‘A Love Affair’ by Dino Buzzati    (1963) – 288 pages                    Translated from the Italian by Joseph Green

Women of today might not take kindly to the opening of this novel. Antonio Dorigo is a quite prosperous nearly fifty year-old stage set designer and architect in Milan, Italy. He has never been married. When Antonio wants to have sex, he calls Signora Ermelina who provides him with young women. It is a discreet operation. At the beginning of ‘A Love Affair’ Signora Ermelina sets him up with Laide who is only 19, underage. Antonio is satisfied.

“What a wonderful thing, thought Dorigo, prostitution is!”

After a few times with Laide, Antonio becomes obsessed with her. Meanwhile Laide is totally indifferent to him.

“Not that sex with Antonio gave her much pleasure, on the contrary, it clearly meant nothing to her at all.”

But the more she ignores him, the more obsessed with her Antonio becomes. Antonio offers to pay for her apartment and provide her with adequate spending money in the futile hope that she will like him just a little more. However Laide is always doing stuff behind his back and making lame excuses like visiting a sick mother. Antonio doubts her stories and constantly tries to catch her in a lie. There’s this guy Marcello who hangs around her apartment when Antonio is not there. Laide claims he’s a cousin, and that they do not have sex. Antonio becomes extremely jealous.

“He’s never before found himself in a mess like this. He’s never found himself naked on a bed, eyes wide, watching a girl thirty years younger than himself, a cocky little whore without the least semblance of affection for him. He’s never found himself head over heels in love with a girl who doesn’t give a damn about him, who doesn’t even need him inasmuch as she could find a dozen just like him, who goes with him only because for the moment it seems convenient for her.”

With all Laide’s excuses, one assumes she is also carrying on with her prostitution sideline.

The title ‘A Love Affair’ must be ironic. The novel was published in 1963, and may be Buzzati’s answer to Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’.

For me, this overwrought affair goes on for much too long, for at least 150 pages, with Laide telling Antonio stories to cover up what she’s doing and Antonio trying to believe but doubting the stories. It felt like years and years were going by, but it all takes place within a year.

This somewhat repugnant lengthy realistic novel is much different from Dino Buzzati’s other works. I would recommend that a reader at least first read ‘The Tartar Steppes’ (which was recently republished by NYBR as ‘The Stronghold’) to get a much more positive view of Buzzati’s writing.

Grade:   B-