Gli occhiali d'oro

by Giorgio Bassani

Paper Book, 2009

Status

Available

Call number

853.914

Publication

Milano, Mondadori

Description

A new Translation by Jamie McKendrick 'Singular . . . The town of Ferrara and its inhabitants are realized with an extraordinary clarity'Guardian Into the insular town of 1930s Ferrara, a new doctor arrives. Fadigati is hopeful and modern, and more than anything wants to fit into his new home. But his fresh, appealing appearance soon crumbles when the young man he pays to be his lover reveals the doctor's homosexuality in a public humiliation. As anti-Semitism spreads across Italy, the Jewish narrator of the tale begins to feel pity for the ostracized doctor, as the fickle nature of a community changing under political forces becomes clear.The Gold-Rimmed Spectaclesis Bassani's most perfect novel, and a gripping and tragic study of the terrifying historical realities that can shatter the courses of isolated, individual lives.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member thorold

Interesting short novel, originally published in 1958 and set in 1937-38, in which Bassani draws parallels between a gay doctor's experience of homophobia and the first serious stirrings of antisemitism in fascist Italy. Very nicely done. Jamie McKendrick's translation for Penguin is also stylish

and unobtrusive.

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LibraryThing member stillatim

Tiny perfection. A novella about a small town scandal (the doctor is gay!), which imperceptibly turns into a novella about Italian fascism, there's very little to say about this one, except that Bassani, like few authors before him, has taken a tiny plot of land and time, and written about it

perfectly. Completely uninteresting for thinking about, philosophically (you know what's bad? Hating people for things they can't change about themselves); utterly gorgeous for reading.

My only thought, in fact, is that Fadagati (the gay doctor) is a perfect combination of Proust's Baron de Charlus and Mann's Gustav von Aschenbach. I'd like to know if there's more to that.

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