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.
