The Bay Of Noon

THE BAY OF NOON

by Shirley Hazzard

 

Nominations: Booker Finalist 1970, National Book Finalist 1971

 

Date Read: September 4, 2022

 

I seem to have stumbled, quite accidentally, onto my third book in a row where siblings either love each other or succumb to actual incest. Hurricane Season, The Turnout and now with The Bay Of Noon, Jenny, our trusty narrator, admits that she has fallen in love with her brother Eduardo, which compelled her to leave post-WWII London for Africa. From Africa, she finds herself as a translator in Naples, exposed to new sites, people and ways of being.

 

She quickly makes a friend in Giaconda, who is introduced to Jenny through an English friend. Giaconda’s boyfriend, Gianni, is also taken with Jenny and on an outing makes a pass towards Jenny, which ruins the entire adventure. I know that sense of disappointment where you’re just having fun and then some guy gets it in his head that he has to have you. There’s nothing more tedious or depressing.

 

And then there’s Justin, a Scottish writer, who requires Jenny’s help to translate and type oceanic reference works from Italian to English. He also takes a shine to Jenny but his efforts, as opposed to Gianni’s, seem to be more tolerated and welcome.

 

I completely identify with Jenny’s angst when Justin and Giaconda finally meet. You are so eager for both people you care for to see in each other what you see in them and when that doesn’t go according to plan, the disappointment can be immense. If it goes badly enough, you may even need to go out of your way so their paths don’t cross. Needless to say, Justin and Giaconda’s first meeting was tepid at best, neither party at peak performance. That Justin and Giaconda briefly run off together doesn’t come as a shock, but this opens the possibility for Jenny to get to see Gianni in a new light – not just the perverse and demanding playboy.

 

Hazzard is an artisan, a magician with words and understanding such as, “… the pathos of our superiors, their self-laudatory defending of the world from perils into which just such mentalities as theirs had plunged it.” So perfect. Every word a gem. And the observation behind it so critical to our age, particularly now.

 

While I didn’t embrace Transit Of Venus nearly as much, this novel was exquisite – beautiful, meandering, picturesque, hopeful.

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