The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles

by Giorgio Bassani

Jamie McKendrick (Translator)

Into the insular town of 1930s Ferrara, a new doctor arrives. Fadigati is hopeful and modern, and more than anything wants to fit into his new home. But his fresh, appealing appearance soon crumbles when the townsfolk discover his homosexuality, and the young man he pays to be his lover humiliates him publicly.

As anti-Semitism spreads across Italy, the Jewish narrator of the tale begins to feel pity for the ostracized doctor, as the fickle nature of a community changing under political forces becomes clear. The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles is a gripping and tragic study of how lives can be destroyed by those we consider our neighbours.

• ISBN10: 0141192151
• ISBN13: 9780141192154
• Publish Date: 1 March 2012 (first published December 1960)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Imprint: Penguin Classics
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 144
• Language: English

Reviews

[brokentune]

A gesture, a grimace was enough. It was enough even to say that Fadigati was ‘like that’, was ‘one of them’.

There two main developments in this 1958 novella by Giorgio Bassani: one is the rise of anti-semitism in Italy in the late 1930s. The other is the betrayal and ruination of a respected man by a lover.
Both elements of the story are heartbreaking - one because we can see people struggling to believe how society around them is changing to expel them and we know how it will end. The other, because the story of the individual betrayal plays out as obvious as an impending crash in slow motion.

If I could compare the story to anything, I would compare it to H. Mann's Professor Unrat (The Blue Angel), but with a main character who is genuinely deserving of sympathy because his motivation is not obsession but the longing for companionship. What an interesting novella. I will be sure to look out for more by Bassani.

For him, it was true, there was no one in the world he had to look after … provide for; he had no immediate hardships as far as his finances were concerned … but was it possible to keep on living like this, in the most utter solitude, surrounded by general hostility?