A book a day: Edmund White: A previous life

Original title: A previous life

Translation: Ariel Schettini

Year of publication: 2022

Valuation: recommendable

Edmund White has been playful. Thus, in chapter I he places us in the year 2050 and makes us think of a dystopia (or a utopia, we always go for the bad side, damn it) that turns out not to be such; on page 13 Edmund White himself appears as a character in the novel and makes us think of meta-literary games and various modernities that appear, yes, but do not occupy a primary place in the text, etc. But all of the above are no more than winks to the reader and do not hide the fact that A previous life It is a novel that is, at its core, classic.

The main theme here is love and desire, although there are many ramifications that this allows for. For example, (in)security, self-perception, the desire for stability and the longing for adventure, beauty, etc.

To do this, the author uses a double confessional narrative. On the one hand, there is Ruggero, an egocentric and insecure aristocrat of Sicilian origin and a 70-year-old professional harpsichordist; on the other, there is Constance, a woman of about 40 who forms a “strange couple” with Ruggero who recalls their romantic past, in which Edmund White plays a fundamental role. And here comes pure narration, letters, emails, etc.

This double aspect allows the author to write two very different “subnovels”: one with echoes of Bearn or the Leopard, with that decadent aristocracy more interested in hedonistic pleasures than in harsh realities, and another very, very American. Personally, I prefer the atmosphere conveyed by Ruggero’s narration, although the conjunction of both works.

But in both there is sex (a lot) and in all the possible “variations”. And here I think White does it very well. There may be scenes or passages in which “he recreates” himself, but generally the sexual scenes are not “gratuitous” within the plot and, above all, they are completely credible. I think that writing well about sex (and let’s not even mention having good sex, otherwise we’ll get into a hell of a mess) It is something very complicated and White resolves it in a more than satisfactory way.

Perhaps the final part of the novel, which breaks with the previous confessional tone and focuses on the outside view of the relationship between Ruggero and Edmund White, is the weakest of the whole. I can understand the point of it, offering “the other side of the mirror”, but I don’t know if it was really necessary. I prefer to stick with what the protagonists tell in the first person and make my own guesses about what could or could not have happened, what may be true and what may not.

Despite this slight final slump, A previous life It is a highly recommended novel, both for its investigation into the mechanisms of love, sex and desire, and for the various layers and detours that it follows in this investigation.