SOURCE: Lobner, Corinna del Greco. “A Lexicon for Both Sexes: Natalia Ginzburg and the Family Saga.” In Contemporary Women Writers in Italy: A Modern Renaissance, edited by Santo L. Aricò, pp. 27-42. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1990.

In the following essay, Lobner explores Ginzburg's representation of gender and familial roles in her fiction.

Natalia Levi Ginzburg is a writer who demands absolute honesty. Her rejection of literary commonplaces and her refusal to subordinate the reality of life to fictional truth compel the reader to take a serious look at daily rituals conceived and enacted in the name of family unity. Ginzburg's outlook hides a deep disenchantment with contemporary mores that affect the family and other human institutions. Her narrative and stylistic evolution reflects this attitude of disillusionment. Her position, especially noticeable in such recent fiction as Caro Michele and Famiglia, offers little hope for the future of the...