The Review of Contemporary Fiction
Love in Vain: Selected Stories by Federigo Tozzi. Trans. and intro. Minna ProctorJames Crossley
Federigo Tozzi. Love in Vain: Selected Stories. Trans. and intro. Minna Proctor. New Directions, 2001. 164 pp. Paper: $14.95.
Tozzi’s name won’t be found heading many encyclopedia articles, but he was by all accounts a prolific and significant figure in premodern Italian literature. Although he didn’t survive into his forties, his relatively few years of authorial productivity resulted in five novels and over one hundred short stories, among other works of poetry and drama. Of these considerable efforts, only the twenty tales in this volume are readily available in English. They range in date of composition from 1910 through 1919, and the highlight of the collection is the opportunity to trace Tozzi’s growing facility with the story form. The early stories are barely more than vignettes, but the later ones show an increasing degree of sophistication, employing varying narrative techniques and more involved plots to explore a consistent thematic preoccupation: the confused psychology of semirural characters. In Tozzi’s world, emotions swirl implacably, and motives are barely more intelligible to the reader than they are to the protagonists. Typically, in "First Love," Giacomo is "dizzy with youthful ecstasy" for Emilia but can’t find words or even actions to express himself. Her kindly replies to his vague worries are met only with thoughts: "You? I’m ashamed of you. I don’t like you. I don’t believe you." Here, as in every story, a character experiences conflicting impulses in a single moment. In this example, Tozzi yokes disparate emotions together with the abruptness of a clumsy lover, but with time, he learns to interlace them with an almost Chekhovian delicacy. [James Crossley]