I've changed the name of my first novel to The Cantoni Sisters.What's in a name? Depending on what it is - everything. For a person, it's either a moniker they're stuck with and hate their entire life, or probably for most of us it's one we're ok with, maybe we play around with abbreviations, nicknames, but settle for what we're given. But names are important. Rightly or wrongly, they can give an impression of what that person is like, or let us foolishly go along with our preconceptions.Would we think of a strong, manly figure being called Pinkie? Well, I would have said no But take the main character in Brighton Rock, by Graham Greene. He's called Pinkie and he's a mean spirited thug. But did that make him strong and manly? You make the call.For writers, and particularly novelists, as we need to live with the characters for so long - as do our readers - names are incredibly important. I spent hours deliberating names for my characters for my first novel. The fact they are Italian names did not make the job easier. We each have personal associations that interfere with potential choices - people we know, or someone we don't care for; perhaps a teacher who was particularly mean. Our own history colours our decision as well as the characters we're trying to portray.Some people say having names that begin with the same letters make it confusing for the reader. Two brothers called Harry and Henry, I can imagine being easy to mix up, unless their characters are either extremely well defined and/or very different from each other. Take the Kray brothers - Ronnie and Reggie Kray. Can anyone remember which was which despite the publicity at the time, or the filmic portrayals etc.? I can’t.The younger sister in my novel is called Alma. But initially the older sister, the main protagonist of the novel, was Essie (an Italian abbreviation of Esther). For me I knew who they were, but other people found their names too similar. They had the same number of syllables and they found them confusing. I eventually changed Essie’s name to Raffaella, which instantly made her a different character both in my mind and on the page. I also had to admit, part of the problem was her character hadn’t been clearly enough defined. So changing her name helped me shape her character. I talked about character in my blog a few weeks ago (see Real Characters Feb 18th).So where does that leave us with the title of the work, in this case a novel? That too has to fit, has to mean something to someone who picks up the book and has only the blurb on the back cover and the title to help them decide whether or not to buy it. For the past 3 yrs the novel has been called Tracing Paper. And it fit the novel when I began. But the novel has changed so much, that the meaning behind it has become diluted.So after a professional critique of the beginning chapters and other writers who thought it no longer fit, I have changed the title to The Cantoni Sisters.Letting go of the original name has been hard – almost like letting go of a friend. But as with any rewrites, you have to be prepared to be brutal, even if it was a favourite piece of the work. Publishers often change titles, so I may have to let go of it again. But to me, writing is all about change and rewrites. How else can the work grow and improve? My hope is that long term it will help me deal with change in real life, which is usually just a tad bit harder than a quick tap of a key or stroke of a pen.How do you go about choosing names, or the title for your latest work? Was it a difficult process? Is it one that's ongoing?I’d love to hear from you.
Italian Jews in the Holocaust (orig.posted Jan 27th)
You who live safeIn your warm houses… Consider if this is a man Who works in the mud Who does not know peace Who fights for a scrap of bread Who dies because of a yes or no. From ‘If this is a Man’ by Primo Levi Today, January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance day. The date was chosen as it’s the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops in 1945. In Italy it's called ‘Giorna della Memoria’In remembering the Holocaust, it’s rare that Italian Jews are mentioned. Perhaps because it’s a Catholic country, there might be an incorrect assumption that there wasn’t a Jewish community in Italy. More than 8,000 Jews were deported and killed in the death camps. When WWII broke out there were over 42,000 Jews living in Italy. Put simply, 20% of the Italian Jewish community was lost in a little over a year.An Italian Jewish community still thrives in Italy today, mainly living in Northern Italy in the cities. Like many other countries, Italy has a long history of anti-Semitism. The word ghetto is an Italian term first used in Venice, the site of the first Jewish Ghetto in the 16th century. It’s a term combining ‘gheto’ or ‘ghet’, which means slag or waste from a foundry (which was located near the area of Jewish confinement) and borghetto the diminutive of ‘borgo’ or borough.Jews were compelled to live in city ghettos which following the Venetian example. Gates at the exits were locked an hour after sunset until dawn. This went on for literally hundreds of years. Only after the unification of Italy in 1861 were Italian Jews gradually allowed to live in other areas.
