{"id":4582,"date":"2020-03-31T18:38:39","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T18:38:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/primolevicenter.org\/printed-matter\/?p=4582"},"modified":"2020-04-21T12:52:17","modified_gmt":"2020-04-21T12:52:17","slug":"defoe-as-a-possible-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/primolevicenter.org\/printed-matter\/defoe-as-a-possible-model\/","title":{"rendered":"Defoe as a Possible Model"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nAlessandro Cassin<\/a>\r\n\t \t\t
Alessandro Cassin is the director of Centro Primo Levi\u2019s online magazine, Printed Matter<\/em> and CPL Editions which published over 13 books since its debut in 2014. Coming from a tradition of publishing \u2014his father published the first edition of If This Is A Man<\/em> in English\u2014Cassin began working in experimental theater and was awarded the Premio Ruggero Rimini 1989 for Il Presidente Schreber<\/em>. He has been a cultural reporter for publications including L\u2019Espresso<\/em> and Diario<\/em>. He is a contributor of The Brooklyn Rail<\/em>. His book Whispers: Ulay on Ulay<\/em> co-authored with Maria Rus Bojan received the 2015 AICA Netherlands Award. He coordinated the publication of Laurence Butch Morris\u2019 The Art of Conduction <\/em>edited by Daniela Veronesi (Karma, 2017)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The structure of History, a Novel<\/em>, departs substantially from Morante\u2019s previous novels and poses some interesting interpretative questions. While critics have often pointed to similarities with the narrative structure of 19th-century novels, perhaps one can look further back in time. I am thinking specifically of  <\/span>Daniel Defoe\u2019s A Journal of The Plague Year<\/em>, first published in 1722. <\/span><\/p>\n

By 1974 Morante was an original and self-assured author, who had shown the ability to create innovative book structures (for example, Il Mondo Salvato dai Ragazzini<\/em>) and was in no way derivative in her choices. Yet, despite critical stylistic differences, I am struck by the affinities between History, a Novel<\/em>, and A Journal of The Plague Year<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Fact and fiction<\/b><\/p>\n

Morante prefaces each of her chapters, with  <\/span>quasi-journalistic accounts of world events. The prefaces consist of factual information tinged by her own anarchist and ecological slant. The action of each chapter, except the first and the last, takes place each over a one year span, from 1941 to 1947, in Rome. Within the framework of the historical events that took place in Rome in that year, Morante constructs a spiraling sequence of fictional characters who engage in a variety of liaisons, adventures and entanglements.<\/p>\n

Defoe places his action in London during the year 1665 when the city had been devastated by the plague. The novel reports and is primarily based on documents, medical treaties, burial records, and the such. Against a background of suffering, fear, and death, the author creates a cast of characters who inhabit the city and go through terrors of different kinds. <\/span>Like in Morante\u2019s novel, here too, next to darkness and unspeakable pain, we find episodes of solidarity, courage, and self- sacrifice, particularly among the humble.<\/p>\n

Both authors render raw historical facts as integral components of their literary creations.<\/p>\n

The narrator<\/b><\/p>\n

The semi-omniscient narrator of Morante\u2019s novel is a woman. At a few pivotal moments, she speaks in the first person, as someone who has witnessed the events being narrated and is personally acquainted with the characters. This narrative device confers credibility.<\/p>\n

One can assume this is Morante\u2019s own voice, as she resided on and off in Rome during those years. <\/span><\/p>\n

During the plague in London of 1665, Daniel Defoe was only five years old. One can assume he had some personal memories, but more importantly, had heard many tales and reports. His narrator H.F., a saddler by profession, was an adult in 1665, thus credible as a witness.<\/p>\n

While all the major characters in History, A Novel<\/i> die, the narrator survives. Similarly, H.F. in A Journal of The Plague Year<\/em>, observes an epidemic \u201cthat swept a hundred thousand souls away\u201d and survives.<\/p>\n

Mediated and somewhat disguised, the narrators of both novels are stand-ins for their authors.<\/p>\n

The cityscape<\/b><\/p>\n

History, a Novel<\/em> takes place, in Rome, specifically in a few locations, described in photographic detail: San Lorenzo, Pietralata, the Tiburtina train station, the former Jewish Ghetto, and Testaccio. The author knew  <\/span>firsthand and researched each and every place in the novel.<\/p>\n

