[goldeneggs]

Alain Elkann has, in the last thirty years, published over twenty books spanning essays, biography, and fiction. Envy (2006) is the first, as far as I’m aware, of his works to be translated into English and given that much of its action takes place in London, it may well have made itself a prime candidate for introducing him to an English speaking audience. That it’s central concern, as implied by the title, is a universal one probably helped too. And being published in the’ Pushkin Modern range ensures the container is as good as the content.

Envy tells the story of Giacomo Longhi, an Italian writer, who, having heard much about him, wishes to interview the great English artist, Julian Sax. It’s not that easy, though, as Sax isn’t the sort who likes granting interviews and there’s a wall of people - friends, relatives, other artists - who all know him, promise to ask him about the interview, invariably coming back with apologies.

Julien Sax (”a seductive man with a disturbing gaze”) is seen as the world’s greatest living artist and details about him emerge from all manner of associated people. He is “the grandson of Ludwig Sax, the most important scientist of the last century!” and, as one person notes:“He has an ambiguous relationship with money and with women. He is very reserved and arrogant too, in a certain sense. But he is undoubtedly an extraordinary artist.”When people get on to the subject of Sax, they linger long on the details of his life:His turbulent past, moments of great debauchery, his vast brood of illegitimate children, his rebellious side, and his arrogance, were all subjects that triggered endless anecdotes.These aren’t merely details, but clues, for Elkann is describing, in all but name, Lucien Freud. But the novel is not so much about Sax as it is about Longhi’s perception of the man and it’s this that produces the more interesting sections of self-analysis as he tries to understand why he envies the artist:I am interested only in Sax because I realise I envy him, I envy the security of a talent confirmed by critics, collectors and market prices all over the world. The great, recognised artist is perhaps the only man who does what he wants, lives as he wants, while his life becomes a legend. Perhaps I haven’t really admitted this even to myself, but I’d like my life to be a legend too.Throughout the novel Longhi has, on discovering where he dines, plenty of opportunities to introduce himself to Sax but is too hesitant. In his eyes, the artist is “a part of an extinct race, that of the great personalities” and this may go some way to explaining his timidity. At one point he spies a woman interviewing him and resolves only to sit at the next table and listen in.

In discussing how he’s unable to get Sax out of his head, a friend suggests that he write a novel about him. And in a piece of dialogue, Elkann uses this opportunity to show the reader why his novel uses thinly veiled characters rather than explicitly name them:“Are you sure that this obsession of yours doesn’t hide a desire to write a book about him?”
“No, as long as he’s alive that’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because I would have to tell the whole truth.”
“But people write novels because they are imaginary stories, you can tell the truth in them.”Thus Envy becomes the planning of a story - a crime novel, with Sax as victim. Essentially it’s a retaliation against the fear that, like many women before her, his wife will submit to the artist, become his lover, only to be discarded.Through his work, he can dominate any woman: the most sophisticated, the most cultured, or the coarsest, who on seeing herself portrayed reacts with either love or hate, but in both cases feels mastered and flattered. Literature today no longer has that power.Surely autobiographical in nature, Envy is an interesting treatment of its subject matter and provides a strong grounding for many of its ideas. While there’s the sense that more could have been said, especially on the subject of art and of being an artist, the conclusion is satisfying - to Longhi’s novel, and to Elkann’s. Literature’s power may be waning, but it’s still a force to be reckoned with.

[goldeneggs]

A review of Envy in the New Statesman.

[TepSteade]

Elkann's Piazza Carignano was published in English (at least in the U.S.) twenty-four years ago. I read it too long ago to remember anything about it, except that I loved it. Looking forward to reading another of his works.

[ReginaPerss]

Eileen Battersby in the Irish Times really liked it:

Envy, originally published in Italy in 2006, comes in English translation, beautifully, stylishly packaged and grasps the reader with the allure of its measured, reasonable tone. Why? Who knows? This is at once a simple book as well as a dauntingly sophisticated one. The narrator is a writer who appears to spend an inordinate amount of time travelling and socialising and pondering his current obsession, without ever writing.

Although the book appears to take envy as its theme, it is really about the way idle interest becomes intense, all-absorbing and, ultimately, obsessive. And through the obsessing comes a resolution of astonishing clarity. It is a psychological quest that races around in circles, exactly as thoughts tend to in minds that are restless.

The narrator, Giacomo Longhi, describes how he became interested in the personality of a famous artist called Julian Sax. It all began with a chance observation. Longhi recalls when he first saw the artist, sharing a meal with another man in a Brompton Road restaurant: "I noticed how the two men seemed satisfied to be in each other's company." The narrator admits to not knowing why the image stayed in his mind. But it doesn't matter, it is sufficiently interesting to attract - and sustain a narrative that is both precise and convincingly conversational. Elkann evokes a narrative mood in which one individual actively attempts to explain, to himself, why his thoughts have begun to run in a specific direction. It is as if that first sighting of Sax began a sequence of sensations that tell the narrator far more about himself and his emotional responses, than it does about Sax - although we also learn something of Sax as pieces of information gather courtesy of random remarks supplied by others, including the narrator's grown daughter who has an interesting name, Sole - even the smallest detail in this novel tends to be interesting.

