Italian Literature

Stewart

Stewart

Administrator
Staff member
We've got threads for French, German, Portuguese and even Esperanto, which makes me realise the oversight in not having a generic thread for Italian Literature. So this is it.

Personally, when I think of Italian Literature, the names that spring to mind are Umberto Eco and Italo Calvino, and that's only because they are the ones I've read most by, although the latter is probably the one I've started most by, as I've never managed, despite their brevity, to get all the way through the likes of Mr Palomar and Invisible Cities.

But, of course, two names do not a nation's literature make and Italy is full of names that may interest: Italo Sveo, Cesare Pavese, Alberto Moravia, Beppe Fenoglio, as well as having six Nobel Laureates in Giosu? Carducci, Grazia Deledda, Luigi Pirandello, Salvatore Quasimodo, Eugenio Montale, and Dario Fo.

Thinking about my personal shelves, a few other names that spring to mind are Alain Elkann, Carlo Emilio Gadda, and Vitaliano Brancati. And going even further back in time there's Giovanni Boccaccio, Dante Aligheri and Giacomo Casanova, amongst others.

So, names, movements, and books - what's out there in the world of Italian literature?
 
Stewart

Stewart

Administrator
Staff member
Oh, and a month or so ago I read Alessandro Baricco's Silk, which was a strange little book. I'm not sure if I've got any opinions either way on it as yet, and will probably give it another shot soon, seeing as it's only an hour or so's read. It's just strange, as I'm sure I've said here before, that it should have appeared in two translations only ten years apart when there's so much else that could have been translated. I chanced across the second translation and, on review, it didn't even feel all that different.
 
saliotthomas

saliotthomas

Reader
In my inocence i always though Moravia was French,so familiar a figure he is in my country.
If Italie include Sicily,then please let's add the great Guiseppe Di Lampedusa ,The leopard.A masterpeace of elegance and ironie,on my top 5.And first of the re-read list.
The elusive Mr Bartelby from B&R thought a lot of good about Silk,he seem a sensitive personne and i would not mind reading it.The film is bad,very bad.
 
Heteronym

Heteronym

Reader
There is also the love poet Petrarch; Ludovico Aristo, author of the epic poem Orlando furioso; Primo Levi, who wrote arguably the best Holocaust memoir ever, If This Is a Man (the original title, which alludes to the dehumanization camp prisoners had to undergo to survive, and which the UK edition kept, was changed to the banal Survival in Auschwitz in America); Alessandro Manzoni, author of the classic The Betrothed.

I have a special fondness for two Italian writers:

Dino Buzzati, author of The Tartar Steppe,the delightful The Bear's Famous Invasion of Sicily, which I read in Italian a few years ago, and several short-story collections (like Casares, Buzzati is going through a rennaissance in Portugal, courtesy of the same publisher)

Giovanni Papini, who I met through Borges (his name is on the Personal Library): his work is mostly untranslated in English; he wrote many short-stories, mostly of the fantastic kind, the brilliant 1931 satire Gog, in which the author mocked everything important at the time (Einstein and Gandhi show up in the novel), a novel about Christ, and a study about the Devil, among other things.

I'm also interested in getting acquainted with Curzio Malaparte's work one day.
 
Stewart

Stewart

Administrator
Staff member
Heteronym said:
Dino Buzzati, author of The Tartar Steppe
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You know, last week when I was browsing I spotted The Tartar Steppe and had a look at it, having never heard of the author, and there, on the back, was a quote from Borges about how it's one of those books that should never be forgotten. I made a note on my phone for later reference.
 
Heteronym

Heteronym

Reader
Regarding this novel, Borges claimed that it was easy to know the classics, but knowing the modern authors was a harder task since there were more names to look for. However he believed The Tartar Steppe would be one of the novels the modern world would not forget. Needless to say it's in Borges' Personal Library.
 
saliotthomas

saliotthomas

Reader
Heteronym said:
Regarding this novel, Borges claimed that it was easy to know the classics, but knowing the modern authors was a harder task since there were more names to look for. However he believed The Tartar Steppe would be one of the novels the modern world would not forget. Needless to say it's in Borges' Personal Library.
Click to expand...

It's a great book,a sort of Godo from the steppes.The french title is "le desert des tartars" and as been made into a film with Gerard Depardieu(as you can guess not nearly as good as the book)
 
Heteronym

Heteronym

Reader
Funny that you compare it to Beckett's play: what I read about the novel also made think immediately about Godot. I'll see for myself next month when I purchase it.

I had no idea Depardieu was in the movie adaptation. Are you referring to the 1976 version by Valerio Zurlini? Borges would disagree with you on that point, since he called it beautiful :) I haven't seen it, by I have recently acquired Ennio Morricone's score and it's one of the best melodies I've heard in my life. I should add I'm a big movie score fan.
 
saliotthomas

saliotthomas

Reader
Sorry Heteronym,You are right,I certainly mixed it up with another one.And Borges cannot have been wrong for when i checked the casting-Trintignant,Gassman,Noiret,Perrin,Terzieff with as ,you mentioned, Ennio Morricone music(i'm getting it on your advice) it must been a excellent film.Sorry for the babling,but i had this image of Depadieu in Military outfit that prevent me from checking this before posting.
Thanks for the correction.
 
