I'm back with a HUGE PILE OF ITALIAN BOOKS!!!!!

But I did informally test out, after 30 hours of class, at a "university-intermediate" level in Italian... if anybody wants a recommendation for a great Italian school in Rome, let me know. It's cheaper than the other schools, too. The teacher was my kinda grammar nazi. I love that sort of passion.

I've barely been anywhere, especially not anywhere I'd really want to stay, except for Canada—and yes, I did buy a bunch of books in Canada, but it's not quite the same; I've probably bought as many Canadiana books since I returned.

But with foreign languages—I have never though about it in these terms, really, but it's a great idea!

In one part (careful, all of this is translated AND from memory) one character, an overeducated cynic, is watching as the Germans invade and bomb the Italian countryside; everybody's panicking and the cynic smiles and says "Weren't you guys all saying you didn't care whether the Germans or the English won, since they're all the same?"

Kind of reminded me of the things people were saying after the dust cleared and Nader had helped Bush II win (yeah yeah, so he didn't really win it) his first election and then all hell broke loose.

File under: history repeats... again.

(I never read Il Deserto dei Tartari, but we discussed it at length and I felt I'd "got" it just from that. I hope you enjoy(ed) it)

Carlo Gadda anyone (ok-ish article in the LRB site), but what do ILB-ers think about him?

There is probably too little available to form much of an opinion but it doesn't cost it to throw this out there.

Searching through the ILX archives there are some things on Leonardo Sciascia.

And I am going to be starting on Two Women by Moravia soon.

Has anyone read anything by Ignazio Silone? Apparently he was a member of the italian Communist Party but there are accounts he worked for the fascists, but all that really compelling history aside does anyone have any recommendations?

Digging Sciascia and have Silone's Fontamara as a library loan.

Anyone read Vittorini's Conversations in Sicily?

The more I read, the more illiterate I seem to become...

otm. I miss Ann Sterzinger.

what happened to her? did she announce she was leaving or just stop turning up one day?

vittorini's sicilia book is amazing. there's a film about it (?) by straub-huillet. amazing, too.

After she entered grad school to study greek and latin classics her appearances in ILB have been few and far between. We Sterzinger fans are still looking for closure. **sob**

Of course, we could be consoled in a minor way by reading her blog, which does convey a sense of why we would miss her enlightened misanthropy around here.

or you could read her novel. or email her.

Reading her novel seems like excellent advice, especially buying it before reading it. Emailing her seems too... presumptuous. Unless, of course, it were an email stating that one had purchased her novel, read it, and loved it. What author could resist such an email?

Ha! I googled and found her blog the second time I revived this thread, its just hilarious and lovely really - is her book about the restaurant industry then? ;-) I should do some more googling.

Then again I won't now I said that.

Also thought of emailing her to come back and entertain and enlighten us, then thought better of it.

Thanks moullet - I've done another IL loan earlier today, can't wait.

(doh of course the details are on her blog. Don't remember seeing that last time.)

Conversations in Sicily is brilliant (got the Alane Mason translation). Totally unique how it breaks down the language into an atomic simplicity of sound on the one hand and, then, on the other, how it then uses the building blocks for, well, conversations...gotta see the film.

Elsa Morante - History is a classic. What should I go onto?

Got Pasolini's A Violent Life, for the cover, but I'll get onto it someday.

Another Italian author find is Artemisa by Anna Banti.

On the look out for The Moro Affair by Sciascia, especially after catching a DVD of Il Divo, which is a kind of post-Moro affair thing (and probably the only good film Sorrentino will ever make?)

So I likes me some Italian authors.

Italian Noir

^Broadcast last night. A good watch (lots of lecturers from Italian departments: kept thinking that if this was made a year or two from now many of them wouldn't have a job in here.

