Guest review by Cindy Jefferies: THE HUMMINGBIRD by Sandro Veronesi, translated by Elena Pala

 

"His work is funny, serious, clever, controlled, sometimes a little demanding but always rewarding."

First published in 2001 for children, Cindy Jefferies found success with her Fame School series with Usborne Books, obtaining 22 foreign rights deals. Latterly writing fiction for adults as Cynthia Jefferies, her first title The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan was published in 2018, followed a year later by The Honourable Life of Thomas Chayne, set during the English Civil Wars, followed in 2019. Both titles are now available in paperback.

 
Sandro Veronesi is an Italian writer who is the only person who has won the Premio Strega prize twice. His is a formidable talent, but he wears his skill lightly. His work is funny, serious, clever, controlled, sometimes a little demanding but always rewarding. He has every right to demand our attention, because what he writes, and how he writes it is often unexpected and usually brilliant.

His hero in this novel, Marco Carrera, is a man whose life seems to stand still. A series of misfortunes happen and he has to deal with them. He doesn’t always want to, they affect him deeply, but he invariably does what he can to help. His life is both ordinary and extraordinary, as many human lives are. Veronesi relates the entire life of this man, bringing in along the way many fascinating thoughts and facts, which, because they interest the writer, also interested this reader.

Did you realise that not many languages in Europe have a word to describe what you become if your child dies? Widow, widower, orphan, that’s it. We have to look to Sanskrit, many of the African diaspora languages, Hebrew, Arabic or ancient and modern Greek to find a word to describe it. Who knew? In case you worry that Veronesi is irredeemably gloomy he also quotes Lady Bracknell.

Did you know that the BBC, along with several countries, banned the 1933 song Gloomy Sunday, because it had inspired people to kill themselves? It was only unbanned in 2002. There are many versions of it around now, from Bjork to Billie Holliday.

There are some fascinating thoughts about seeing. Marco is an Ophthalmologist.

Marco loves Luisa all his life.

His father collected sci-fi novels.

Oddly, I can’t remember much about Marco’s mother except that she called him The Hummingbird because he stopped growing. Medical intervention eventually helped, after she had objected strenuously to her husband insisting on taking their son for treatment.

There is something about the direct way Veronesi tells us Marco’s story that is very touching, and the nearer we get to the end, the more touching it is.

The only other thing I can say, except to urge you to read this novel, is that the first paragraph said something conversationally, to me as a writer, that I so agreed with I had to put the book down and walk around for a few minutes before going on. That doesn’t often happen, but when it does it is curiously electrifying.

Thank you Sandro Veronesi, for the whole book: the plot, the characters, the musings and facts, even the occasional lists. And last, but by no means least, thank you for your fascinating and useful acknowledgements. I’m sure I shall have cause to refer to them again.

The Hummingbird is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.