Jazzer, Fosca and Meg.

Last night I finished reading Fosca by the scapigliato [member of the 19th century bohemian group of writers centred on Milan], Igino Ugo Tarchetti, given to me by Irish Paul’s wife, Paola. It’s a first-person psychological novel about the self-destructive relationship of the handsome Giorgio with the extremely ugly, highly neurotic, and sickly Fosca. She throws herself at Giorgio despite his having no feelings for her, other than intermittent pity. Fosca accurately sums up herself in a letter to Giorgio:

        Io nacqui malata: uno dei sintomi più gravi e più profondi della mia infermità era il bisogno che  sentiva di affezionarmi a tutto ciò che mi circondava, ma in modo  violento, subito, estremo. [I’ve been ill from birth. One of the deepest and most serious effects of the sickness has been my violent, impetuous and abject need to  feel loved by everyone around me.]

She, at least, has self-awareness; Giorgio despite his penchant for introspection, has little. In this respect he resembles Emily Brontë’s Nelly Dean and Ishiguro’s Stevens: a narrator who is blind to the significance of what’s he’s narrating. In a masterly fashion Tarchetti conveys to the reader what the narrator is unaware of: his moral illiteracy  - revealed by his reaction to the letter from his beautiful mistress, Clara, breaking off their relationship. She’s done so because her husband’s finances have taken a sudden  and catastrophic turn for the worse. She rightly feels that she needs to stand by him and their child, despite her love for Giorgio. Rather than sympathy and understanding for her plight there is only fury;

    Tal cosa non poteva immaginata che da un essere mostruosamente ingrato, mostruosamente crudele. Io aveva amato questo essere. [One can’t conceive of    any creature that isn’t  monstrously ungrateful and cruel behaving like this. And I had loved such a one.]

He consequently decides that Fosca is the woman for him because:

    Quella donna mi ha amato, ella sola mi ha amato veracemente. [That woman has loved me. Only she has really loved me.]

And he goes off to consummate their relationship, demonstrating that for Giorgio love is not about giving oneself but satisfying his ego, even in the arms of a woman he finds repulsive. Fosca  dies three days later. Unlike Dobbin, in Vanity Fair, she wasn’t disillusioned when she finally won the long sought object of her affections, because for her,  as for Giorgio love is about self-gratification, not mutual affection. 

   Meanwhile The Archers is running a comic variant on the theme of unreciprocated love. Jazzer, who up till now thought love was a four-letter word beginning with s and ending with g, has decided that Fallon, the daughter of the local pub’s landlady, is the girl he wants to settle down with. They get on well, but as far as Fallon is concerned they are friends, not potential lovers, and she tries to tell him.  He hears the words but doesn’t get the message and thinks if he takes things slowly Fallon will come round. Fat chance I’d say.

   And finally to Meg. She’s on heat, so our walks are accompanied by a bevy of assorted swains, including two we normally like - Lupo’s dog, Rasta, and Valentino’s, Libero. Like Giorgio and Fosca they’re only interested in self-gratification - in their case carnal rather than psychological. The problem is that unlike Fallon and Jazzer both parties are up for it - the expression a bitch on heat has become disturbingly concrete. Trying to prevent access to her rear-end has made walks a nightmare. But once her season’s ended things will be back to normal - she and Libero will be good friends again with no psychological hang-ups or smouldering resentments. And a dog’s life is meant to be a deprecatory term!