Italian Myth of Sisyphus: a review of Fenoglio’s ‘A Private Affair’

A Private Affair is a posthumous novel published in 1963 following the journey of an Italian partisan officer, Milton, during World War Two as he seeks to find the truth of his pre-war lover.

His plight begins as he visits the house in which his lover, Fulvia, had lived before the war. Having spent the day patrolling fascist groups in the region, Milton determinately treks up the hill leading to the house, wistfully reminded of the moments he and Fulvia had shared within its grounds; reading poetry underneath the cherry trees, dancing to Over the Rainbow on a sunlit evening, the look in Fulvia’s eyes as she lay in the meadow behind the house. However, upon being greeted by the housekeeper, Milton is told the calamitous news that, during the summer of 1943, Fulvia may have been involved in a sexual relationship with Milton’s best friend, Giorgio.

The novel, then, turns towards Milton’s struggle for the truth.

The novel, then, turns towards Milton’s struggle for the truth. As he searches for Giorgio, also a partisan officer based in Northern Italy, in order to question him, he discovers that Giorgio was, only a day ago, captured by the Fascists. Milton thus takes it upon himself to find a Fascist prisoner in the region who can be exchanged for Giorgio.

His endeavour to find a Fascist prisoner, and, hence, the truth of Fulvia and Giorgio’s relationship, leads Milton to a cross-country expedition in which he struggles against Fascist battalions, wretched weather, and the bitterness of war. As he finds himself in circumstances where a cowshed is the most comfortable place to spend the night, and an egg is the most substantial meal he eats in days, the war becomes a secondary affair to him, overshadowed by his ceaseless striving for the truth. In this way, A Private Affair reflects Camus’ Myth of Sisyphus as both Sisyphus and Milton attempt to revolt against the absurdism of their existence through the perpetual tasks that they each take up.

“He lit a cigarette. How long was it since he had last lit a cigarette for Fulvia? Yes, it was worth swimming across the dreadful ocean of war even if all he did when he got to the other side was light a cigarette for Fulvia.”

Human life becomes meaningless, a pawn in the deadly game of chess played by the leaders and operators of the war.

Fenoglio conveys an air of absurdism throughout A Private Affair. War between fascist and partisan becomes a more fundamental battle between man and nature, where a man’s life is meaningless unless attached to a uniform and a greater idea. Men’s lives become commodities to be exchanged with one another; one captured fascist officer is worth one captured partisan officer, yet one captured fascist sergeant is worth the lives of three partisan officers. Casualties within battle are no longer people to be mourned and grieved for, but rather, numbers to be celebrated by one side and replaced by the other. Human life becomes meaningless, a pawn in the deadly game of chess played by the leaders and operators of the war. In this manner, fascism becomes an enemy of life for Milton, rather than an ideological enemy. It becomes the embodiment of dreadful wartime food, of exhaustion, of a dog barking when one is trying to sleep, of the mud encasing a hillside up which one is trying to climb. Fenoglio’s lyrical prose, with its well-considered characters and its symbolism, pays homage to this idea, especially with the way in which it uses the formidable weather to represent the absurdism of human existence.

“As a partisan prisoner awaiting execution says to his cellmate in “Another Wall,” “Do you feel like dying for an idea? I don’t. And anyway, which idea? If you look inside yourself, can you find the idea? I can’t. And neither can you.” – Howard Curtis

It is within this absurdist existence that Milton bases his life’s meaning on the struggle for truth. The idea of Fulvia’s love becomes everything to him: he sees the gold specks of her eyes in fog-filled plains, the hills in which his division is stationed are “the natural theatre for his love,” and he becomes physically pained by the idea that this love may have been betrayed by his best friend. Although A Private Affair is far from being a classical tale of picturesque wartime love, Fenoglio’s depiction of Milton’s love towards Fulvia is humane and very touching, and part of the novel’s appeal.

The dreamlike atmosphere and the wonderful use of metaphors meant I was absolutely taken with this novel right away.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading A Private Affair and would recommend it to any literature enjoyer. Through the depiction of the experience of an Italian partisan officer in World War Two, a wide range of themes are encompassed which prove to be effective in immersing the reader into the story and making them really feel deeply. Fenoglio’s writing is something to be truly admired as well; the dreamlike atmosphere and the wonderful use of metaphors meant I was absolutely taken with this novel right away.