Inverness

Eight stories gathered under a single name: Inverness. A place, a state of mind. A insatiably sought-after destination or an invisible restraint. The capital of the Scottish Highlands—with an invernal-sounding name that recalls winter—lends its name to the latest book by Monica Pareschi. One of Italy’s foremost literary voices, a seasoned translator of major English-language writers, this is now her second venture as an author. Inverness is a desire to narrate a journey: literal, in the title story, where two young friends set off on an adventure; and internal, in each of the eight tales, whose protagonists continually find themselves facing their own anxieties. It is a journey into winterness, a term evoking the emotional frost that grips the characters, who are driven by an often ravenous yearning, yet who are invariably paralysed by dread, by the fear of truly encountering the other. This emotional discomfort is frequently expressed through the body, and it becomes a metaphor for what cannot be spoken, or even consciously thought. Pareschi’s characters are by no means introspective; her prose is rooted in reality, revealing rather than reflecting. She renders objects but above all, nature and animals, with great precision. Her vision has something of the slightly off-kilter intensity of the literary tradition of the English-speaking world, whose works she has been translating for over three decades, with a particular focus on Thomas Hardy. We see this in her fascination with natural phenomena and a romantic quality that sublimates a cold and frightening world in her sharp and refined words.

Inverness
Monica Pareschi
Polidoro, 2024