The historical narrative of 'murders don't get solved/the crime as a means of looking into fascism/etc' only held up to Sciascia. Anglo Noir's shtick is much more pronounced than many of they would like to admit by the time it got into Baraldi and Cataldo: a lot of revenge fantasy and unflinching violence straight out of old style hardboiled noir. Only Lucarelli's fascist cop sounds interesting.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/oct/27/rogue-genius/

Malaparte anyone? Don't have access but might get this issue for that article by Edmund.

Excellent piece on 'Zibaldone'

For a start it says nothing about Leopardi (apart from saying it keeps the personal away = great to see an article mentioning he isn't a hunchback, which colours your view of where he is coming from) and talks about it as a piece of many more dimensions the John Gray penned New Statesman piece (which only talks about the bits that sound like John Gray).

The only downside is how it makes a great argument for reading the whole thing and not skimming thru any bits around language, that all of it does form into a coherent set of arguments, mostly composed over a two year period.

haha when i saw it was you i knew this would be the zibaldone

I'm just too predictable.

To add to the above I only say downside because I don't want to carry this around and I seriously can't be arsed with an ereader.

My year in Italian Fiction:

- Fallen out w/Gadda. Picked up Acquainted w/Grief again earlier this year and didn't like the showy prose

Currently reading Malaparte's Kaputt and its turning out to be the best journalistic novel, not that are many? In that he stretches the imagery but the conversations feel reported and accurate in their savage content. I love and yet feel a repulsion toward the narrator, how he feels a sympathy for the poor and beaten, and yet he chooses to hang out with the victors. The reflections seem substantial, or at least not that novel: the Germans are frightened more by the weak than the strong. The reading is wide, attentive. Feels like Celine picked up on this for his trilogy? Or that's what a writer used to do...they make their choices, live them out, then survive a hanging to tell the world about it.

Makes Morante's History: A Novel which I liked it at the time, seem a lesser work in the concentration of war and its effects on a mother and child, with the existential guy later on to provide wider reflection.

- Picked up more poets: Quasimodo and Montale, see how I get on with that?

- Read a review of the latest Elena Ferrante novel. Need to read her next.

Read and loved all the Ferrante.

Back onto Morante - finished Arturo's Island earlier today and this is really way better than History. There is a sentimentality to it that feels off to me. Arcoeli sounds unsparing as well. Both books are written from the POV of men.

Also saw Straub/Huillet's Sicilia!, their adaptation of the Vittorini. If you ever get a chance you are in for a treat.

i bought _days of abandonment_ and am excited to read it but the US editions of her work have the ugliest covers i have ever seen on a "serious novel."

http://smchslibraryblog.edublogs.org/files/2014/09/my-brilliant-friend-1ivqo9q.jpg

all the europa editions stuff i have is mad ugly tho

tomasso landolfi- gogol's wife

The cover of My Brilliant Friend signifies when you get into the last section, re the wedding.

Finsihing a couple of Natalia Ginzburg novellas. In Velentino there are three births, three deaths (one a suicide of course), a wedding, another aborted wedding, all told matter of factly in 45 mins. Its just life, in all its disappointments.

Sagitarius is even better. Here the mother - daughter relationship is complex. In Italian novels I get the impression the mother is a village simpleton but here it seems she is more of a frustrated wannabe intellectual.

Sorry again, Valentino and Sagittarius

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/nov/05/mystery-primo-levi/

Great to see a couple of pieces on Levi. Need to re-read The Periodic Table

Thanks. I've got a copy of The Periodic Table somewhere around here, in case I haven't mentioned it before, IN ITALIAN!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhWE0we4FaQ

This is better, maybe because the argument for a darker conclusion is made to stick.

?

haha when I linked that it hadn't been opened up for non-subscribers.

I was thinking that the NYRB piece is better than the piece in the New Yorker

Agreed

This series of blog posts on the Levi set has turned into a monument of crank.

I stare at Brock's Pavese everytime I find myself in the LRB bookshop but don't want to stump up 18 quid or whatever. Could send me over the edge tho'.

Ippolito Nuevo looks interesting (I love his name)

I get that Parks wants a more down-to-earth translation (I get that Ann Goldstein is possibly too boringly literary). They are v good pieces - and they have certainly sharpened my sense of what is really translating into English or not. otoh great writing translates even if translated badly (or if the editing is bunk).

