The Betrothed

An unbeliever reads a canonical religious novel

Alessandro Manzoni’s The Betrothed, published in its final form in 1842, is the foundational Italian novel, has the rare distinction of being a work that standardized a language, is assigned reading in the writer’s native country, and I’ve barely ever heard anyone mention it. Michael F. Moore’s translation, from 2022, was the first in English in about 50 years. In his introduction, he speculates about the reasons behind this neglect: It’s long, over 600 pages. And it’s religious, which I was unaware of when I chose to give it a go. Sounds right to me. Every canonical 19th century writer who remains relatively popular in English that I can think of has estimable books of an approachable length that aren’t nearly so steeped in religion as this one is. As a boy I was baptized as a Catholic and, in my early years, taken to church. I’ve never been more bored in my life. One Sunday, my mother came downstairs and asked us if we were going to get ready to attend services. My father, brothers, and I exchanged looks. And we never joined her again. Lapsed, to say the least. As an adult I made it official, deciding I was an unbeliever, an atheist with anti-theist sympathies, stoked further in recent years by the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Narendra Modi and the BJP, the Taliban. A stout democracy, the best system we’ve got until something better comes along that hasn’t already been discredited by accurate history or the daily reports on today’s various antidemocratic regimes, is one that’s, among other things, secular. (Otherwise: consider the above examples, to start with.) This year I read a piece by Joy Williams in Harper’s in which she says, without support, that people who aren’t believers are “timid and middling.” Rather than recapitulate the many arguments against it I’ve picked up through the years, none of which, as far as I can tell, evince those qualities, I simply thought: I don’t feel the presence of god. I feel no void that god might fill. And I can’t bring myself to spend time I don’t have forcing the issue. (Yet I don’t see the need to make a sweeping generalization about the personal attributes of the believer.) Frankly, had I known The Betrothed would be so religious, it’s possible I would have put off reading it for another time, thinking it would have more appeal to an observant Catholic. Soon after I started, however, I became absorbed.

Renzo and Lucia, two young peasants from an unnamed village circa 1628, are on the verge of getting married. Don Rodrigo, a noble with a gang of thugs at his disposal and no fear of the law, decides he wants Lucia for himself, to do with as he pleases. He sends his men to intercept the priest who’s scheduled to marry them, Don Abbondio, and threaten him to put off the wedding indefinitely. Don Abbondio cravenly complies, pretending to take ill. From then on, the obstacles to (holy) matrimony keep coming. In telling this story, Manzoni’s reach extends to every rung of society. Men and women, rich and poor, devout or not all get their say. He roves from backwater to big city. He alternates fluidly between distance, providing the reader with relevant history of the period, and closer study of the travails of his characters’s lives, with a sense of comedy or tragedy, as the situation demands. Working on such a large scale, one would expect superfluous material, loose ends, some difficulty keeping names straight. But the novel is remarkably controlled too: the plot is easy to follow and digressions are purposeful and kept to a minimum. No doubt this is a result of the additional time the writer spent tweaking it and also, I’d argue, a measure of self-consciousness. Wherever a structural flaw may appear, such as during stretches to cover background information, the narrator interjects to comment on the flaw, to demonstrate his awareness of it and reassure the reader that there’s a point or that we’ll be returning to the main story shortly. Sit tight.

Nevertheless, some flaws do escape Manzoni’s notice. For instance, given the title of the book, one would think the love story would be imbued with more feeling. But Renzo and Lucia are missing an element of personality, the strange and unpredictable side of the self, which is almost entirely reserved for minor characters and always manifests as a quirk to poke fun at in a few rather than accept as discernible in all. So they’re more like peasant types and no scene strongly establishes their particular connection. The delayed marriage’s primary function, then, is to set the book in motion. Real potency lies in the way Manzoni acutely shows people coming to religion and struggling with the word of god. My favorite character, Fra Cristoforo, humble saintly figure with humble lifestyle, tirelessly dedicated to protecting the poor, is the subject of one of the book’s best sections. In his youth, he gets into a dispute with a nobleman over who should move aside for whom on the sidewalk. A fight breaks out. One of the men he’s closest to gets mortally wounded defending him and he, in turn, mortally wounds the nobleman. The young man, shaken by both deaths, vows to give his life over to the church, adopting the name of his fallen comrade, Cristoforo. His first act is to visit the nobleman’s family and beg for their forgiveness. Back then, some donned the cloth to escape justice, so he enters their home under suspicion. But Cristoforo’s act of abasement, the sincerity of his guilt, moves them, dissipating the family’s bloodthirstiness. Fra Cristoforo discovers his path and starts off by ending the cycle of violence. I didn’t need to be further convinced of his piety or legendary status in the community.

