‘The Betrothed’ or — That’s Entertainment?

My blood ran cold with terror as I read the opening page to Alessandro Manzoni’s historical novel ‘The Betrothed’. It wasn’t from anything being described in print but the archaic language Manzoni was using, filled with “doths” and “haths” so that I had a headache after only two paragraphs. “How am I going to get through 800 pages of this?” I thought. “Is Manzoni taking the piss?”

Turns out that’s exactly what Manzoni is doing because on the second page of the foreword he obliterates and ridicules this excessively elaborate and antiquated style and starts criticising the author of this “defaced and faded manuscript” for being a terrible writer, a writer who frequently sounds “both gross and affected on the same page, in the same sentence, with the same word.” Of course, Manzoni is not translating an ancient manuscript but writing in the 1820’s a story of his own invention, but based on historical events, that occurs in the 1620/30’s and is reassuring his reader that he will do everything in his power not to bore them rigid.

And he succeeds with flying colours, not only writing a highly entertaining and readable novel but one with a self-knowing and self-deprecating (plus some self-aggrandising) wit. Manzoni frequently interrupts himself to point out some lapse into pomposity or grandiosity and his meta approach to his writing creates a strong atmosphere of collusion between author and reader, as though we are discovering this tale (and commenting on it) together.

Along the way he takes satirical swipes at everything from the Church and religious hypocrisy, politics, the futility of the legal system, the abuse of power and privilege, the idiosyncrasies of the Italian dialects, the greed of commerce and, most savagely, human ignorance and superstition. But it is the story that remains the focus and it is a relatively simple story of two lovers. It goes something like this…

Renzo and Lucia live in a village in the north of Italy near Lake Como. Renzo loves Lucia and Lucia loves Renzo and so they decide to visit Don Abbondio, the parish priest, so he can marry them. Unfortunately the evil Don Rodrigo, a local baron, has designs on Lucia himself and so threatens the cowardly Don Abbondio with all sorts of terrible punishments if he performs the wedding ceremony.

With the help of the wise and benevolent Father Cristoforo a plan is hatched to send Renzo to the safety of a monastery in Milan and whisk Lucia (accompanied by her mother, Agnese) to a convent in Monza. Meanwhile, Don Rodrigo has sent his savage “bravi” out to capture Lucia and bring her to his estate.

Can Renzo reach Milan before terrible events overwhelm him? Will Lucia and Agnese reach Monza before the evil Don Rodrigo’s bravi abduct Lucia and carry her away to a fate worse than death? Read Alessandro Manzoni’s ‘The Betrothed’ and find out!

Needless to say this is only the start of Renzo and Lucia’s adventures and it isn’t until the very end that these two will meet again, IF they get to meet again because many obstacles will be pushed into their way by either history, fate or Manzoni having some fun with these poor lovers in tripping them up. I won’t spoil or reveal too much here, because this book is most certainly worth reading, but here are just a few, brief highlights that I very much enjoyed, even if Lucia and Renzo did not.

1/ Don Rodrigo has His Mates Over.

Despite, or maybe because of, being the villain of this tale it transpires that the evil Don Rodrigo gets some of the best moments, certainly in terms of gut-busting LOLS. The best example of this is the chapter when Don Rodrigo has his cohorts round this his place for their advice on how to snare Lucia and dispose of poor Renzo. His mates consist of Dr. Quibbler (a corrupt lawyer in Don Rodrigo’s pocket), the town’s Mayor (power not justice is the only effective force in these times) and Don Rodrigo’s cousin, the terrible Count Attilio with whom Don Rodrigo had a bet regarding the success of his romantic conquest. These are a bunch of bad and corrupt men but the chapter is hilariously funny as Manzoni lampoons not just their evil characters and diabolical speeches but also their respective positions and standing in society, too. It’s a fantastic piece of writing and very, very funny.

2/ The Nun of Monza.

Humour takes a back-seat for several chapters throughout and the first explicit example of this is when Manzoni tells the sad tale of The Nun of Monza. And a sad and tragic tale it is too concerning a young, spirited girl is forced into a convent against her wishes, wishes that consist of discovering the delights of the flesh for herself. And all this to let her selfish father pass down his fortune intact to one male heir.

What’s interesting is that the Nun of Monza is, apparently, the source of inspiration for the sub-genre of soft-core pornography called Nunspoiltation, a strand of cinema that deals with sexually frustrated women in convents and all the naughty stuff they get up to. Manzoni doesn’t write any soft-core porno scenes (although you can feel the intimations of such activities throbbing discreetly off the page) but he does use the chapter as a savage attack on both the religious and patriarchal domination of women and the dangers of chastity.

