Victor Fenech: Ix-Xitwa ta’ Wara s-Sjuf, Horizons Publications, 2010.
Ix-Xitwa ta’ Wara s-Sjuf, which can be loosely translated as ‘The winter that follows the summers’, is Victor Fenech’s first published novel, though not his first prose writing.
A published poet and one of the foremost poets in the Moviment Qawmien Letterarju formed in the 1960s, he is one of the few to have continued with a steady poetic production.
His decision to turn to the novel is not, however, surprising since he has for a long time been writing children’s stories. In recent years, he has signaled to move to prose, even declaring his most recent poetry book his last.
Ix-Xitwa ta’ Wara s-Sjuf revolves around four friends, and is told by a fifth character, the narrator, named Q. Q is a writer committed to his writing above all else, which he sees as a ‘vocation’, a ‘mission’ and a ‘religion’. He is a solitary man living at the service of literature.
Knowing Fenech well, Q is a reflection of how the author envisages himself had his own life turned out differently. He says about Q in his introduction that “notwithstanding certain resemblances he is not the actual writer of the book”.
Even if it is not autobiographical, the narrative is about his world – his times and the thoughts Q expresses on a variety of subjects are clearly his.
Q’s quotation from a published interview with Graham Greene reveals an outlook on life and literature that finds its reflection with the ending of the novel: “What’s writing? A way of escape… Escaping what? Boredom. Death.”
The irony with Q, in fact, is that he comes to realise that no form of escape is possible. Q is, in the final analysis, the true protagonist of the story. He has a shadowy partner, Vanessa, with whom he has a loose relationship that allows him as much time to write as he wants but she is a secondary character.
The story opens with Q’s introduction to a group of friends by Marco, a mutual friend, at a barbecue at Golden Bay in the summer of 1997. They are middle-aged family men.
It ends with a postscript where we find him sitting on a rock alone before the sea, having lost both her and his friends. Q reflects on his solitude, his sense of existential emptiness, his feeling that he is also nearing the end of his days.
The four, Arthur, Tonio, Marco and Maurice, had become close friends back in their youth in the mid-1960s in Buġibba, where their families went for their summer holidays.
There is a certain distance between Q and the four friends. He clearly doesn’t enjoy their bantering and none share his literary vocation, his cultural interests and his taste for ‘deep’ discussion, except Arthur occasionally.
The novel is set in three time-frames: childhood, the 1960s (where the narrative develops) and the first decade of the 21st century. Fenech jumps from one time-frame to another and provides commentary on art and culture, including hot topics such as Renzo Piano’s recent plans for the new opera house.