"Flush", Virginia Woolf:

E' il primo romanzo che leggo di Virginia Woolf. 

Ad essere sincera ho letto l'adattamento del libro per chi, come me, ha conseguito e mantiene il livello upper-intermediate (B2).

Flush è una storia che narra in modo romanzato, attraverso gli occhi di un animale domestico, la giovinezza e la vita coniugale di Elizabeth Barrett Browning, poetessa londinese del XIX° secolo. 

Non bisogna tuttavia dimenticare che questo libro racchiude anche l'intera vita di un cane, dalla nascita alla morte.

Questo è un post particolare visto che i contenuti da me esposti saranno in inglese.

Questa recensione, di stile piuttosto semplice, è basata soprattutto sulle due figure principali: il cane Flush ed Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

1) FLUSH:

Flush had a beautiful, thick dark reddish-brown coat with flashes of gold. His eyes were bright and shiny with a touch of green. His ears were long and soft and his feet were covered in fur like tiny shoes of the softest material. If we know nothing else about Flush, one thing was certain- he was an excellent example of his breed.

During his first three years he was a free and indipendent dog because he could run in the fields of Three Miles Cross, a village where Miss Mitford, who was his first mistress, used to live.

Flush was still very young when he became the father of a litter of puppies.

But when Miss Mitford gave her dog to Miss Barrett, a young lady who lived in London, Flush soon became a domestic dog, so he got used to walking on a lead, loyal to his new mistress and also a sincere friend to her:

Flush felt like he and Miss Barrett lived in a cave that was only rarely discovered by others. As months passed, he started to like their cave. Some days, he desperately wanted to go outside and run in the open air, yet he felt somehow like he could not leave his mistress'side.

When Elizabeth knew and fell in love with Robert Browning, Flush became jealous like a kid:

One night, when Mr Browning was about to sit down as usual in the armchair, he ran towards him and attacked him angrily. Mr Browning looked at Flush in surprise. Then he pushed him away with his arm.

Before Elizabeth and Robert's wedding, Flush was kidnapped by Mr Taylor and he was carried so at Whitechapel's Street, in a dark room with many other animals. Here he felt uncomfortable, sad and abandoned. Miss Barrett, very worried about Flush, met both Mr Taylor's wife and Mr Taylor to make him free. She succeeded in it without support by her family.

After their marriage, the Brownings left London to move to Italy. They chose to live in Florence where their child was born. Flush grew fond of the child, he seemed his caretaker:

From the carriage seat, Flush dozed sleepily. He lifted one eye open. He looked at the baby sat opposite him on Wilson's knee.

2) MRS BROWNING:

Surely she changes a lot because of Flush during the story. When she first knew the dog she was lonely, tired and confined: in fact her father was a sort of domestic tyrant who didn't care about her daughter's happiness. At the beginning of the story Elizabeth suffered of a mysterious illness. 

But after having married and after having relocated in Italy, she appeared healthy, happy and also grateful towards Flush.

Can an animal help a human live a different life?

3) MAIN THEMES:

-Wealth vs health: At the beginning of the novel, Miss Barrett was wealthy but unhappy and she hadn't a good health. 

-Loyalty and friendship: loyalty is a support that you always give to someone or something, instead friendship is a relationship that implies people pleasant and helpful between each other.

-Problems between rich and poor neighbourhoods: rich people prefer not to see poverty, dirt and corruption. They are glad to live a wealthy life and usually don't care about charity. On the other side, poor people are not cultured or well-educated so they should be helped by rich people.

-Difficult relationship between father and daughters because of the lack of talks and listening. In fact Mr Barrett wants to impose himself on Elizabeth because he is an authoritarian man, not sensitive and not interested in how his daughter fells or desires from life (Elizabeth keeps her romance relationship and her engagement with Robert Browning secret to her father).

-The importance of love that can changes people's moods and lives: in this book there is different types of love: there is both affection for animals and love between bride and groom.

- Countryside and towns and the effects of these places on dog's life: dogs are not like cats. Dogs are loyal and faithful, cats are free and indipendent. I think it is this different attitude to make dogs more easygoing. In countryside dogs can feel themselves free, in a city they easily get used to a citizen life that entails to be lead by a leash.