A Relation

A relationship (novel)

A relationship (Una relazione) is a novel written by the italian author Carlo Cassola between 1962 and 1963 and published only in 1969 by Einaudi after Local Railway (Ferrovia Locale), 1968. In 1970 he won the premio Napoli. Carlo Mazzacurati's film L'amore ritrovato was inspired by this novel.

Plot

The novel tells the story of Mario Mansani, a young married employee and Giovanna Lorenzi, a beautician daughter of a fisherman. When she was young she hadn't a good reputation because of the exaggerated number of her lovers, included Mario. When five years later he meets her on a train, he asks her to restart their relationship, considered as a short extramarital adventure. Giovanna, despite her depressing love experiences, accepts to go out with him. However, going out with him means a lot to her: it forces her to live again the past that she regretted. When Mario is summoned to an official course, in view of the Abissinia war, he has to spend fourty days in Livorno, where Giovanna works in a hotel. They finally become lovers again while their bond gets stronger and difficult to break. The end of the course determines the end of their relantionship: Giovanna and Mario will say goodbye to each other on a train. Ten years later, in summer 1945, Mario, survived Albany, Montenegro and German netfuls, meets Giovanna, already mother and widow. He struggles to recognize her and to acknowledge that in the meantime she has been happy with someone else. Moreover, her love feels nothing but indifference towards him. Characters Mario Mansani, husband and father, has to move by train between Follonica and Livorno. He works as a banker, but he is summoned to a official course. During one of his trips by train, he meets Giovanna Lorenzi, an old lover he hadn't seen for five years, with her he starts a new relationship. Giovanna Lorenzi, daughter of a fisherman, works in a hotel in Livorno and she's a beautician. When she was young she was considered as a "loose woman" because of her many lovers. When she meets Mario, Giovanna has changed: she tries to make ends meet with her humble salary and she admits she doesn't live in that way anymore. However she won't manage to resist her feelings towards Mario, and she starts a new relationship with him. After having said farewell to Mario, she marries a hairdresser younger than her and they have a daughter.

Reading of the novel

Regarding Giovanna’s character, Cassola doesn’t describe only physical appearance, but also the silent language of things and the landscape as the backdrop of the woman: the thin pine grove of their first meetings, the small, desert railway station of Cecina, the run-down wagons of local trains, the room and the lacking furniture of the hotel where her honest and deceived relationship keep living. Mario isn’t a bad man, but he’s unable to rise above mediocrity and only rarely he manage to see the good aspects of his relationship with Giovanna. As Giuliano Manacorda says, “He knows some moments of real happiness and the end of the relationship makes him feel guilty. On the other hand, Giovanna pays with her own life, for the forgiving ease and the accuracy that help her to face it. The ultimate meaning of the novel is revealed in the end, when the indifference spreads between Giovanna and Mario and seems to confess that in life everything is unforgettable and indifferent. Unforgettable for the ones who live it and indifferent for ourselves as soon as other memorable things erase the previous ones. (…) The indifference, true or false, you can’t tell whether is a cruelty for your life or a support which helps you overcome obstacles. It’s considered as the dominant feature of the entire novel and maybe of the entire conception of Cassola’s work. However, the indifference ends up being part of the important things, through which we have to sail in order to arrive, somehow, to a safe harbour.” Renato Bertacchini

Adaptations

Carlo Mazzacurati's film L'amore ritrovato was inspired by this novel. The film was adapted by the director Carlo Mazzacurati with Claudio Piersanti and Doriana Leondeff and came out in 2004.

References

• Renato Bertacchini, Introduzione e guida allo studio dell'opera cassoliana Storia e Antologia della critica, Le Monnier, 1983
• Carlo Cassola, Una Relazione, Mondadori, 2017
• Giuliano Manacorda, Invito alla lettura di Cassola, Mursia, 1981

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