdırmış. ve bence yazarın mutsuz beni burada, çocuğu ölen bir annenin anlatımında kendini okura açmış.
esinlendiği amerikan romanı gibi oldukça amerikanvari yazmış ginzburg. şemsa gezgin her zamanki gibi çok iyi çevirmiş ama biz bu hiç değişmeyen adamlarla ne yapacağız, işte onu bilmiyorum.
burada “öldürülen kocasının yasını tutmaya çalışan bir yazar” olarak yazdığı bu kitap beni çok ilgilendirdi. içeriği, finali -kocasını alnının çatından vurduğunu- en başta söyleyip sonra oraya yavaşça sarmal bir biçimde geri dönmesi, anlatımının o döneme göre basit olması, kadınlık- erkeklik hallerini eşelemesi de beni çok etkilemedi.
ama en başta yazdığı “not” bence çok önemli. tabanca fikri, mutsuzluğu, mutsuz ben’ini otlamaya yolladığını söylemesi… burada üç çocukla dul kalmış bir kadının kendi yaşamına hiç benzemeyen bir mutsuzluk çizmesi, ilk romanındaki genç kızın bu hayalperest ve ne istediğini bilmeyen kadına dönüşmesi (calvino’ya göre) ve bir türlü olduramaması çok önemli. aldatılan ve aldatan kadının birbirini anlamaları belki o dönem için çokça cesur, çizilen erkek karakter alberto çokça şerefsiz ve tanıdık, ginzburg bir gözlem ustası belli ki… ama ana karakterin kızının ölümünü anlattığı sayfalar ve çektiği yas duygusu bence bu romanın asıl önemi. ginzburg’un mutsuzluğu, öldürülen kocası, yaşayamadığı yası ve aklından çıkaramadığı tabanca fikri ona bu romanı yazdırmış. ve bence yazarın mutsuz beni burada, çocuğu ölen bir annenin anlatımında kendini okura açmış.
esinlendiği amerikan romanı gibi oldukça amerikanvari yazmış ginzburg. şemsa gezgin her zamanki gibi çok iyi çevirmiş ama biz bu hiç değişmeyen adamlarla ne yapacağız, işte onu bilmiyorum.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 25, 2021
As I was giving my emotions a reprieve from my recent plowing halfway through Maugham's "Of Human Bondage", I found myself having the same types of feelings and emotions while reading the short novella "The Dry Heart".
The sketches we make in our minds at a young age aren't always the way life turns out. The black smoke billowing from that building isn't always from a small fire to be extinguished; it lingers within us stolidly at first until that spark ignites and explodes without warning. What are we to do with ourselves then?
Characters don't necessarily need names to make us relate, to make us feel their passion. Names are customary--feelings are not.
The sketches we make in our minds at a young age aren't always the way life turns out. The black smoke billowing from that building isn't always from a small fire to be extinguished; it lingers within us stolidly at first until that spark ignites and explodes without warning. What are we to do with ourselves then?
Characters don't necessarily need names to make us relate, to make us feel their passion. Names are customary--feelings are not.
Read
November 7, 2023I will not star this one for several reasons. Yes, it's beautifully written. It's mesmerizing and fascinating and I read it all in one sitting. BUT....the misery and loneliness was overwhelming to me, and it was not good timing on my part. This book turned my afternoon into a depressing journey into the mind of this woman who never really knew who she was at all, and had no idea how to make herself happy.
This was my first book by Natalia Ginzburg and in no way turned me off to trying other books by her. She is an incredible author and I look forward to more. Just wrong book / wrong time for me.
This was my first book by Natalia Ginzburg and in no way turned me off to trying other books by her. She is an incredible author and I look forward to more. Just wrong book / wrong time for me.
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