I came to read Gregor Von Rezzori after reading an article about him, Chronicle of Loss, by John de Falbe in Slightly Foxed magazine no. 15. As a book reviewer, it is easy to concentrate on new books to the exclusion of many excellent novels which are fast-fading from public gaze. Unfortunately Gregor von Rezzori’s name is not well-known today but I feel it is important that his books are not forgotten, chronicling as they do that period of flux and turmoil in mid-Europe between the Wars and into the post World War II settlement.
I have now reviewed the four novels by Gregor von Rezzori listed below. These links are followed by some biographical information and critical context.
Biographical and critical information
A true European, Gregor von Rezzori (1914-1998) was born in Czernowitz (now Chernovtsy, Ukraine) towards the end of the Austro Hungarian Empire. His home town was absorbed into the Romanian Kingdom and after World War 1, Rezzori studied in Vienna and other European cities. He settled eventually in Bucharest until 1938 when as a German speaking Romanian he was compelled to move to Berlin. After the war he earned his living as an author, a screen-play writer and an actor moving around Italy, France and the USA, eventually settling in Tuscany.
Gregor von Rezzori’s wife Beatrice Monti della Corter, founded The Santa Maddalena Foundation for Writers and Botanists in Tuscany which was established to “honor the great novelist and memoirist Gregor von Rezzori”. Many well-known writers have taken up resident fellowships of the Foundation as can be seen by the list of Fellows on the Foundation’s website. I enjoyed reading in Granta 107 an article by Mary Gaitskill in which she refers warmly to her visits to Santa Maddalena.
Gregor von Rezzori was primarily a writer of novels. Even where the writing seems to be autobiographical, the reader is never too sure how authentic the memoirs are. In an interview with Bruce Wolmer in 1988, when asked about the conflation between the first-person narrator of his books with himself, von Rezzori replies, “this is such an old discussion: To what extent are books autobiographic? Its ridiculous. You can’t eliminate yourself totally unless you’re Shakespeare”. And yet, in von Rezzori, we find completely authentic voices, whether its “Gregor” in Confessions of an Anti-Semite, or Baron Peter in Oedipus in Stalingrad, von Rezzori’s characters have a convincing, if sometimes unappealing world-view. But Von Rezzori understood these people, he knew where they were coming from, and he was unashamed to tell their stories and felt no need for constant corrective commentary – their words alone are their judge.
Gregor von Rezzori was a deeply reflective writer. He wrote what might be called memoir-based fiction, but he was not just interested in telling stories, but wanted to bring out the meaning behind them. His mind was hugely inventive and the reader gets the impression of someone who could see all points of view and incorporate them into his narratives. He seldom allowed his characters to get away with expressing their prejudices and long-held opinions but always sets them in juxtaposition with someone holding an opposing view, or else shows the absurdity of their statements by setting them in a context of personal decline and ultimate failure.
As a “common reader”, I have greatly enjoyed discovering the works of this remarkable writer. I had never heard of Gregor von Rezzori before reading the article in Slightly Foxed magazine (see above). Most of von Rezzori’s books are now out of print and I have never encountered anyone among my reader friends who has even heard of him, let alone read his books. His current obscurity is shown by the ease in which it is possible to obtain second-hand copies of books. I have found excellent hard-back copies, often first editions, at prices as low as £0.99 on both ebay and Abebooks (as the photograph at the top of this article shows), and I have managed to build up a set of von Rezzori’s main works with very little trouble at all.
I am however convinced that it is only a matter of time before he is rediscovered as a major chronicler of his period.
(c)2010 – Tom Cunliffe, East Sussex, England. Contact details to the top right of this page
