Il Giardino dei Finzi Contini - Giorgio Bassani

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"The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" by Giorgio Bassani is a haunting and profound novel depicting the lives of a wealthy Italian Jewish family in the grim years leading up to World War II. Through the lens of the protagonist, a young Jewish man enamored with the beautiful Micòl Finzi-Contini, Bassani masterfully captures the unstoppable rise of fascism and antisemitism that radically upends the idyllic existence of the Finzi-Contini family. 

I was deeply moved by Bassani's evocative ability to sketch unforgettable characters while simultaneously describing the progressive deterioration of their carefree life in the magnificent garden of the family villa, once a happy refuge and now a symbol of tragic indifference to impending evil. The final, heart-wrenching pages leave an indelible mark.

However, some passages feel redundant and Bassani's prose self-indulgent at times. But overall, "The Garden of Finzi-Continis" is a masterpiece that magisterially combines history and memory to relive an inerasable trauma with poetic and poignant prose that still today moves and excites.

1995