‘Forbidden Notebook’ by Alba de Cespedes – A Notebook and a Life of Her Own

 

‘Forbidden Notebook’ by Alba de Cespedes    (1952) – 259 pages                 Translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein

 

In ‘Forbidden Notebook’, Valeria Cassati must make entries in her notebook surreptitiously. The other family members must not find out about it, which is not so easy to do with a husband and two college age children. She does not have a room of her own in their small house. Her husband Michele, her son Ricardo, and her daughter Mirella expect her to devote herself entirely to her family as she has always done in the past.

“Then I couldn’t find the notebook, I’d hidden it so carefully in the folds of a sheet in the closet. When I finally found it, I hugged it to myself like a treasure. But if Michele wakes up and comes in here, I’m lost. I have no plausible excuse, and the idea that he might read what I’m about to write terrifies me.”

The biography of the author Alba de Cespedes states that in 1935 she was jailed for anti-Fascist activities in Italy, and she was again imprisoned in 1943 for her anti-Fascist work. I felt the author was someone who has earned my attention, and I was not wrong. Apparently Alba was no shrinking violet like her protagonist Valeria.

“Now under everything I do and say, there’s the presence of this notebook. I never would have believed that everything that happens to me in the course of a day would be worth writing down. My life always appeared rather insignificant, without remarkable events, apart from my marriage and the birth of my children.”

Both of her children are involved in relationships that make her uneasy. Her daughter Mirella goes out with a 34 year old lawyer and sometimes returns home later than two in the morning. Her son is devoted to his girlfriend who is rather a doormat.

The family formerly was well-to-do, but the war has reduced their circumstances. Valeria must work in an office as well as do the housework. After she starts writing in her notebook, she notices that her boss Guido has taken an interest in her. She starts going to the office on Saturdays so she can be alone with Guido.

“I carried home this shiny black notebook like a bloodsucker. Everything started then; even the change in my relations with Guido began the day I admitted I could hide something from my husband, even if it was a notebook. I wanted to be alone, to write, and those who want to be enveloped in their own solitude, in a family, always carry in themselves the seed of sin.”

Did keeping this forbidden notebook which was hidden from her family cause Valeria to seek out a life of her own, including this forbidden romance with her boss Guido?

Before she had a notebook she was selfless, doing everything for her family. The secret notebook gives her a sense of self.

“If I had already known that Guido loved me I would never have bought it (the notebook), but perhaps if I hadn’t bought it, I would never have noticed Guido, as I hadn’t noticed myself.”

Will Valeria be able to make her two-week escape to Verona and Venice with Guido, or will family problems prevent her from doing so?

After reading the four-book series of Neapolitan novels of Elena Ferrante, I seek out translations by Ann Goldstein. ‘Forbidden Notebook’ is another winner.

 

Grade:    A