The Faithful Lover

Winner of Italy's 1957 Strega Prize, this collection of a dozen short stories and a novella from Bontempelli (1878-1960) originally appeared in Italian in 1953. The first seven short stories reveal a playful inventiveness and supple prose: ""Empress"" finds Cecilia's mother committing her to a mental asylum but ending up captivated by Cecilia's delusions of grandeur. Luca the cat burglar in ""Second-Story Man"" is faced with the dilemma of whether to aid his cop pursuer suffering an accident or flee the scene, while in ""Pilgrims,"" the narrator leaves his room to travel with darkly robed figures through light and dark in a bizarre morality tale. ""Octogenarian"" and ""The Faithful Lover"" are more grounded more in realism, and are less successful: the former is long-winded and strident while the latter reads like a milder Eyes Wide Shut. The energetic rambling novella ""Water,"" however, is a standout: it centers on Madina, a 15-year-old rural girl who is sent to work in the city for a well-to-do family, and who has several fumbling encounters with men. This well-meaning rescue mission is best suited to scholars and 20th-century literature completists.