I

Irene Wilde

Reader
Stewart,

Can I suggest as the Calvino book you start and finish Cosmicomics? It is not as langorous and dream-like as Invisible Cities and doesn't bog down in the final third the way If on a Winter's Night a Traveler does. It is completely charming and at times laugh-out-loud funny, but by turns rather poignant as well. Cosmicomics has the added attraction of being a series of short stories, tied together by a common narrator, so it can be picked up and put down as the mood strikes. I really think if you get through the first story, The Distance of the Moon, you will make it through the others.
 
Bjorn

Bjorn

Reader
Seconding the recommendation of Cosmicomics, for all the good it will do until the English publishers get their ass (or is that arse?) in gear. Probably my favourite Calvino.

I've read a couple of books by Antonio Tabucchi (Sostiene Pereira and Tristano Muore), both of which were quite impressive.

Near the top of my TBR pile I've got 54 by Wu Ming, which comes highly recommended. Apparently all their works are available for free (and legal) download here.

Has anyone read Niccol? Ammaniti? He seems to be the big Italian name these days, and I keep seeing his name in bookstores everywhere, but I don't think I've seen him mentioned online much...
 
I

Irene Wilde

Reader
Stewart said:
It's actually one I've wanted to read for a couple of years. I'm just waiting for it to one day be reissued over here as it's currently out of print.
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Amazon uk is claiming it has a handful of copies in hardcover, new and used. They are probably through third party dealers, but they are out there.

And credit where credit is due -- the translator on my copy is William Weaver.
 
nnyhav

nnyhav

Reader
What?! no mention yet of
Giorgio Manganelli (Centuria, All the Errors)
Italo Svevo (Zeno's Conscience, Senilita)
Giorgio Bassani (The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, The Heron)
Luigi Pirandello (The Late Mattia Pascal, One No One and 100,000)
Carlo Levi (Christ Stopped at Eboli)
Elio Vittorini (Conversations in Sicily)
Cesare Pavese (The Moon and the Bonfires)

(ok, so Stewart mentions some of them en passant ...) All of the above worthwhile, in my estimation in roughly that order. I've just about exhausted Eco, Calvino, and Primo Levi as well (and one-hit wonder di Lampedusa); thanks for adding Buzzati's Tartar Steppes to my to-be-acquired list.

(Manzoni's The Betrothed gathers dust on the TBR shelf: seems like a should-be-read since it's standard school-fare in Italy, but they all complain how tedious it is ...)

(nyrb has been reissuing Moravia and Sciascia like crazy, but it don't seem my cuppa ...)
 
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E

Eric

Former Member
As you know from other postings of mine, I am curious as to what is beoing written now in any given country.

Has anyone found an overview article, telling what is being written in Italy now? I'd like to see a list of about twenty contemporary Italian authors, so I can go a-Googling to find out if any appeal to me.
 
O

obooki

Reader
There's the Strega list, of course (pilfered from Wiki):


Magris, of course. I read some Bufalino years ago and don't remember it so well now - I seem to remember they were pretty entertaining. I read a novel by Sebastiano Vassalli recently (there's a little review of it on my site), which I enjoyed. Funnily enough, all three of the above are published by Harvill. I've also got a Paolo Volponi novel I haven't got around to yet.
 
E

Eric

Former Member
Thanks, Obooki, that's certainly a start. With that list of names, one's instinct is to also look at the Wiki entries for the individual authors. There's not very much there, but Googling the name can lead to more information in English and, if you can read it, Italian.

As I can't really read Italian, the next thing I would want to find out is translations into English of works by these authors. The Wiki is not very helpful, but I'm sure there will be other websites.

I chose Enzo Siciliano, at random, to see what I could find. There's an obit in the Guardian, but I can't immediately and unequivocably, find a list of what of his has been translated into English. Ditto, with Domenico Starnone, Giorgio Montefosci, Carlo Sgorlon and Melania G. Mazzucco. The Wiki is good at lists, but poor on detail. Surely, the most important thing for a British or American reader a list of translations.

I'll keep looking.
 
nnyhav

nnyhav

Reader
There's always 3%'s database for 2008 translations (Italian extracted below):


ISBN, Title, Author, Translator, Publisher, Pub Month
9781933372402, Between Two Seas, Carmine Abate, Antony Shugaar, Europa Editions, Jan
9781904738268, Crimini, Niccolo Ammaniti, Andrew Brown, Bitter Lemon, Apr
9781933372440, Timeskipper, Stefano Benni, Antony Shugaar, Europa Editions, Apr
9780143113003, The Paper Moon, Andrea Camilleri, Stephen Sartarelli, Penguin, Mar
9780374531041, Sicilian Tragedee, Ottavio Cappellani, Frederika Randall, FSG, Oct
9781901285819, Envy, Alain Elkann, , Alastair McEwen, Pushkin Press, Apr
9788860732958, I Kill, Giorgio Faletti, Muriel Jorgensen, Baldini Castoldi Dalai, June
9781933372426, The Lost Daughter, Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein, Europa Editions, Mar
9781933372617, Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, Amara Lakhous, Ann Goldstein, Europa Editions, Oct
9781933372532, Via Delle Oche, Carlo Lucarelli, Michael Reynolds, Europa Editions, June
9781904738329, Blackout, Gianluca Morozzi, Howard Curtis, Bitter Lemon, Nov
 
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