December 21, 2024
Young Love and Other Stories by Felix Calvino (review) Summer Dorr Antipodes, Volume 36, Number 2, December 2022, pp. 342-344.Published by Wayne State University Press.
Young Love and Other Stories. North Melbourne: Arcadia, 2021. 154 pp. US$25.00. ISBN: 9781922669278
The collection has an impressive start: two older persons in an
abandoned/posthumous village discovering that their elderly neighbour has died:
a woman whose deceased face supernaturally changes before buried. [End
Page 342] The two men need to figure out how to transport her body to the
graveyard, and while they sort out those challenges, they reminisce, revealing
some exposition of their location, a place that is the setting for much of this
unchronological anthology.
There were not romantic interludes between this first-story trio:
"Amadeo, although it was not publicly known, had always been repelled by
the female body. Manuel had loved a woman in his youth … remain[ing] faithful
to her memory" (6). And, while Avelina's remaining friends plot how to get
her to the cemetery, they share how she was suspected of "slow
poisoning" her husband, before they euphemize the information as
"rumours," clarifying how "she was a gossiper's feast, first as
a silent, maltreated wife for four years and then as a young widow and an
outsider" (10).
Adding to the mystery of Avelina, Manuel reflects, "She had often
followed paths contradictory to the village traditions [which] reflected only
the external person. Then he thought how the snake regularly changed clothes
while the inside remained the same" (15). Later still, there is mention of
ghosts "playing games" on the pair as they make funeral preparations
(15); this is followed by Avelina's countenance shifting from "wondrous
and enigmatic" (5) to "evil, hideous" and the question of
"who is she?" (23). Is there the implication that she is possessed,
or has her true, unseen-before nature finally become transparent? Lastly,
Amadeo and Manuel, once Avelina's resting place has been dug, opt not to nail
the coffin's lid—having forgotten the tools and with Manual feeling that it is
a "barbaric" tradition besides.
After such a beginning, my curiosity piqued, I wondered if the book would
continue in its peripherally supernatural dark vein, but no. Instead there is
an abrupt shift to the title story—the slowest trudge of the six inclusions.
The omniscient narrator of "Young Love" likens to a grandfather's
voice, failing at sounding like two pubescents (and I state this giving extra
grace, allotting for the tale's antiquated era); Manuel's and Amelia's ways of
expression are not believable. Aside from the unrealistic phrasing, the pace is
much too slow, too halting. I pondered the story's intent—surely that feeling, time
drags, was somewhat intentional—as these two young persons cling to their small
interactions amid the lengthy bouts of separation, but then where are the
digressions of interest or insight? There are too many pages of ennui,
including the scene in which boys, curious about sex, participate in a
facilitated group:
[They] s[at] in a semicircle … asked to unbutton their paints and pull
out their penises and follow the lead of the two older boys. Soon, there were
yells of excitement. Two boys were still virgins, and they had to be assisted.
Somehow, the incident became public. There was a clamour for decency. Warnings
of blindness, eternal damnation, and other maladies associated with the
practice transversed the village. Luciano's workshop became a no-go area. Yet
it was not long before the boys returned, as the prohibition was not enforced
by most fathers.
(44)
Aside from the opening story, "Sunday Lunch," the book
generally proves uneven, unplump, and unhunting. That said, the book is not a
chore to read.
"Abel's Journey" has some memorable inclusions. This narrative
follows an orphan whose life—once, finally, continuous light shines—worsens
when he loses most of his eyesight. The subplot surrounds his employer, a
mother figure who agonizes over a decision to take him to a witch
doctor/healer. She has to put out of mind "the warning of the church, the
guardians of her [End Page 343] faith, about the Evil One's
unlimiting enticing tricks to get a foothold on a Christian soul" (122).
She does take her ward, and the curandera, after the visit, says, "It
is unfortunate you did not come to see me earlier. … Neither of you believe in
what I can do for his vision … but that's another matter. … I cannot undo the
damage, but from today [he] will hold on to the eyesight [he has] left"
(130). The countercultural doctor does not charge for the visit.
This collection puts me in mind of a creative writing MFA thesis, which,
perhaps, the author decided was publishable without fleshing out its themes,
characters, or world. The stories have merit and are often simmering with
potential. Had Felix Calvino invested further in his creation, providing
enriching detail that might even double this book's length, I suspect more
readers would wish to know the work and its author.
Summer Dorr
Alfred State College
Antipodes is the official journal of the American
Association of Australasian Literary Studies.