West of the Moon

This scanty novella by the Sicilian Spina (1923-1990) is an affected take on that old favorite, boy-meets-girl. In this case, said boy (a retired timber merchant) meets said girl (``a beautiful woman of a certain age'') on a train bound for Venice, and the two discover a shared love of grammar. What follows is essentially a very long and esoteric conversation. She is flitty and dramatic, he more serious and pedantic. Topics range from sheep and their point-of-view (``the sheep seems to confront with a glance the difference between itself and the surrounding world, without anxiety, actually finding it all amusing'') to his family's timber business to the quiet of hospitals which generates ``a great desire for sleep, abandon, I daresay even for death.'' The best bits circle back around on each other with self-referential style. Some of this is clever, some of it merely fey, but all of it suffers from a lack of context. While this posthumously published novella might have made a nice anchor for a short-story collection, it is not rich enough to stand on its own. The translation is serviceable but also stiff in places (``I clutch at grammar in my search for salvation from the lure of irreducible diversity,'' the hero intones at one point). This, in addition to the 13 illustrations taken from J.M. Whistler's Venetian etchings, give the book an old-fashioned feel. (Nov.)