Customer Reviews

A Woman

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A very personal account of what it is like to be an Italian woman during the fin de siecle. During this political and socio-economic climate, you have a woman writing a book exploring feminism. This book is also a justifcation for leaving her rapist husband and adoring son to have a life to live. The following passage best summarizes her dilemma in terms of a woman being a 'human individual:' 'but how could she possibly become an individual if her parents handed her over, ignorant, weak, and immature, to a man unable to accept her as an equal, a man who treated her like a piece of property....' An important and controversial book still relevant to our post-modern times.

This well-written translation introduces a complex theme without being reductive or pretentious and without moralizing. The style is lucid and direct, and there are many moments throughout that are staggering by virtue of their incisiveness and content. Though by no means "escapist reading", A Woman is a pleasure to read, both for the spare elegance of the writing and the nuances of human experience it depicts. Its characters are human, not archetypes, and, like life, the story is inspired and apalling by turns. This book is now among my favorites.

I've read this book partly in Italian and in English. It, honestly, changed my life. It enabled me to see the error in selflessness. Selflessness means without self and Sibilla demonstrates without question the insanity of trying to live a selfless existence.