Between the concrete and the invisible: the space of the house in the narrative of Natalia Ginzburg

Abstract

In Il figlio dell’uomo, essay first published in the newspaper Unità in 1946, Natalia Ginzburg states that her generation is close to the substance of things. This statement could give rise to all her writings. Ginzburg's narrative is extremely connected to the concrete, the palpable, the everyday life. Her writing follows the rhythm of a breath, without flowery contours, falling periods or sugary lyricism. Even so, camouflaged in this naturalness, a certain depth of discourse seems to be hidden, which goes beyond the barriers of the visible, of the surface. Perhaps not exactly camouflaged or hidden, but the result of a rhythm of writing and precise choices. Considering this substance of things, the present research intends to analyze the most evident symbol in Natalia Ginzburg's texts: the house. The purpose of this study is to analyze the narrative and thematic space of the house in three of the writer's novels, La strada che va in città, Lessico Famigliare and La città e la casa, aiming to understand the importance of this space in the construction of her narrative as well as how the way she presents the house can show/hide the depth of her speech. For this purpose, the studies of Antonio Dimas (1987), Gaston Bachelard (2000) and Luis Alberto Brandão (2013) on the narrative space will be extremely important.