The Blind Contessa's New Machine by Carey Wallace: book review

The Blind Contessa’s New Machine (2010) is set in the 1800s in rural Italy. The novel commences with Contessa Carolina Fantoni’s childhood, and that of her childhood neighbour. Pellegrino Turri is an eccentric teenager, ten years older than Carolina, forever tinkering with experiments. He is the eternal curious, observant scientist. They have a bond that is based on trust, openness, honesty, and devotion. Turri marries Sophia and they have a boy, Antonio. This is because Turri is deemed to be an unsuitable husband for distinguished ladies, such as the Contessa, on account of his eccentricities. Turri is a dreamer “of the worst sort.”

The Contessa is also eternally devoted to her father, who lavishes his only child with unlimited love, attention, and gifts. For her seventh birthday, he “scattered some benches on the grassy shore of the lake on his property, filled the lake’s surface with lantern-lit boats” and gave her the lake as a birthday gift. From the age of seven she made a daily habit of visiting her secluded lake “through vine-choked pines” and would often sleep in the cottage her father built near the water.

At sixteen, Carolina sees Pietro, the charming, eloquent, handsome son of the local viticulturist. Pietro’s mother died when he was five years old, in childbirth. At seventeen, his father was found dead in the vineyard. His sister (no name is ever attributed to her) lives with relatives who arrange her marriage to a military man. Thus, at twenty-five, according to the family will, Pietro inherits the family vineyard, which bounds the Fantoni property, and works diligently to make it successful. All the girls in the village long to be near Pietro, but he only has eyes for Carolina. They marry in a fairytale wedding.

Even at sixteen, Carolina knows she is going blind, but Pietro doesn’t believe her. No one believes her, not even her father. Only her dearest friend, Turri, believes her. He knows it because he can sense it, and understand it, both from the knowledge he gains from books, and from his attention to detail – and he truly listens to her, while no one else does.

Carolina’s blindness is the author’s forte. Wallace, with meticulous detail, describes the Contessa’s gradual loss of sight. First her peripheral vision deteriorates, and then she can barely see a person’s face in a single glance – her central vision narrows such that she has to gaze around a person’s face, as if she is viewing it from a telescope.  Eventually she is totally blind.

She has servants, such as Liz the maid, a message boy called Giovanni, and a cook. Pietro even arranges for an old violinist, Sylvio, to play for her regularly. But Pietro is either too protective or too absent, and never understanding enough, not like Turri. And she can’t understand why people lie to her, just because she can’t see. Who is lurking about, watching her in the darkness, so close to her that she can feel their breath? Is it her husband watching her every move, or is it one of the servants? Is it from fascination, fear, or pity that someone observes her, or are they trying to steal things from the house? Why won’t they let her try to be independent?

Turri invents a writing machine for Carolina – the world’s first typewriter. He remembers her attempts at writing letters with a nibbed pen and inkwell, which resulted in a failed and messy attempt. Now she could press a key with a letter of the alphabet on it. The letters were arranged alphabetically so that she could learn to use the machine easily and quickly: which she did. The first note she typed was to her father. The contraption was such a wondrous invention that even sighted people, of the upper class, wanted one. Pietro thought it was a silly machine, not useful for anything. He couldn’t understand why Turri didn’t invent something useful that could make Carolina see again.

Wallace’s style is lyrical, gentle, descriptive, and dreamy. Yet the main star of the novel, the typewriter – as in the title – does not make an entrance until page 129 of 207 pages. And it is rarely mentioned thereafter, as the novel shifts to the Contessa’s relationships with the two men in her life – her husband and her childhood friend, the inventor (three, if you count her father). For such a delightful story, well told and well written, the abrupt ending is disappointing.