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Family Lexicon - Natalia Ginzburg, Jenny McPhee & Peg Boyers

By Natalia Ginzburg, Jenny McPhee & Peg Boyers

Release Date: 2017-04-25

Genre: Fiction & Literature

4 (22 ratings)
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A close-knit family resists the rise of fascism in Mussolini’s Italy in this WW2 historical fiction classic that blends family memoir with fiction—one of the most famous European post-war novels of all time.

“A glowing light of Italian literature.” —The New York Times
“Life-changingly good.” —Elle

An Italian family, sizable, with its routines and rituals, crazes, pet phrases, and stories, doubtful, comical, indispensable, comes to life in the pages of Natalia Ginzburg’s Family Lexicon. Giuseppe Levi, the father, is a scientist, consumed by his work and a mania for hiking—when he isn’t provoked into angry remonstration by someone misspeaking or misbehaving or wearing the wrong thing. Giuseppe is Jewish, married to Lidia, a Catholic, though neither is religious; they live in the industrial city of Turin where, as the years pass, their children find ways of their own to medicine, marriage, literature, politics. It is all very ordinary, except that the background to the story is Mussolini’s Italy in its steady downward descent to race law and world war. The Levis are, among other things, unshakeable anti-fascists. That will complicate their lives.

Family Lexicon is about a family and language—and about storytelling not only as a form of survival but also as an instrument of deception and domination. The book takes the shape of a novel, yet everything is true. “Every time that I have found myself inventing something in accordance with my old habits as a novelist, I have felt impelled at once to destroy [it],” Ginzburg tells us at the start. “The places, events, and people are all real.”

Family Lexicon - Natalia Ginzburg, Jenny McPhee & Peg Boyers

By Natalia Ginzburg, Jenny McPhee & Peg Boyers

Release Date: 2017-04-25

Genre: Fiction & Literature

4 (22 ratings)
Read Download
A close-knit family resists the rise of fascism in Mussolini’s Italy in this WW2 historical fiction classic that blends family memoir with fiction—one of the most famous European post-war novels of all time.

“A glowing light of Italian literature.” —The New York Times
“Life-changingly good.” —Elle

An Italian family, sizable, with its routines and rituals, crazes, pet phrases, and stories, doubtful, comical, indispensable, comes to life in the pages of Natalia Ginzburg’s Family Lexicon. Giuseppe Levi, the father, is a scientist, consumed by his work and a mania for hiking—when he isn’t provoked into angry remonstration by someone misspeaking or misbehaving or wearing the wrong thing. Giuseppe is Jewish, married to Lidia, a Catholic, though neither is religious; they live in the industrial city of Turin where, as the years pass, their children find ways of their own to medicine, marriage, literature, politics. It is all very ordinary, except that the background to the story is Mussolini’s Italy in its steady downward descent to race law and world war. The Levis are, among other things, unshakeable anti-fascists. That will complicate their lives.

Family Lexicon is about a family and language—and about storytelling not only as a form of survival but also as an instrument of deception and domination. The book takes the shape of a novel, yet everything is true. “Every time that I have found myself inventing something in accordance with my old habits as a novelist, I have felt impelled at once to destroy [it],” Ginzburg tells us at the start. “The places, events, and people are all real.”

More by Natalia Ginzburg, Jenny McPhee & Peg Boyers

All Our Yesterdays

Family Lexicon

The Dry Heart

The Little Virtues

Lessico famigliare

The Manzoni Family

Happiness, as Such

Le piccole virtĂș

A Very Italian Christmas

Cinque romanzi brevi

A Place to Live

The Little Virtues

È stato cosí

LĂ©xico familiar

Caro Michele

Valentino and Sagittarius

Le voci della sera

The City and the House

Valentino

La cittĂ  e la casa

Las pequeñas virtudes

Voices in the Evening

Ti ho sposato per allegria

Y eso fue lo que pasĂł

The Manzoni Family

The Road to the City

Las tareas de casa y otros ensayos

Family and Borghesia

Famiglia

Non possiamo saperlo

Tutti i nostri ieri

Todos nuestros ayeres

La strada che va in cittĂ 

The Complete Short Stories of Natalia Ginzburg

Un'assenza

Family Lexicon

La famiglia Manzoni

Mai devi domandarmi

Sagitario

LĂ©xico familiar

La ciudad y la casa

L'intervista

Valentino

Vita immaginaria

Familjelexikon

Antón Chéjov

Domingo

Querido Miguel

As pequenas virtudes

El camino que va a la ciudad y otros relatos

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