The ghettos themselves, usually in undesirable locations of the city, were places of overcrowding and poor housing, and owned by Christians; Jews themselves were prohibited from owning property. Poverty was rampant as the types of trades Jews were able to pursue was restricted e.g. ragmen, second hand dealers, or fishmongers. Jews could also be pawnbrokers, the latter profession stirring considerable hatred towards them. Most Jewish women, because they didn’t work outside of the home were not allowed to leave the ghetto. On occasions they did, they had to wear a yellow veil, the same color as prostitutes.In the decades prior to WWII Italians were generally more tolerant towards Jews than other European countries. This is perhaps rooted in the fact that as a community, Italian Jews more assimilated into Italian society. It was not unusual, Jews to marry Italian Catholics, and there were high ranking Jews in the Fascist Party.Mussolini and Fascism in Italy was a way of life that initially did not initially discriminate against Jews. In fact there were the same percentage of Jews in the fascist party as there were Jews in Italian society. However once Mussolini allied himself to Hitler things changed. In 1938 the Racial Laws were passed. In effect, the laws barred Jews from participating in society - they were banned from any form of state education teachers, professors and students alike. They were banned from libraries, from seaside resorts, from employing, or marrying non-Jews, owning a sizeable business or property, or a radio. Once Italy came into the war in 1940, Jewish refugees were interned in concentration camps in Italy. The most famous of these was Fossoli near Modena. This aspect of Jewish life changing is touched on in the early parts of Radio Echo.Then in 1943 the Allies landed in southern Italy, and Northern Italy became occupied by the Nazis. A campaign was then launched to deport all Italian Jews out of Italy. On October 18th 1943 the Rome ghetto was raided, and in one day, 1,200 Jews were rounded up and deported to Auschwitz.Another issue that is individual to Italy is the position of the Catholic Church with regard to the deportations, as well as saving many Italian Jews. Again this issue is touched on in Tracing Paper. Many people criticized Pope Pius XII for doing little to intervene. That said, one cannot speak highly enough of the many individual priests and nuns who chose to risk their own lives without a papal decree to shelter Jews.Probably the most famous Italian Jew in literature is Primo Levi. In “If This Is a Man?” Levi writes about his life and survival in Auschwitz, as well as the many Jews who fought in the Italian resistance. The irony of the opening line of his preface “It was my good fortune to be deported to Auschwitz only in 1944…” shows the spirit of survival that was uppermost in his thoughts. Every crumb of thought, or bread he had, or movement he made, led to his survival. His very being was on a singular path. And luck was on his side.Those targeted by the Nazi’s pursuit of a ‘master race’ were not only Jews. Other groups include Gypsies, Lesbians, Gays and the physically and mentally disabled – anyone considered sub-human or imperfect.To those who were less fortunate than Primo Levi, we remember you.We remember you and we will never forget.CommentsDavid
Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:12:26
Thank you for this sensitive account, Kathy. It is unfortunate that collective memory seems in such short supply these days, and so many of the same prejudices are even now reasserting themselves in Europe and the UK.A.K.Andrew
Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:15:16
Thanks David. I completely agree. Unbelievable, but unfortunately true. That in itself is very scary.
Real Characters (orig. post Jan 13th)
Real Characters
I recently watched a US hospital drama in which Alfre Woodard (an excellent, but underrated actor) played a writer desperate to finish a novel before her aneurism burst. She said the characters in her book were her family. I understood what she meant. They were real to her and her readers. That’s when you know if the character is successful or not. The three-dimensional nature of characters is to me the test of a good book. Plot is great, but without characters it's worthless.When writing Radio Echo, I struggled for months writing the characters of the two sisters. Then I started to write the character of the homosexual fascist. I was staggered that he just fell off the end of my pen. I instantly cared about him despite his unlikeable nature – or at least his distasteful politics. I realised in part that with the two sisters, I’d focused on what happened to them, rather than who they were; trying to nail the plot of the entire novel, at the expense of their character. I re-worked them, and now they’re three-dimensional.I think the response of the viewer for any art form is an integral part of the process. Arguably, the end product could be considered incomplete without the response of the viewer, however different that individual response is. I could go further and say that fictitious characters are as important as real flesh and blood characters if they have had an effect on you as individuals. If fictional characters can evoke emotion, isn’t that about as good as it gets in terms of anything meaningful? Okay you can't hug or touch a character in a novel, call them up and have a chat. But to miss them when the novel ends and to wonder what happened to them or to feel changed by them is to learn something about one's self. Especially as an adolescent, but also as an adult, a good character in a book might express what you’ve been thinking all along, but didn't have the words to say it. How often have you finished a good book and said –‘yeah that’s what I meant’?Much of Radio Echo is set in Bologna. The central piazza there, Piazza Maggiore features in the hearts and minds of the characters. “We’ll be dancing with GI’s in Piazza Maggiore before the end of the year,” one of the characters says after the Allies have taken Rome. The sentiment encompasses the hope that people had at that point in Northern Italy. Because the novel is historical, characters have root in real life. They all are fictitious; none of them are based on real people per se. None of the individual events are based on real events. But of course in other ways they are based on things that did actually happen. So when I went to Piazza Maggiore myself, I was fighting back the tears. I had lived with those characters for a long time and it was as if I, in their place, had made it back to the piazza. And of course the citizens of Bologna and returning resistance fighters did congregate there and celebrate with the Allied troops when Bologna was liberated in April 1945.The memorial in Piazza Maggiore is very different to any of the war memorials I’ve seen in England. It is dedicated solely to the men and women who died fighting in the Italian resistance. Instead of just a list of names, there’s a photo of each person printed on a tile and so you have an image of that person as they were in the mid 1940s with their name beneath it. More than just a list of names, the sight of the images together makes them truly real characters.