Elias Portolu by Grazia Deledda

On my first visit to Nuoro in early November 2008, two days after my arrival, Maria Rita took me to 'Museo Deleddiano - Casa natale di Grazia Deledda' located at the old home of Nuoro's most celebrated writer who was only the second woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature when she won it in 1926. The museum, as far as it is possible, recreates the house much as it was lived in when Grazia Deledda was alive. I remember being especially struck by the study and the kitchen, both of which gave a fascinating insight into how life in Nuoro must have been lived in the late nineteenth century.

About a week ago we found and bought an English translation of Grazia Deledda's novel Elias Portolu in the nearest bookshop to home. In fact, it was about the only English language book in the entire shop. On Sunday I started reading it and I finished reading it yesterday evening. I was very taken by the poetry of her prose, breathtaking at times as it evoked in such picturesque detail the Nuoro of just over one hundred years ago and the surrounding area, much more rustic and simple than today and yet the timeless battles of the human psyche were obviously as much in evidence then as they are now and as they are always. There are still echoes of that world today. In fact, there is something almost eccentric about how in Nuoro nowadays you can walk past several blocks of high rise flats and then look out over a field towards the mountains and hear the clanging sound of the bells around the sheeps' or goats' necks just a few yards away; likewise, the sight of the few elderly women who still wear the traditional black as they walk along the street talking on their mobile phones. The physical description of the men in Nuoro - short and stocky, with ruddy to bronze complexions - was one I recognised as still being fairly predominant today too.

Sad tale though it is, Elias Portolu is an absolute joy to read. The title takes its name from the central character whose passion evoked memories of my reading of Sons And Lovers by D H Lawrence and its central charcter Paul Morel; and the Catholic guilt that torments Elias Portolu throughout, although a little less extreme, reminded me of Stephen Dedalus' struggle in James Joyce's Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man. Despite her reputation as major writer in Italy the work of Grazia Deledda isn't very well known in the English language world with only a few of her titles having been translated. Shame. Elias Portolu works very well in its English translation version.