The Cold, Cold Spring: Romano Bilenchi's The Chill

“The chill of suspicion and incomprehension came between me and humankind when I was sixteen, at the time of my high-school exams.”

-Romano Bilenchi, The Chill

I had not read Bilenchi before Europa Editions did their thing and brought him into the English speaking world. In my first reading I was struck by how accurately described the emotions of the protagonist are described. After a second reading, made last night amidst the remaining fumes of a Sunday hangover, I was struck by something else.

Namely how entirely accessible the entire novel is.

So let's get to it. I'm trying to do right by you all on this overcast Pennsylvania Monday.


The Chill by Romano Bilenchi. Translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein. Europa Editions. Fiction. Trade Paperback. $15.

"Sometime later, on a Sunday, I saw Rosa arm in arm with her fiance: they were walking along a shady street parallel to Via dei Tre Mori, one of those favored by young couples who, segregated from the larger public, compared their looks and their clothes. The man seemed even stronger and taller: Rosa, still a fragile child, awkward, her narrow shoulders squared and bent forward, had lost the customary movements that often gave her an air of assurance and ease and grace. Maybe she, too, was gripped by the chill that was blocking me."

This is a coming of age story, as I pointed out in my review of it for the Phoenix a month ago. The awkward journey of youth into adulthood is one that has been a popular one for authors for a long time. In fact, as I said in the review, even a book like Robinson Crusoe, which was one of the first complete English novels, can be viewed as a coming-of-age story. Complete with paternal defiance.

As more niche publishers work with out-of-print or neglected titles we are finding a more unified vision of the twentieth century and man in general. Bilenchi's coming-of-age tale ranks higher in my estimation than that of writers we are more familiar with telling such stories. I am thinking of Salinger (Catcher In The Rye), Roth (Portnoy's Complaint) or Updike (The Centaur), all of which are exceptional works, with perhaps Roth's coming in last. The difference is in Bilenchi's universal concern of emotional alienation and perception frozen by confusion over the changing meanings of life's smallest encounters. This elevates his novel past specificity and into the more difficult to control land of "everyone's experience."

Whether man or woman, the reader will remember the distilled awkwardness of those moments, and we all had them, when we were between child and adult. The protagonist of Bilenchi's novel may be a young man, with the particular concerns that young men have, but by placing a healthy level of emotional intelligence in his protagonist, Bilenchi allows him to feel like everyone and sympathize with others, including teenage girls.

Something the trio above may not have ever achieved.

This of course makes it more intrinsic than Roth's sexually concerned novels, or Updike and Salinger's success driven youths. In my mind, there is no better book to demonstrate the ironically solidifying confusion of youth ascendant into adult.

You can read more about the milieu and history of Bilechi in my article written for the Phoenix. I recommend you go to your local independent bookstore and procure a copy of The Chill. Make them order it if they don't have it. A novel this good needs all the readers it can get.