The Beautiful Summer (Penguin European Writers)
A set of closely linked short pieces set against summer landscapes, tracing youthful feeling and loss. Small everyday scenes connect to inner life, and loneliness, desire, and the anxiety of growing up are rendered with lyrical restraint.
Work Information
A single summer’s memory sharpens the outline of youth and loss.
The novel builds from short scenes to portray the emotions and solitude of young people in the heat of summer. Small events in daily life resonate with inner change and leave a quiet, poetic afterimage.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Penguin Books Ltd
- Published
- 2018-06-07
- Pages
- 112 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 12.9 x 0.6 x 19.8 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780241983393
- ISBN-10
- 0241983398
- Price
- 2432 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Genre Fiction/Coming of Age
'An astonishing portrait of an innocent on the verge of discovering the cruelties of love... there are whispers here of the future work of Elena Ferrante' Elizabeth Strout, from the introduction 'Life was a perpetual holiday in those days...' It's the height of summer in 1930s Italy and sixteen-year-old Ginia is desperate for adventure. So begins a fateful friendship with Amelia, a stylish and sophisticated artist's model who envelops her in a dazzling new world of bohemian artists and intoxicating freedom. Under the spell of her new friends, Ginia soon falls in love with Guido, an enigmatic young painter. It's the start of a desperate love affair, charged with false hope and overwhelming passion - destined to last no longer than the course of a summer. The Beautiful Summer is a gorgeous coming-of-age tale of lost innocence and first love, by one of Italy's greatest writers. 'Pavese, to me, is a constant source of inspiration' Jhumpa Lahiri 'One of the few essential novelists of the mid-twentieth century' Susan Sontag '[Pavese writes books of] extraordinary depth where one never stops finding new levels, new meaning' Italo Calvino 'For my trip to Los Angeles, I'm packing The Beautiful Summer, a slender account of love in 1930s Italy' Jessie Burton, bestselling author of The Miniaturist and The Muse
Cesare Pavese was born in 1908 in Santo Stefano Belbo, a village in the hills of Piedmont. He worked as a translator (of Melville, Joyce and Faulkner) and as an editor for the publishing house Einaudi Editore, while also publishing his own poetry and a string of successful novels, including The House on the Hill and The Moon and the Bonfires . Never actively anti-Fascist himself, he was nevertheless sent into internal exile in Calabria in 1935 for having aided other subversives. He killed himself in 1950, shortly after receiving Italy's most prestigious literary prize, the Strega. Elizabeth Strout is the Pulitzer prize-winning author of My Name is Lucy Barton, Anything is Possible, Oh William!, Amy and Isabelle, Abide With Me, The Burgess Boys, Olive Kitteridge , and Olive, Again . She has been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Orange Prize and the Booker Prize. She lives in Maine.
Reviews
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I don't like the new way of reviewing my purchases
all ok thank you
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Slim but evocative
A sparse fable-like tale about a young woman's hopeless crush on an artist. I loved in particular the artist's apartment with its cold and its curtain. The artists' conversations -- coolly anodyne -- felt entirely contemporary.
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Terrible translation
Absolutely horrific translation. Two stars because the book is “supposed” to be good. However, the weird wording, the occasional “Cheerio” and other phrases that a middle-aged Englishman might have used in 1950 makes it unreadable and hard to understand.
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Disappointed
I really don't like to give negative reviews, but after all the hype about this book, I was disappointed. There were many times throughout when it wasn't clear which character was saying what and the whole storyline was lacking. Sorry not a book I would recommend.
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Good readG
Good read