The Bay of Noon

Shirley Hazzard's exquisite 1970 novel of tragic relationships among expatriates and Italians in Naples takes a great whole for its plot machinery to go fully into action. But the leisurely spell beforehand where she establishes the nature of the bonds among the English narrator Jenny, her Scottish friend Justin, and her new Italian acquaintances Gioconda and Gianni is important so we understand the sense of loss and realignment later in the work. This novel has such a lovely sense of place and atmosphere that its tranquil rhythms in the first two-thirds make it all the more enjoyable, so we too (like Jenny) fall under the spell of Naples and its storied past. (The city itself is an important character in the novel, as is the dormant Vesuvius under which it lies.) Hazzard's writing at times can become so highly polished and lapidary as to become a bit unreal. Yet this suits the tone of the work (and is much more firmly under under control) than it does that of her next novel, the more celebrated and ambitious--but less accomplished--THE TRANSIT OF VENUS.

This might almost be read as the memoir of a year's stay in Naples eight or nine years after the end of WW2. Twenty-something Jenny, British, but with a youth spent mostly abroad, comes to work at the large NATO base. Unlike her fellow expatriates, she finds herself living in the city itself, and gets to know its unique combination of crumbled history and squalor, all of which is brilliantly described. She gets to know some of its people too, and the narrative interest of the book centers around her friendship with a slightly older writer Gioconda, her film-director lover Gianni, and Jenny's own occasional suitor Justin. Very little happens until towards the end, but there is a palpable atmosphere of wounded but glamorous people living half lives in a city that is itself wounded but alive. As in Hazzard's much more substantial novel THE TRANSIT OF VENUS, this is a story of a young woman learning lessons for life: partly through romance, but more through her growing understanding of other people and of herself. The specifics of what she learns, though, are only subtly touched in, and the reader is required to fill the gaps. Indeed, the most effective part of the book may be its implied ellipses at the end, which leave the reader guessing just as an older Jenny returns to the changed city . . . .

Shirley Hazzard has an original voice. I am aware from some comments that her prose is challenging to some readers but for many others her words flow beautifully; it is the kind of writing that one loves to speak aloud. I had previously read a non-fiction book - Greene On Capri - and that led me to The Bay of Noon. The story is a simple one of people relating to each other. Jenny comes to Naples alone to work at an English mission after the Second World War. She has an introduction to Gioconda, a lovely woman who is a writer and her lover, a film director named Gianni. At her place of work she meets a Scotsman named Justin the three of them become more and more involved with Jenny, and how each changes in their relationships. I must confess that one of the reasons why I selected this book is the setting of Naples. Having visited the city, I particularly enjoyed Ms. Hazzard's descriptions of the streets and buildings of Naples and, of course, the wonderful bay. Chapter seven is particularly evocative of Naples where Jenny relates her growing love of the city. Ms. Hazzard follows the development of Jenny from a girl evacuated to Africa, to a young woman experiencing love for the first time to a mature woman who has acquired wisdom over time. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a writer who weaves a beautiful tapestry of words and delves deeply into the psyche of her characters.

This is a subtle whisper of a book. It is about the eddies and torrents of personal relationships that flow beneath the unreadable surfaces of many people. The Bay of Noon is beautifully observed, wry and sad in equal parts. Set in Naples during the 1960s, it spans love, loss and betrayal but never, ever falls into melodrama. Shirley Hazzard is the most subtle of novelists and I passionately love this slender novel.

I checked this book out of the library simply because Hazzard won the 2003 National Book Award for The Great Fire which I have not read. This is a tightly written short novel with excellent characterization and a complex, slowly evolving plot. The setting, Naples, Italy, in about 1952, is different and mysterious to me. The story said a lot about human nature and the peculiar ways that love and friendship evolve. I recommend it highly.