{"id":7608,"date":"2017-10-26T11:24:07","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T11:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=7608"},"modified":"2017-10-30T10:50:20","modified_gmt":"2017-10-30T10:50:20","slug":"the-temptation-to-be-happy-by-lorenzo-marone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=7608","title":{"rendered":"The Temptation to Be Happy by Lorenzo Marone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Translated by Shaun Whiteside<\/strong><\/p>\n

Published by Oneworld 5 October 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n

272pp, hardback, \u00a312.99<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Zo\u00eb Fairbairns<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2018An old harridan\u2019 is how ageing Neapolitan widower Cesare thinks of Rossana, whom he pays for sex. She\u2019s got moles and spots and stretch marks, but she\u2019s cheerful enough and she serves her purpose. It dawns on Cesare that one of the hazards of being with a prostitute for too long is that: \u2018You forget the preambles, the preliminaries, good manners, kindness, all the things you need to get a \u201cnormal\u201d woman into bed.\u2019 So he asks Rossana out to dinner and they become friends.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of a series of poignant encounters between Cesare and the world outside his retirement flat. Inside it, he spends too much time resenting his late wife\u2019s infidelity. (He was unfaithful to her too, but that\u2019s different.)\u00a0 He regrets his bodily decline \u2013 floppy flesh, proliferating liver spots, trembly hands and unreliable water works. He remembers unattainable women from his past, and considers the relative merits and demerits of the different forms of death that may lie in wait for him.<\/p>\n

Cesare has too much time on his hands and, at 77, not enough time left. It\u2019s a predicament that will be recognized by many readers in or near his age group. He is irritated and embarrassed by his grown-up children \u2013 his son is gay, his daughter a workaholic. He resents their interference in his life, yet feels entitled to their care and support. He loves his little grandson but doesn\u2019t appreciate being expected to collect him from school in order to accommodate his daughter\u2019s lifestyle.<\/p>\n

His neighbours too are a mixed blessing: a man who used to be Cesare\u2019s friend has become a near-recluse, an old woman with too many cats has personal freshness issues, and a younger woman who is, Cesare believes, a victim of domestic violence, refuses to do as he advises and report the matter to the police.<\/p>\n

Amid all this, Cesare tries to be happy. There are moments of touching eccentricity \u2013 he likes going to art exhibitions but only if there is free food to alleviate the boredom. There is tenderness too \u2013 the day when he takes his grandson to the fair and almost loses him, the night when he shares his bed with his daughter, not for any incestuous purpose but for mutual comfort and support.<\/p>\n

Always on the lookout for meaning, Cesare is quick to turn everyday incidents into platitudes, whether it\u2019s: \u2018Old age helps you to accept some uncomfortable truths\u2019 or: \u2018The older you get, the more you lose your sweet tooth\u2019 or: \u2018When you\u2019re old your dreams are used up\u2019 or: \u2018If you are born one way, you can\u2019t die another way, you spend a lifetime deluding yourself that you\u2019ve changed direction, and at the end you discover that the shortcut led you straight back to the path you were on before.\u2019 Too many of these grandiose pronouncements are asserted rather than explored.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t speak Italian and so can\u2019t comment on the quality of Shaun Whiteside\u2019s translation; it may be true to the original when Cesare says, \u2018A tear slips down my face unnoticed,\u2019 but I can\u2019t help wondering how a first-person narrator can describe something he hasn\u2019t noticed. And the use of verb tense is odd, sometimes using the present tense to describe something that has happened in the past and sometimes not.<\/p>\n

Awaiting surgery at the end for what may be a terminal condition, Cesare gives in to his temptation to be happy by identifying small sources of joy and satisfaction from his past life: the smell of a newborn baby, bicycle bells, houses by the seaside, old songs that take your breath away, the sound of a bubbling coffee pot, dogs that listen to you. It\u2019s an appealing list, one which tempts the reader to start compiling their own, as the anaesthetic kicks in and the novel ends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Zo\u00eb Fairbairns<\/p>\n

Cesare has too much time on his hands and, at 77, not enough time left. It\u2019s a predicament that will be recognized by many readers in or near his age group. He is irritated and embarrassed by his grown-up children \u2013 his son is gay, his daughter a workaholic. He resents their interference in his life, yet feels entitled to their care and support. He loves his little grandson but doesn\u2019t appreciate being expected to collect him from school in order to accommodate his daughter\u2019s lifestyle […] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7608"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7637,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7608\/revisions\/7637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}