For the series EMPATHY & LONELINESS IN CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN LITERATURE | Book club, fifth of six lectures by Shirley Finzi Loew concerning individuals & society in Contemporary Italian Literature.
It was a roller-coaster day for Pietro Paladini, surfing off the Italian coast with his brother Carlo. Everything was cool until they saw two women drowning. They rescued them, heroically. But when Pietro returned to his beach house he found Lara, his common-law wife, dead from an aneurysm witnessed by their 10-year-old, Claudia. Pietro is a middle-aged, affluent executive with a cable-TV channel in Milan. He feels numb rather than overwhelmed by grief; Claudia mimics his reaction. On her first day of school, he promises to wait in his car until the end of her day, and this day-long wait becomes a months-long vigil as Pietro tamps down the “quiet chaos” of his emotions. He has no incentive to return to work. Facing their company’s merger, his co-workers and bosses are fearful in this new dog-eat-dog world. One by one, they visit Pietro, an attentive, calming presence. They range from the distraught head of HR, leaving for Africa, to the megalomaniac architects of the merger, locked in their own death-struggle. Even his kooky sister-in-law Marta gets into the act.
- The six lectures are a series. It is required to subscribe and pay a symbolic fee of 40 NIS/lecture. For further information, please contact the Italian Cultural Institute of Haifa at 04-8536091.
- Participants are invited to read the novel in Hebrew or in the original language before each lecture.
Shirley Finzi Loew graduated in Computer Engineering (Technion). After making a career in the computer industry, she moved to literature. She graduated in comparative literature (University of Haifa) with a thesis on Elsa Morante’s novels and has been working as translator from Italian into Hebrew since then.
Event held in Hebrew.
Refreshments from 18:45.
Monday, March 5th 2018, at 19:00
Italian Cultural Institute in Haifa
Rehov Meir Rutberg 12 – Haifa
Reservation no longer available