The image of Sax at supper appears to have initially slipped to the back of the narrator's mind. Some time later, when he is having a meal in Madrid with two men - one is an art critic, the other is a man influential in the arts world - who are discussing a forthcoming art event, Sax enters the conversation: ". . . I don't exactly remember why, the conversation moved on to Julian Sax. They talked about him enthusiastically; both of them thought he was the greatest living artist and felt that it would be only right to organise an exhibition of Sax's work in Venice as soon as possible . . .". Their shared interest begins to excite the narrator, he is intrigued. Then a series of coincidences worthy of a Paul Auster novel begin. Back in Rome he is visited by an English friend who has married a younger woman and who has had a son. The wife turns out to be the daughter of Julian Sax. This little piece of information causes the narrator to mention that he would like to interview Sax, but the son-in-law seems to feel an interview is unlikely.

Such difficulties make the project all the more compelling. Elkann's lightness of touch, and the subtle wit of it all, sustain a story in which very little actually happens. The narrative develops through chance details. With each new piece of information, Longhi assumes a new role, that of amateur detective, and begins piecing together the character of Sax. The artist emerges as a nasty individual with a reputation for falling in love with his female models, then dumping them as he moves on to his next passionate affair. During his pursuit of Sax, the narrator also finds himself not only encountering a large number of characters, but assessing them. There may be little action, but there is a great deal of talk.

And of course the more we find out about Sax through the narrator's research, the more we discover about him. He is a writer who feeds upon his own insecurities; for a while it seems that the only dynamic sustaining him through his daily routine is the quest for Sax.

A clue appears when he is told that Sax frequents a tea shop in Notting Hill. Once back in London, the narrator makes for the tea shop, only to miss Sax by minutes. The chase continues as the narrator somehow - this is not explained - summons up the nerve to ask for direction to the artist's house. Having found the house, he then pauses at the audacity of his actions: "I felt intimidated at having attained my goal." Well, he gets over it and knocks at the door. All he manages to secure from the young male assistant is the telephone number of Sax's lawyer, who appears also to act as an agent. It is an early point in the novel, yet Elkann has already succeeded in establishing his narrator as a credible human prey to a level of curiosity that grows by the second. Before long, he has involved his daughter. A meeting is arranged - at Tony's tea shop, which quickly becomes very important and the scene of several vivid set pieces.

On a Saturday morning, the narrator, his daughter and Rosa, his beautiful second wife, arrive at the tea shop. Sax is there, with his daughter, a grandchild and a son-in-law. The narrator and the two women proceed to stare at the artist. Sax, obviously irritated, leaves. "He felt he was being watched . . . Our silence and our inquisitive stares had disturbed their family get-together."

Perhaps it shouldn't be funny, but it is. The narrator begins to fear that Sax might paint Rosa and destroy her. On another visit to Tony's tea shop, the narrator arrives as an abrasive Sax is being interviewed by a journalist. More details. More travel. More conversations.

There are flashes of Nabokov, and Calvino. It is absurd yet plausible, such is the consistency of the narrative voice and tone of polite exasperation well rendered by translator Alastair McEwen. Sax sightings dominate the narrator's life and his exchanges within his circle. Finally, as an interview is proving impossible, he decides to write a novel in which an elegant killer is engaged to murder the artist, for which the narrator plans a surprise ending. The human mind is a strange place, as strange as this fast-moving, witty and enjoyable clever little salon piece.
...
Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent of The Irish Times

[Sillaycheg]

This is another author I'd never heard of. But Stewart's and Eileen Battersby's (thanks to John Self) descriptions make the book sound intriguing. You learn quickly, if only your attention is drawn to the right authors and books.

The author appears to be equally intriguing. Of French-American background and born in New York, Alain Elkann (who doesn't appear to have an entry of his own on the English-language Wikipedia) seems to have got to know Alberto Moravia and was married into the clan that runs FIAT. He's keen on the Jewish religion, having helped an old rabbi to write a couple of books, and is the chairman of the fund for Egyptian antiquity in Turin. Being a journalist, he does newspaper interviews with other people, and even a few on TV.

I'm going to read (with a dictionary close at hand!) a short interview with Elkann that starts with the quote: "Nothing teaches you more than books do... Reading books is like graduating over and over again".

[Jambjanatan]

This post has been moved from The Blogosphere.

We all know about Pushkin Press’s sterling work in recovering lost classics of European literature, but they also publish contemporary European fiction. The slightly creepy cover of Alain Elkann’s Envy (despite the French forename, he’s Italian) drew my attention - though it’s only when you turn to the back and see long curling hair [...]

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