Family Lexicon

which was vulgar and ‘incorrect

Ginzburg’s book is written in an extremely colloquial Italian, something quite unusual in the

Parental and fraternal conflicts over

my siblings and I were to find ourselves in a dark cave or among millions of people, just one of those phrases or words would immediately allow us to recognise each other

a core group of anecdotes and speech tics are established

understanding that the pair are inseparable

The only things intensely evoked are the relationships between the family members who were also, of course, among the first readers of the book. ‘I hope you are not going to bring dishonour on our family,’ her father wrote to her when he heard of her project

Essentially, she says nothing about fascism, the resistance, Jewishness or anti-Semitism, and never remotely considers the public life of the people she writes about

aroused and frustrated

aroused intense expectations