In this tender, dramatic novel, Sandra Sabatini explores the cost of war on the ordinary people who fought on different fronts: in the vast wasteland of North Africa, and in the green hills of Nazi-occupied Italy. Dante and Angelina, two young lovers who meet on the eve of Dante?s deployment to North Africa, fight to survive the Second World War. While Dante becomes an accomplished mechanic, working on German fighter planes, Angelina contends with the presence of German soldiers in her own small town, and the evil that they introduce into her world. Apart, they must both find the strength to endure, and to stay alive in order to find each other again.
Praise for The Dolphins at Sainte-Marie:
?A wonderful collection. Sabatini?s stories are superbly crafted, her characters vivid, their lives ultra-present and felt. Here are the fresh, piercing hurts and fast hardening revelations of growing up.? ?Lisa Moore, Giller-prize finalist for Open and Alligator
?It?s all here: an empathy with characters?a sly sense of humour?a sharp eye for the minutiae.??The Montreal Gazette
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Quill & Quire
In Dante’s War, Sandra Sabatini portrays fascist Italy through the lives of two young Italians: Dante becomes a soldier in the Second World War, while Angelina works on her family’s farm in a rural village. They meet briefly in Rome just before Dante is deployed, and begin an epistolary romance. Sabatini, whose research and attention to detail suffuse her writing, is strongest when crafting symbolic, affecting vignettes, which dramatize both the domestic and military experience of the era. In describing a mischievous and dangerous sortie Dante makes in a rickety plane, or Angelina’s indulgence in buying a cake to eat on the train, she vividly captures their personalities and the social realm each inhabits. The influence of Dante’s Inferno is evinced in the eponymous protagonist’s ideation and adoration of Angelina, and the way his love sustains him through various military postings, as well as in the allegorical nature of certain secondary characters and events. Evocative as these devices may be, however, they don’t always fit neatly in the larger arc of the novel. The quality of Sabatini’s writing is also inconsistent. Dante and Angelina’s initial meeting is true to their characters and situation, but the romantic expressions that ensue are mawkish: “His words had filled her. She did not know she had been empty.” Unfortunately, the book’s final, unnecessary chapter is filled with such writing. Sabatini also has a problem integrating historic detail into her story. While she can effectively drop major events into dialogue, as when the local priest brings tragic news of a massacre of 300 Italians to “atone” for the death of 30 German soldiers, she just as frequently writes in characters whose sole purpose is to tediously explain various arcane military strategies. Sabatini is a good writer, with a real gift for creating simple yet emotionally powerful scenes, but her stylistic weaknesses are too often distracting.
Review
"A wonderful collection. Sabatini's stories are superbly crafted, her characters vivid, their lives ultra-present and felt. Here are the fresh, piercing hurts and fast hardening revelations of growing up." -- Lisa Moore, award-winning author of Alligator (on The Dolphins of Sainte-Marie)
"Dante's War is beautifully crafted and written. What I admire about it most is that Sandra Sabatini understands how things work: fearsome machines and weapons of war, national governments and small towns, and-most impressively-the human heart." -- Paul Quarrington, award-winning author of The Ravine and King Leary
"During a bitter war, a sweet love story. . . Sabatini is a magician who makes innocence and experience coexist." -- Annabel Lyon, author of The Best Thing for You (on Dante's War)
"This book shines best, and often fascinates, in its unsparing portraits of those who must witness and try to ease a terrible descent." -- The Globe and Mail (on The One With the News)
"This is a writer to watch." -- Quill & Quire (starred review, The Dolphins of Sainte-Marie)
"Dante's War is beautifully crafted and written. What I admire about it most is that Sandra Sabatini understands how things work: fearsome machines and weapons of war, national governments and small towns, and-most impressively-the human heart." -- Paul Quarrington, award-winning author of The Ravine and King Leary
"During a bitter war, a sweet love story. . . Sabatini is a magician who makes innocence and experience coexist." -- Annabel Lyon, author of The Best Thing for You (on Dante's War)
"This book shines best, and often fascinates, in its unsparing portraits of those who must witness and try to ease a terrible descent." -- The Globe and Mail (on The One With the News)
"This is a writer to watch." -- Quill & Quire (starred review, The Dolphins of Sainte-Marie)
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Customer Reviews
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By WEARE138
I bought this book dirt-cheap from the Coles book store at Dixie Outlet Mall in Mississauga. Sorry to see those people lose their jobs. The store closed on Saturday. I bought this book just a few days prior. I bought it 'cause I'm a war buff, I noticed the three-engined bomber typical of Italian aircraft design before and during the Second World War. (As a youngster, I'd rhyme off what aircraft it was just by looking at it. Aermacchi and the like...?) My grandfather died at The Battle of El Alamein and is buried in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. So at the very least, I have some idea of what happened in North Africa during those times? I started to read it but I'm stumped with Dante discovering that young English aviator named George who died during the fighting in North Africa in the desert heat after being ejected from his Spitfire after brilliant piloting of crash-landing a wounded aircraft...and diesel leaking out of the aircraft's tanks? How does that work? Does anyone proof-read this stuff? I thought those engines ran on aviation fuel with the higher the octane the better? The higher the lead in the fuel, the more power those tremendous little machines made? Diesel? What was he flying - a Staples delivery truck?
I loved, loved, loved this book. From the first words in the Prologue, I was in for the ride. Conflicted at having to put it down and yet wanting to stretch the story out as long as possible because I didn't want it to end. But I wanted to know the ending. Dante and Angelina were so believable from their chance meeting in Rome to the hope they provided each other during their war separated love. I found myself spreading out my atlas to determine how far geographically they were from each other. I was even engaged by Ms. Sabatini's detailed descriptions of aircraft mechanics and found myself strangely wanting to know more. The loyal friendship between Dante and Sabino was heartening. I laughed aloud at their adventures in the Banana and their treasure. The author's ability to describe the most basic of functions put me right on the page with the characters. I could taste and smell the story as it was being told. I loved the history that was retold of the Second World War combined with Dante and Angelina's love story, the loyalty between Dante and Sabino, the bonds of family and the stick togetherness of Angelina's village of San Placido. I cannot wait to read Sandra Sabatini's next novel. Please tell her to get writing!
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