Summer Infatuation

TuscanyTravel is the main character in Shirley Hazzard’s The Evening of the Holiday. The setting of the Italian countryside dominates her narrative. She does an incredible job or description, especially of the season, using various sensory descriptions. Hazzard’s descriptions of Sophie and Tancredi seem only half there. She leaves them undeveloped. While I think this was on purpose, she wants the reader to question whether they are as shallow and one sided as she portrays them or if they have further, deeper motivations and feelings, it is interesting in contrast to the depth that she gives Italy. She doesn’t even give the reader an indication as to why Sophie feels compelled to leave the country and Tancredi at the end of the novel.

It seemed to me that the story itself was much more about the love that Hazzard had for Italy (she lived and worked there for a time in her younger career according to her biography) rather than the love that Sophie and Tancredi share. In fact, their love seems deeply dependent on the setting. I saw it much more as infatuation than the love she attempts to portray because it can’t exist outside of their current setting. Their existence in the Italian countryside, its season’s and routines allows for their obsession with one another that could not continue in the real world. Also, I find it significant that the novel takes place in summer. This season has long been used in literature to signify shallow affairs and lack of emotional investment.

The Giacomo Leopardi inscription at the beginning of the novel should be taken note of as well in its analysis. “Questo di fu solenne: or da’ trastulli prendi riposo,” roughly translates to “this of it solemn: from your amuse take rest.” I think this points to the fact that the failure of Sophie and Tancredi should inspire a solemn response from both parties but instead that in this situation they should and do “take rest.” It’s as if this interlude was a first order travel experience for both of them. The trip is a rebound and a time for rest and Dionysian pleasure, and so with the ending of the season and the weather’s turn to fall, there is a reason Sophie wears gloves and a scarf in the final scene to signify her return to a more buttoned and literally covered up life, so must they to return to their proper lives.