The Nice Old Man And The Pretty Girl (2010) - Plot & Excerpts
Cuando me enteré de que 'La historia del buen viejo y la bella muchacha' de Svevo sólo tenía 100 páginas me sentí inevitablemente decepcionada, uno de los pocos libros de Svevo que me quedaban para leer y el único que tenía a mano y resultaba que era ridículamente corto y con una letrota gigante y unos márgenes obscenos. Pero ahora que he leído me doy cuenta que si tuviera más páginas sería un error, porque dura exactamente lo que tiene que durar. Y con lo que a mí me gustan las cosas breves, ni siquiera a Svevo, uno de mis escritores favoritos, le perdonaría que se alargara. Esta obrita no es ni tan ambiciosa como 'La conciencia de Zeno', ni tan fresca como 'Senectud', ni tan certera como 'Una vida', pero sigue siendo Svevo y Svevo es siempre genial. El argumento, como siempre, es una pequeña anécdota. Un rico y viejo empresario de Trieste decide seducir a una jovencita humilde, que no es tan inocente como aparenta, para darse una última alegría. El punto de partida es muy similar al de 'Senectud', pero la cosa va por caminos muy distintos, mientras que 'Senectud' era más una obra sobre el miedo a vivir y los celos, ésta es más una obra sobre la hipocresía y la (falsa) moral. Aunque tienen en común, como siempre en Svevo, que los personajes son unos tipos grises que se autoengañan de una manera alarmante, que se niegan a ver la realidad cómo es. Una vez más Svevo se sale a la hora de retratar con una minuciosidad analítica impresionante la psicología del personaje, con todas sus complejidades, contradicciones y, sobre todo, hipocresías. No es tan divertida como las otras, pero sigue siendo irónica y con una mala leche considerable. Me encanta el detalle de que al final el protagonista se ponga a escribir un tratado moral, cuando en realidad él nunca ha hecho gala de la moral que está predicando. Me encanta que todos los protagonistas de Svevo sean escritores fracasados. En este caso el fracaso es más flagrante, porque cada vez que el viejo se topa con un argumento que desmonta su teoría, guarda todo lo que ha escrito que no cuadra en un cajoncito y hace ver que lo ignora, como si allí no hubiera pasado nada, y lo cierto es que le funciona: se acaba olvidando de lo que no le gusta, como todos nosotros es un tipo que siempre se está autoengañando. Y me encanta que de pasada Svevo nos diga que nunca podremos montar una teoría que lo explique todo, que siempre habrá cosas que no cuadrarán, que la novela total no existe, que nunca podremos abarcarlo todo... Es que podría elogiarlo eternamente, pero me repetiría.
Svevo is mostly known for his work "Zeno's Conscience," which delved into the psychoanalysis of the title character and the inner workings and often-contradictory thoughts of his mind. Like "Zeno" the story in "The Nice Old Man" focuses on the fervid and often comical thoughts of the Old Man as he enters into an affair with a young girl during WWI. The Old Man uses his money and influence to seduce the woman who uses him in turn. But he becomes obsessed with the morality of his actions and struggles with his sinful ways. Svevo artfully and sparingly portrays the Old Man's troubled thoughts, and the result is a portrait of a man consumed by his own machinations.Overall the novella is wry and amusing. I found Svevo's similar comedic tone in Zeno to be a bit tiresome, but it works in the shorter form here.As an aside, I love this series of novellas. Good quick reads and an eclectic catelogue.
What do You think about The Nice Old Man And The Pretty Girl (2010)?
Unthinkable. I'm shocked! How is it possible for an older man have passions for a younger woman (girl)? Beyond knowing that this never happens to any male in the world - this short novella is an excellent read of an older man's passions and how he deals with it. Svevo know-how to get inside his character's head, so you're reading his thoughts, as he tries to make himself something that he clearly not. He wants to take the higher ground, but that is total fantasy on his part. And since the writer is an older man (like me) and that he writes about his life (sort of like me) -I of course, have interest in this narrative. Superb little book. It's nice to read literature that is positioned for the older male reader.
—Tosh
A bit disappointed in this. The "nice old man" of the title isn't really all that nice but neither so evil that the appellation could be considered ironic or facetious. The pretty young girl is mostly a cypher: we learn nothing about her, save that she's twenty-years old, drives a tram, and is pretty. She's uneducated, but probably no more or less so than her contemporaries (she can read and write, although only in the local dialects). Set in Trieste during the First World War, when all the young men are off fighting and those left behind suffer from war-time privations, il Vecchio plies la Fanciulla with food. And she's quite willing to be seduced, though whether she genuinely likes older men or it's merely a case that they are the only men available isn't explored.The greater part of the book happens in the old man's apartment, indeed within his head. He suffers pangs of guilt (though for what exactly we're left to imagine: nothing more graphic than kissing is explicitly mentioned) which manifests itself as angina. He takes to his bed, broods, fights with his physician and housekeeper, and stays away from the girl for months at a time. Finally, he gets the idea that he should write a treatise on the mutual duties and responsibilities of the young and old to each other. And then he dies, these questions unresolved.Ettore Schmidt was a fairly well-to-do businessman in Trieste at the turn of the last century, who decided to take English lessons at the Berlitz school there; the young teacher assigned to his was named James Joyce. In the years before the First War, they became great friends. Some speculate that Schmidt was at least partially a model for Leopold Bloom: Schmidt was—like Bloom—a non-practicing Jew, living in an overwhelmingly Catholic city at the edge of an empire (the Austro-Hungarian at the time). He also had literary ambitions, which Joyce amongst others encouraged. Under the pen-name Italo Svevo (literally "an Italian Swabian") he published a number of works, and I was looking forward to getting into his new author via this pleasant-looking novella.Things started out well: il Vecchio first notices the girl on a wild tram ride across the city. I found it quite engaging, but soon the action (as it were) moved to the apartment, and then stopped altogether. Oh well; perhaps I'll try another some day.
—Frank