The Betrothed may be labeled as a historical novel but I think Manzoni does something that’s more interesting: it’s a meta-historical novel. He never lets the reader forget that his story derives from particular sources. And he comments on those sources, from the authoritative to the speculative (he suspects that Renzo is chiefly responsible for preserving his own story). He’s even openly skeptical of his approach: “Well, what exactly he did no one knows, since he was alone, and history can only guess. A practice, luckily, to which history is accustomed.” It would lead Manzoni, finally, to reject his masterwork. Not that it seems to have hurt its reputation. Manzoni doesn’t try to transport the reader to another time and still manages to incorporate history to expand the novel’s scope. He provides the text of the law and contrasts it with how infrequently it’s upheld in practice, especially on behalf of the poor. He delineates government policy, such as that which leads to a famine, and, with exasperation, the illogic of the masses and the reckless decisions made to appease them. (Here, the future politician speaks up, and one that is perhaps not a fierce proponent of democracy.)

And he shows the calamitous effect of the plague on society at large. I don’t recall the Betrothed mentioned in any list of books to read to understand our recent pandemic but it does offer a discomfiting lesson: 400 years later, hardly anything changed. Public health experts attempt to warn about the dangers of the disease. The people respond initially with “dumb and deadly confidence.” Then it starts to kill off whole families and panic spreads. The experts take measures to contain the spread of disease. The people resist. Meanwhile, superstition and conspiracy theory lead to misguided fear and senseless acts of violence against imagined perpetrators. Experts are threatened and forced to act based on whatever seems to mollify the public: “Good sense did indeed exist, but it stayed hidden for fear of common sense.” As a result, scores of people die. This resembles what occurred in countries like the US and Manzoni sides with those in power (even as he compassionately describes suffering and death). Ian Johnson, however, writing about the Chinese government’s response to the pandemic in his recent book Sparks, emphasizes the abuses of those in power: from detaining an apolitical ophthalmologist for warning his friends about a disease going around and forcing him to sign a statement that doing so is illegal to harsh lockdown measures once the government decided to publicly acknowledge the danger and persecution of those who eventually protested against them. I’m not confident that the ideal balance between responsiveness and decisiveness will be struck next time. Despite advances in medicine and technology, Manzoni’s book is an early example of what we already know can easily happen to us in the same situation: chaos.

A difference: Back then, they didn’t have healthcare workers dealing with the worst cases. They had priests who, in Manzoni’s telling, risk their lives to serve others. A heroic act, one of many they perform—so many that I’m prompted to ask: Is the novel religious propaganda? It takes place within a context of religious belief, where it’s an unquestioned good. But the church has its gray shades, seen in authority figures who don’t exemplify the highest virtues: Don Abbondio, the Signora. Even Renzo has to be guided back from conduct that’s unworthy of his religion to meet Fra Cristoforo’s approval. Although Cardinal Borromeo, another legendary figure, is revered by the narrator even after noting that he would go on to endorse burning “witches” at the stake. Manzoni’s defense: nobody’s perfect.

I look forward to the day The Betrothed becomes a permanent part of my library. For its aesthetic merits.

Well, That's It For "Weird"

On switching to "eldritch" this election season

Two writers, Jessica Bennett of the New York Times and Scaachi Koul of Slate, express approval for Democrats finally going "low" and hurling insults at their opponents. They hope that the trend continues. And they especially enjoy the unrestrained use of “weird,” in the pejorative sense. For a few reasons, I don’t share their enjoyment.

