Book Review: "The Smell of Hay" by Giorgio Bassani

When it comes to the works of Giorgio Bassani, I have read quite a few of them to this point and most of the time, I have been either completely in love with them or somewhat on the fence about them. This is one I have to say, I am on the fence about because of its fragmented nature and how it switches between the fiction and nonfiction states of writing. The other novels by Giorgio Bassani that I have read include, but are not limited to: The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, The Heron, Gold-Rimmed Spectacles and Within the Walls. So far, it has been a hit or miss situation and honestly, I half-expected to be on the fence about this, being the last of the Ferrara Novel Series.

Giorgio Bassani is more than often known for his portrayals of class and identity, race and bias, in his novels and so, in this fragmented seemingly unconnected collection of 'short pieces', why would he use anything else? This seems to be the one and only thing that connects all the pieces together, including that final piece on the realisation of the writing process that was a bit weird to throw into the mix. I feel like this was not as properly planned as the other novels in the series and he wanted to end it on something deep and personal - but he ended up connecting it to too much outside of the story. It was well-written but conceptually a little bit of a let-down.

The way Giorgio Bassani explores social division has always been a treat and so, in this text when he seems to explore it in a familial almost Romeo-and-Juliet kind of way, he gets right to the heart of the matter - making the book seem far more about identity than it already is. Bassani has seriously outdone himself with some of this, but unfortunately, not all of it. So, as a result, the marks will still be dropped.

The language of a Bassani novel will always be, however, my favourite thing about it. The Smell of Hay has been no exception. It is written absolutely beautifully with this interjections of atmosphere coming it at the correct times in which character development, change and identity politics are taking place on what looks like both an individual and global scale at the same time. Just take a look at this beautiful quotation from this novel:

"In the violet sky of the evening (as the sun set behind the shoreline woods, in thrust blades of most poignant green light between the ancient trunks) little silvery fighter planes made trials and loops."

Here, as change happens to characters, we see nature also shift and the 'violet sky' of the evening is there to signal a calming night coming. I feel like these small interjections of atmosphere are quite possibly the most important parts of his books as even though they are massively character-based, they do need something to ground them back to earth. He does this in a very graceful way, yet always manages to capture the raw imagination of the reader with contrast (for example: here we have fighter planes).

All in all, I thought this book was absolutely beautifully written as are many of Bassani's novels. However, the techniques that have been executed in order to get the reader removed from the series as they walk into the end of it could have been executed with the understanding of the book to the reader in mind. I feel like this was either deliberately difficult to understand the motive behind or that this book should have been split into an anthology-length form and a bunch of essays instead to avoid confusion with the post-modern style dream that was already in Bassani's head when he wrote this, as I imagine.