H.F. In the Journal <\/i>takes the reader around 1665 London. The novel names and describes, again in photographic detail, a  <\/span>multitude of streets, alleys, squares, churches, buildings, and taverns, that had since changed name and aspect.<\/p>\n

Despite modernization and real-estate developments, readers  <\/span>of the two novels could walk around  <\/span>London and Rome and identify most of the locations.<\/p>\n

Non-linear plots<\/b><\/p>\n

After being introduced, Morante\u2019s characters often disappear, only to reappear multiple times further down in the narration. Digressions abound, stories begin at one point and finish much later.<\/p>\n

Defoe’s narrator wonders about town, his and our attention is captivated by characters and events, only to be interrupted by something, and then again, by something else.<\/p>\n

Movement <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

The movement of the action in the two novels follow respectively,  <\/span>Ida’s survival instinct and H. F.’s survival techniques as the plague\u2019s contagion spreads in London. <\/span><\/p>\n

Ida moves from San Lorenzo because of the Allies’ bombing of the neighborhood. Her movements are determined by famine, fear, and the Nazi occupation.<\/p>\n

H.F. movements  <\/span>(sometimes hiding indoors, sometimes wondering about) around the city of London, trace the progress of the plague itself, from the center to the surrounding villages.<\/p>\n

In her introduction to A Journal  <\/span>of the Plague Year<\/em> (London: Penguin Classics, 2003), Cynthia Wall quotes the critic William Hazlitt who in 1830 wrote: \u201cThe Journal has an epic grandeur, as well as a heart-breaking familiarity, in its style and matter.\u201d A remark, in my mind, equally fitting for both Defoe\u2019s and Morante\u2019s novels.<\/p>\n

The perspective of an oppressed religious minority<\/b><\/p>\n

Ida Raimundo, the lead character of History, A Novel<\/em>, is a half-Jew (like  <\/span>Elsa Morante). As such, she bears the brunt of Mussolini\u2019s Racial Laws with unbearable fear, in secret and without the comfort of sharing  <\/span>her persecuted condition with others.<\/p>\n

In 1662 the Anglican Church passed 39 articles of faith, known as the Act of Uniformity. Anyone who  <\/span>did not conform to it was ejected from the Church and considered a Dissenter. <\/span>Defoe\u2019s father was a Dissenter and as such, Daniel, like all non-Anglicans, Catholics and Jews, was prohibited from attending English public schools. His experiences of religious intolerance and persecution are echoed at various moments by his character H. F.\u2019s. <\/span><\/p>\n

Literature as politics<\/b><\/p>\n

We know from interviews and conversations that Morante did not want to write a \u201cpolitical novel\u201d, but instead wanted her novel to be a political act. In this too, she may have found inspiration in Defoe\u2019s biography. A journalist for most of his life, Defoe had been employed in  <\/span>numerous different jobs but was always involved in what he referred  <\/span>to as \u201cnational improvement\u201d. From 1704, his political engagement became more direct as he continued to publish political essays. He also  <\/span>worked for  <\/span>Prime Minister Robert Harvey in an attempt to promote economic and political union between  <\/span>England and Scotland. Only when his political aspirations failed did he turn to literature as a different way to pursue his goals. He wrote his first novel, Robinson Crusoe<\/em> when he was already 59 years of age. <\/span><\/p>\n

In closing<\/b><\/p>\n

Centuries apart from one another, Morante and Defoe wrote novels that explored the point of confluence between history, fictional storytelling, and chronicle with startling results.<\/p>\n

I have no evidence that Elsa Morante ever read A Journal of the Plague Year<\/em>. But as she accepted the Premio Strega in 1957, for L\u2019Isola di Arturo<\/i>, she mentions as an inspiration Defoe\u2019s Robinson Crusoe<\/em>. Further, in 1936 Elsa Morante met Alberto Moravia (whom she married in 1941). Only the year before, in 1935,  <\/span>Moravia had translated into Italian Defoe\u2019s  <\/span>A Journal of the Plague Year<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

More essays from Elsa Morante’s narrative curated by Alessandro Cassin.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The structure of History, a Novel, departs substantially from Morante\u2019s previous novels and poses some interesting interpretative questions. 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