Memorial

Fernandino Camon's novel, "Un Altare Per la Madre," ("Memorial," in its English translation), dealing in a semi-fictionalized way with the life and death of his mother, was published in his native Italy in 1978. It went on to win the most prestigious of that country's literary awards, the Strega, and has since been translated into numerous languages. The English language version published by The Marleboro Press/Northwestern in 1983 was translated by David Callichio.This novel is the third in a series in what the author has called his "ciclo degli ultimi," which could be translated as "the cycle of the lowliest," a series of fictional accounts of the daily lives of the Italian peasantry still living around Padua during the middle of the Twentieth Century. Camon came from that background, and returned to it briefly about the time of his mother's death.It should be noted that it is not necessary to have read the first two books in the series, titled in English "The Fifth Estate" and "Life Everlasting," and both brought out by the same publisher, to appreciate "Memorial."Having read the book both in Italian and in its English translation, I would highly recommend it as a poignant and thoughfully written book. Callichio's translation is more than merely accurate and graceful. It captures the laconic beauty of the original language, which uses a rather basic vocabulary and relatively uncomplicated sentences in order to suggest the plainness, and what many of us would consider the barrenness of these peasants' lives.While it is frustrating in some respects, the narrative is highly rewarding in others. It is frustrating to most readers in that it eschews a strong linear development in favor of a more impressionistic one. A great many details are withheld from the reader which might make it a stronger novel in a more traditional sense. No dates or ages are ever given, so there is a certain amount of guesswork required of the reader. More strangely, the actual death of the mother is not described, perhaps to avoid even the suggestion of sentimentality.In fact, the book is moving in the way that certain Greek funerary art is moving, through the use of a few well-chosen details which can powerfully evoke the spirit of the departed and the grief of the survivors. Seemingly insignificant details about the mother, such as her way of combing her hair with a metal comb, since bone or plastic ones were beyond her means, and her way replacing the wine in a bottle with a little water after each glass was poured in order to make the contents last longer, serve to suggest both her extreme frugality and the desperate need behind it. In the same way, the last half of the book, dealing on one level quite matter-of-factly with her husband's efforts to build and decorate a handmade altar for her, despite his lack training in such a craft, appeal to the reader's emotions simply through the depiction of the mute devotion that impels him to carry out his task.In the same way as his father, but using words instead of wood and metal, the author has fashioned a monument to his late mother. Avoiding anything grandiloquent or sentimental, this work of a highly sophisticated author is an apt equivalent to the simply but beautifully made construction of his peasant father. Both honor and preserve the memory of a woman who, but for their efforts, would have left behind no record of her existence, nor of her importance in the lives of others."Memorial" does in scarcely more than 120 pages what a far longer novel might well fail to do: it opens our minds to the beauty and dignity inherent in the lives of even the most materially impoverished, and it invites us to create our own memorials, if only in our thoughts, to those who, like the departed mother, have had a deep impact on our lives.

When I found myself thinking about this book weeks after I finished it, I knew that I had read a masterpiece. Beautifully written, passionate and insightful, this is the work of one of the finest unknown authors of the 20th century. Camon's intense narrative bears stunning similarities to the brilliant existential writings of Albert Camus, while the story reaches a desperate crescendo that leaves its stamp on the mind long after finishing the book. Camon's musings on death, his perspectives on Italy's waning peasant culture and his uncanny knack for painting landscapes and cultivating real emotions from the characters is the stuff of pure pathos and beauty. It is indeed a "memorial" of the author's mother, of whom he offers nostalgic, riveting remembrances. Everything from humorous accounts of her bland cooking to her daily struggle to keep a peasant family alive and stable exhibits the heroic and essential role of the mother in any family. Also, her elderly husband's determination to fight through the pain of his aged body and construct a magnificent Altar in tribute to his deceased wife is nothing short of saintly. This book has the rare ability to pierce readers' hearts, most of whom will undeniably come away from the book with a deeper,tenderer love of their families-if nothing more. From the first word to the last, there is no doubt that this is the voice of a master writer still waiting to be discovered by the world. With hope, that day will come.