I never thought that I would come upon a novel that would
describe so accurately some of the feelings that I had as a child and teenager about
my father’s quarrelsome siblings (three sisters and one brother). Confusion is
certainly one word that described my feelings about them as a young child. Fear
and anxiety were other feelings. There was a lot of drama in the lives of my
aunts and uncle, and that drama extended to and included us when we were
together with them. Being around them was nerve-wracking, because you never
knew what dramatic spectacle would unfold when you were together with them. My
father was the peacemaker in his Italian family; it was a thankless role, and
one I am not sure he really wanted, but one that he felt he should take on
given all the problems between the siblings. He was a good and kind man, stable
and dependable, not prone to unpredictable outbursts of temper or emotion. His
siblings were the opposite. Their behavior led to arguments in funeral parlors,
crying jags in others’ homes, angry phone calls and snippy letters, returned
gifts, perceived slights, arrogant behavior, inferiority complexes, and a whole
host of other strange occurrences. Children were not excluded from their
punishing behavior. If they were upset with my parents, they punished us as
well, e.g. by not remembering our birthdays. Only one aunt tried not to be like
the others, but the others ran roughshod over her because she was a passive
soul for most of her life. I can remember Sunday family dinners that ended in
conflict because my mother felt that it was time for my aunts and uncle to go
home since it was a school day for us the next day, whereas they felt that it
was their right to sit in our living room until they decided it was time to go home. It made for uncomfortable
occasions, which caused problems between my mother and father; my mother felt
that my father took their side, while they felt that he cow-towed to his wife
too much. Then there were the letters detailing the perceived slights and
insults they felt when they visited us (again my mother’s fault although my
father came in for his share of criticism as well). Or the angry phone calls
where my uncle would berate my mother to my father, who again was put in the
position of defending his wife against his birth family, a position he hated.
He wanted so much for both sides to be friends, something I knew would never
happen. Even as a child, I knew this with absolute certainty. I’m sure my
mother knew it too. The differences between them were too great. I remember
being fascinated by adult behavior as practiced by my father’s siblings; it was
unpredictable, unstable, dramatic, emotional, anxiety-inducing, fear-inducing,
and ultimately childish. I may have been a bit scared (and scarred) by it as
well. My father’s siblings were not really adults, but rather children whose
emotional needs had been stifled (due to circumstances beyond their control
that had to do with my grandfather’s financial losses during the Depression) and
which led to their becoming immature adults. That’s the way I look at them now,
and that has helped me to forgive their behavior. But when I was a child, I
felt torn. I was intensely loyal to my father and mother, but I wanted to have
good relationships with my aunts and uncle. It was not to be. I remember
feeling suffocated at times by the idea of extended family. It seemed to me
that family, as my father’s siblings defined it, meant that everyone had the
right to have an opinion about what everyone else in the family did. They did
not understand boundaries, nor did they understand that marriage meant that you
put your spouse first, ahead of them. It was expected that you would listen to
them and abide by their comments and advice; if you didn’t, you were subject to
their tongue-lashings and scorn, as well as their anger about being ignored or
slighted. I never really knew how to deal with my aunts and uncle when they
lived, and when they died, it was hard for me to feel any emotion at all. My
father was sadly the first of his siblings to pass; I often think that the
stress of dealing with his siblings played a large role in making him ill. I
felt mostly relief when each of my father’s siblings passed. I was free, we
were free, and my mother was free. Free from behavior that threatened to
suffocate and to annihilate one’s idea of oneself. Because the concept of
wanting a life for oneself was forbidden in my father’s family. It was not
allowed that one could want that, or want to prioritize one’s spouse and children.
One had to exist for one’s birth family, and make choices that always included them,
no matter what. One had to put birth family first ahead of spouse and children.
Looking back, I see how strange it really was. But it was my only point of
reference, my only definition of adult behavior that I had, and I see now in
retrospect that it was warped.
Elena Ferrante’s book Troubling
Love describes an Italian family quite different than that of my father’s
family. Delia, the main character, has complicated feelings about her
relationship with her mother, Amalia, who separated from her physically-abusive
husband when Delia was a young woman. When Amalia is found dead (drowned in the
sea) and Delia goes to her funeral, it unleashes a torrent of thoughts and
feelings that we are privy to as readers. The story involves other characters
and sub-plots that help us to understand (without accepting or forgiving) Amalia’s husband’s jealousy and rage.
But Ferrante is unflinching in her description of abusive men, for whom she has
no use. She depicts them in all their garishness, naked rage, and lust. It is
not a pretty picture. Ferrante is so good at describing exactly what it is that
Delia feels, but at the same time, we end up wandering with Delia through her tangled
nightmares as she relives the traumas and memories of her childhood and youth. There were events that happened in her childhood that should not have happened, and behavior that she and her sisters should have been shielded from. But they were not. It
is the feelings Ferrante evokes via her writing that struck a nerve in me. She
can describe those feelings of suffocation, of cloyingness, of bewilderment,
of duty, of need, in a way that I intuitively recognize and remember.
As I grew older, I made myself a promise that my life would be so different from the
lives of my aunts and uncle, and it is, but only after much reflection and
risk-taking. When family life is not about love and loving others, but rather
about hatred, conflict and jealousy of others, it is no small task to try to
undo that or to surpass it. Troubling
Love is not a book for everyone’s tastes; many people will find it
disturbing and uncomfortable. It is both those things. But if you have
experienced the claustrophobia of one type of family life, you will be drawn
into her story, and it is well-worth the read. I don’t know if I could have
appreciated Ferrante’s book had I read it in my twenties; it is the only book
written by her that I have read so far, but I do think that I could manage to
read more of her writing. A lot of years have passed and I have the distance
necessary for me to read such stories. One can ask, why do you want to? My
answer is that it is a way of facing those early fears and bewilderment
and finding out that one has overcome and perhaps understood them. Literature
serves many purposes; for me, it is not solely about entertainment, but rather
about finding answers on this life journey. It has always been about that for
me.
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