Enchantments

Linda Ferri

Enchantments is a very small, quite lovely little novel that doesn't really seem to be about much of anything until you get to the very end. Thus, it's impossible to tell you what the book is about without ruining it in some way. Just trust me, it really is about something. Kind of.

Enchantments is an impressionist treat, twenty-five small still-lifes that together give us the coming of age of a privileged Italian girl. The girl herself is not all that likeable, when it comes right down to it; she's self-absorbed, mean, and uncommunicative in the extreme. But we're not here to admire the would-be heroine, we're here to admire the scenery. And what scenery it is.

Ferri paints her scenes here with all the subtlety of the truly observant (which is what really gives this away as fiction, not memoir; the narrator couldn't possibly be observant enough to pick up all the lush detail to be found here) and all the mastery of the fictional painter who did a portrait for some guy named Dorian Gray. Everything is ripe, except for those parts that look as if they've already gone over the edge and slipped into decay. There are never enough decayed bits to overwhelm the painting; the flies haven't started buzzing yet, but you can always feel them quivering under the skin of whatever fruit you imagine when you think of the term "still life." It's the interplay between beauty and decay that truly charms the reader here, and charming it is. It's small, readable, and, well, enchanting.