Rating:

Lyrical, Literary, Loathsome, and Lifeless

Author: Francesca Manfredi

Valentia lives in the “blind house,” in rural Italy, growing up with her religious grandmother and her disenchanted, flighty mother. The house is said to be cursed; the women abnormal. The townsfolk stay away, and as her period approaches and she grows from childhood into womanhood, Valentia suspects that the walls weeping blood, the plagues of locust and frogs, and the men who cannot remain are all somehow tied to her. Has the curse come alive again through her emerging womanhood?

The Empire of Dirt is ostensibly a coming-of-age novel, told through the lens of magical realism. The story is a compilation of weird, often cruel vignettes, and more remains in the shadows, somberly hinted at with that literary flair that never delivers. Is the story about this house with these three generations of women, each different than the other and all somehow co-dependent? Maybe. Is it about a young girl discovering her sexuality? Maybe. Is it about a bad mother, an absentee father? Maybe. Is it about weird shit that randomly happens to stoic people who see too much and too little meaning in everything simultaneously? Yep . . . that’s probably it.

The story, despite the fascinating synopsis, is not a story. There are no ties, no answers. Everything is too short, with that terse nod to meaning that indicates that there is no meaning. This is the kind of book you can endlessly deconstruct in a book club, because there is so little substance you can go off on endless rounds of fantasy, guessing what deep thing it might mean. But as far as reading pleasure, there is none. Thankfully, it’s short.

None of the characters are exceptionally well drawn. The grandmother is briefly represented as being strict, perhaps ultra-religious. But this is more interpretation than fact. It’s hard then to see her as such a villain, when she is barely a presence in the story and does little more than pull vegetables from the garden.

Image by Roy Buri from Pixabay

The mother, again, is represented as more changeable, slightly irresponsible, erotic, and almost teenage herself, but again, this is a shifting interpretation based on little fact. In the end, we get a grand confession from the mother that makes little sense, but somewhat ties the three generations of women together, hinting at expectations vs freedom, man vs woman, externalized vs internalized misogyny. At least, maybe. It might all be rubbish that means nothing.

And then there is Valentia, who as a little girl enjoys squeezing trusting frogs to death and then masturbating. How are we expected to like a character, much less empathize with one, with this kind of casual, wanton cruelty? The scene comes early and discolors the rest of the narratives. Valentia talks sensuously about making eye contact with the frogs, promising them that they are safe, and then keeping eye contact as she squeezes them to death. Literary? No. Serial killer level aberration that chills and distances a reader with any sense of empathy and morality? Yes. After this, I was ready to hate Valentia, who never repents and later goes on to bigger “sacrifices” with an Old Testament flair that, again, don’t ever really tie anything together other than a general anti-God sense that pervades the narrative but is never justified or even really explained or examined. Whatever. By now, we’re ready for the characters and the weird, unexplained house with its plagues to just recede into our memories. It’s not going to be a good story, or even one with an ending.

And yes . . . the narrative stays true to that ominous proposal. In the end, it’s a conglomeration of weird, unrelated events, a curse that doesn’t really exist (but kind of might because, supernatural stuff happens), a massive anti-Christian bias, and zero character development or a satisfying conclusion. What we have then is a mess. A cutting room floor of scenes that were never sewn together, with no interpretation, little meaning, and even less impact. Not recommended.

 

– Frances Carden

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Frances Carden
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