A Man – A Novel – Oriana Fallaci

                        Mythical Man and Love – How to Tell the Truth!

            Oriana Fallaci is a journalist, first and her work and persona seem to be defined by her individualism and her passion.  The book, A Man – A Novel does move away from her non-fiction but is an example of a writer in cross-genre using all of what she knows.

            My admiration for the author does not diminish my close read and critique of this work.

Her characterization of her lover, the illusive and radical political activist, Alexander Panagoulis, inter-connects the politics of the time and her personal beliefs in her writing and activism.

            Myth juxtaposed with truth is a fine line of bearing the facts out with a passionate belief in the man.  This text is both the story of her love, as well as an introspective of the author.

Where does the truth and the fable inter-connect?  As an admirer of Fallaci’s work, I give her latitude in her narrative of both.

            The descriptive passages of the countryside, of their love and passion and the politics actually is not background, but does take on a primary place in the work.  My analysis of the myth/fact theme is also primary.  She takes liberties characterizing Alex in the book, but does not stray from her roots of journalism, journalism of the passionate and active genre.  There is not one sentence in the novel that is not exciting and engaging.  Her use of language is tight, close and skillful.

            The novel reminds the reader that everything matters. There is not a time when an idea or belief should be disregarded or ignored.  The man that she describes, is also a characterization of herself.  I think that her love of him includes self-love and that is not an idea that is repulsive, as she tells her story and his, it is another layer of humanity in the flesh and close up.

            Myth and the idealistic narration of someone who is loved, may be typical when the object of desire and love has died.  The inclination to make bigger, to magnify the qualities that are endearing or that are recalled under the blurred view of a memory is evident in this work.

            This relates to my writing, as the murder in the mystery of my book is based on fact.  The murder victim is also someone who I loved and the challenge is to write about him clearly as he was, not glorify or make him into a mythological ideal.

            Fallaci states, in one narration to her lover, directly, “ Calm down, Alekos.” “As if freedom could be murdered without the consent of the people, without the cowardice of the people!” …Then I wrote you a letter, one of the few we were to exchange from then on.   I was saddened, I wrote, and not so much by the swinish binge, by the sordid little sexual party with which you had spoiled are return full of meaning, unfortunately there would be other binges in your life, more fat whores and thin ones and others neither fat nor thin, but rather I was saddened by what I had heard before you broke off the call.  It showed your thinking had gone for nothing.  Didn’t you already know certain things?”  Fallaci Page 281

            The passage exemplifies her ability to put words in his mouth by her writing to him and the letter being the ‘truth’ of the matter.  For me, as a writer, that letter is self-serving and not reliable.  If he were alive, what would he say to defend his reputation and honor?

            This book is so powerful, that I would like it to be the text for my second short Critique for this Program.  I have read so many themes and writing craft issues are involved that I would like to think about this book and have it considered for my continuation of this review.

Work cited.   Fallaci, Oriana.  A Man – A Novel.  NYC:  Simon & Schuster. 1979.