The most obvious is that, in their enthusiasm, they use the word so much that I'm already sick of it. Here’s Bennett:

Weird and creepy. Simple, gut-punching words. Not a threat to democracy or a menace to the “soul of America,” not even “dangerous.” Nope, in the progressive vernacular of the moment, Mr. Trump and his party are just a bunch of weirdos, making weird policy proposals, weird comments about women, weird fashion choices and weirder shoe choices and promoting even weirder conspiracies. And of course, as any sixth grader who’s been called weird — or worse, “creepy” — by his peers knows, good luck trying to argue your way out.

I cringe at the thought of how many times we’ll hear it leading up to election day, with inordinate self-satisfaction despite the manifest unoriginality and schoolyard source. Unless it’s murdered by overuse before then. A sorry fate for a noble and versatile word.

Bennett recites all the crude insults rightwingers have been hurling for years ("snowflake," "cuck," etc.). I don’t recall my feelings ever having been hurt even slightly by them. Still, they mean to be insulting so it would only be fair to send insults right back at them. I endorse the use of insults, when appropriate. In such situations, though, one would prefer not to resort to: "I know you are but what am I?" That is, one should aim for a higher grade of insult: clever, cutting. "Weird" is not that insult. Nor is another word both writers approve of, "creepy." They're common and already brandished frequently by those who don't know more than 100. If you’re punched in the gut by words like these into adulthood, your short time on Earth will be miserable. Someone who, for instance, is quiet, not sociable enough for others can expect to hear whispers (or shouts) of "weird" and "creepy." (So I’ve heard.) Someone who dresses eccentrically can expect the same. Someone who deviates from the norm in any way, really, can expect the same. As insults, they're about as meaningful and carefully deployed as "asshole" or "retard," two other schoolyard classics for the unlettered. A limited vocabulary fosters inaccuracy. Koul, for instance, describes JD Vance, the perfect foolish Trump running mate, and his attacks on no-fault divorce as "weird." Can’t say that does justice to how revolting and wildly irresponsible it is to suggest that women should be forced to stay with a violent partner.

Koul and Bennett both subscribe to a binary I reject, at least as they frame it. To remain "high," one is required to endure insults with stoic silence or earnest pleas to keep it respectful. But who keeps it respectful in this hostile world? In my experience, insults can and will fly casually anywhere, anytime, unprovoked: grocery stores, bus rides, weddings, restaurants, classrooms, medical care facilities, on the road, in your neighborhood, in your driveway. Anyone who does a customer service job has a chance of getting verbally assaulted while assisting someone. Then there's the internet: when the insults aren't direct, indirect insults will come barely concealed in the form of innuendos, trolling, gaslighting. In such circumstances, what the writers and others consider "low," responding with harsh or derisive language (or, I’d add, considered nonverbal acts of rudeness), is a legitimate form of self-defense. I’m not going to subtract points or assign a technical foul simply for going there, especially when we’re so often there already. When I think of times I’ve chosen the disputable “high” option, it was either because I was caught off guard or because sometimes it feels dirty and wasteful to respond to every single fool who comes along. (Although it may be too much to hope that they’ll even vaguely sense the truth: that they’re beneath response.) I’m also cool with insults when the ideas proposed are abhorrent and sure to cause unnecessary pain to others. Which means, in some instances, one has no right to complain when the insults are returned. The real low, then, is throwing around witless, unjust, and/or ill-timed insults. (As long as I’m defining the boundaries, using chicanery, intimidation, or literal bloodshed to settle the argument is so low as to be disqualifying.)

Koul goes so far as to insist that Trump is “funny.” The first words I think of to describe Trump are: Rapist (or, if the right would prefer, “sexual assaulter”). Traitor. Twice-impeached felon. Business genius with multiple bankruptcies who didn’t get anywhere without daddy’s money and influence. Fan of dictators who, with help from the rightwing Supreme Court, threatens to be a dictator. And, as a recent appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists convention proved once more, a racist and a moron. There’s a lifetime’s worth of insults in this brief summary. But, as Trump admitted to those journalists, all it takes to offend him are the facts.