This means that the story of the Nun of Monza is quite a sad and mournful one and I genuinely felt moved for her by the chapter’s end. Although I should’ve waited a few more chapters before judging her as her true colours later… well, let’s not say any more.

Either way, the chapter is beautifully capped off and summed up by the ever sensible Agnese with her advice to Lucia that the gentry and those in any form of power are all a little touched in the head and frequently don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.

3/ The Unnamed!

Around 400 pages in we approach the castle of The Unnamed, a man so dastardly, so committed to all forms of sin that his very name must not be written down! This immediately conjures The Unnamed as a terrifying presence in our imaginations as so much is left to our mind to create for ourselves. Add to that the fact that the Unnamed lives in a brooding castle on top of a hill that looms above a terrible valley and it almost makes him feel like a villain from a Disney movie. It’s all extremely evocative.

Again, this is a chapter where the humour drops out as The Unnamed could be the character that undergoes the most important, and certainly the most extreme, character shift. This shift is also very much one of the main ventricles of the heart of this story (dear god, Manzoni would be appalled at my last sentence, and rightly so).

4/ Shit Goes Down in Milan!

I’d known that ‘The Betrothed’ is currently regarded as a prescient work as it deals with a plague that sweeps Italy and yes, the parallels are incredibly resonant to today. But it’s the way Manzoni builds up to the plague, and where he sees the real ultimate danger, that is so fascinating.

It starts with a famine. Crops have failed so people move from the countryside into the city of Milan. The German troops march through Northern Italy, the famine (and the nature of invading military forces) leading them to ransack homes and farms. This army, as armies often did at the time, then spread the plague as they march across the land. The plague hits Milan and obliterates the population and it is here Manzoni reveals what he believes to be the biggest factor for this entire calamity — i.e. human ignorance.

The famine, army and plague were bad enough but it was the failure to close borders, shut city gates and to self-isolate people (sound familiar?) that caused the real damage (the scenes of devastation in the lazaretto where the infected our housed are truly harrowing). Plus, when events get REALLY serious previously rational people lapse into superstition, magic and ignorance which only makes the plague spread to a terrible extent. At one point the Milanese cry out for a religious festival to be staged as an appeal to the Almighty but even the Church knows that holding a mass gathering will only cause the contagion to explode… which it does. ‘The Betrothed’ should have been required reading for every Government in 2020/21.

‘The Betrothed’ is regarded as the most widely read Italian novel and even though it is hated by Italian school children (they are all forced to read it in school) I can understand why. It is accessible, funny, touching, exciting and whenever you might sense Manzoni is over-doing it or dwelling too long on a certain character or event he’ll start criticising himself for being boring, and being boring is the last thing on Manzoni’s mind. And even though it is a novel popular with the Church as the closing message seems to be “trust in God”, I’m not too sure I’m convinced about that as Manzoni almost seems to mentions it in terms of being a handy cliché he can hang his story from. Besides, he’s already taken so many digs at religion that it also feels like an ass-covering exercise. Instead I feel Manzoni’s appeal is more to human rationality, human decency and, most importantly of all, not boring anybody. I can safely say that over the course of 800 pages he didn’t once even come close.

P.S. SPOILERS — My favourite joke in the book.

Okay, so as well as making fun of the historical novel, religion, law, Church etc Manzoni also manages to hilariously subvert the romantic tale itself too with a killer gag in the very final few pages that made me spit out my cappuccino. If you don’t want it ruined then look away now but for those who already know it’s this one –

After everything has been resolved Renzo, Lucia and Agnese decide to move to the neighbouring village so they can leave behind any reminders of all the terrible events in their village. The terrible, yet exciting, adventures of these two lovers have already reached this nearby village so all the townsfolk are desperate to catch a glimpse of Lucia, this beautiful woman that all this fuss was about and for whom Renzo had walked through many horrors to marry. However, this is when poor Renzo’s problems really start because when they arrive at their new home all the villagers take one look at Lucia and, after having built her up in their minds, exclaim “That’s her? That’s what she looks like? We thought she was meant to be beautiful! She’s not exactly ugly as such but, all this over… her?!” So Renzo, Lucia and Agnese all have to move again to some where nobody knows them or their tale and Renzo doesn’t have to put up with all his neighbour’s awful criticisms about his wonderfully normal wife’s looks.

Manzoni then interjects that while he had often described Lucia as pure of heart, kind and beautiful in nature that he had only described her personality but never once described what she looked like. It’s a joke he’d been deliberately sitting on for 800 pages before finally letting it, to quote Nabokov regarding his potato pun in ‘Pale Fire’, “sprout”. But Renzo loves Lucia and loves her with all his heart and that is all that really, truly matters. Besides, a traditionally beautiful woman in a love story? Manzoni has spent 800 pages ripping up tradition so he might as well gleefully tear this one up, too.