Parks is very entertaining, though. I really enjoyed his collection of those NYRB pieces that came out last year (this year in the US).

Who's Ippolito Nuevo, btw? A quick Googling gets me only stuff I cannot understand.

Sorry its Nievo:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/04/02/revolutionary-italy-masterwork/

Really want to read the above but no subscriber.

Now i feel even dumber, as i own but have not read that book!

Had an idea to poll off-the-classics-lists from the 19th century. Totally arbitrary list -will have to read and put that in if I like it.

This looks so much more interesting than Manzoni but I'm indie like that.

Hey, xyzzzz, I found that I had that Parks/Nievo article you wanted to read, so I uploaded it here: www.scribd.com/doc/305150648/Tim-Parks-Ippolito-Nievo

Thanks James! ha, Parks compares it to Manzoni at the end.

New Morante - the world needs it: http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/W/bo25015883.html

Ferdinando Camon's trilogy "The Fifth Estate" / "Memorial" / "Life Everlasting" is my current Italian tip. The absence of matching English editions of the three is a matter of great regret IMO.

The Morante sounds very exciting: I've been meaning to read her for a long time, but I'm not sure where best to start.

This + Alexiviech are the most exciting new bks in a while

ows - def Arturo's Island if you can get hold of the out of print copy (did via my library). Arcoeli is on Open Letter and I was talking to someone abt it on twitter as she was raving about it (its how I found out about this). Historia was good at the time and is disappointing when set against her other fiction.

I just read "The Unseen" by Nanni Balestrini and it's a fierce novel of (and from) the Autonomia movement of the 70s/80s, brutal, angry, upsetting and highly recommended.

Yet to pick up.

Lads lads: http://www.nyrb.com/collections/forthcoming/products/ernesto?variant=30483108743

http://www.nyrb.com/collections/forthcoming/products/a_family_lexicon?variant=1094928849

Read the Ginzburg in the old translation and its fkn great. Saba is unknown to me and I'm excited.

(I get that Ann Goldstein is possibly too boringly literary). Maybe somewhere, but not in the Neapolitan Novels.

Review of A Family Lexicon

Got to read this fantatsic piece on Elsa Mornate at the weekend. Not just a review of that book but a beautiful overview of all her works and the little of crit published in English. A must.

So I called Gadda showy for Acquainted with Grief above in the William Weaver translation but now I see Experience of Pain is coming out (I assume its a re-translation as it has a similar set-up, words in either title amount to same).

I have that, but having read several other demented books recently i am waiting until the balance of my mind is restored before tackling ut

Terrific piece on Bassani:

https://harpers.org/archive/2019/02/giorgio-bassani-the-novel-of-ferrara-review/

I haven't tackled this piece on Elsa Morante but will do so later:

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/02/07/elsa-morante-disillusionist/

And I need to read some Bassani - its a gap.

Just been reading him, so thanks for that!

ah yeah I saw that.

I just read "The Unseen" by Nanni Balestrini and it's a fierce novel of (and from) the Autonomia movement of the 70s/80s, brutal, angry, upsetting and highly recommended.

― Tim, Wednesday, 22 June 2016 08:47 (two years ago) Permalink

Just seen on my twitter that he has passed away today

RIP. I don't stop recommending that book, though I'm not sure anyone has ever read it as a result of my recommendation.

Gotta say fiction around the struggle are a bit underwhelming to me (Victor Serge is probably best but there are a lot of other things in his fiction as well).

Well I agree but this one stands out (and I've only read a bit of Serge but found "The Unseen" even more affecting - it really is unbelievably good.

Cool, will order

You're welcome to borrow mine, then I won't feel guilty if you don't like it!

Haha would've been fine either way but I was thinking of asking you. Cool will mail you sometime this week to arrange :)

Nice enough account of the latest translations of Ginzburg's quietly tragic books:

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/07/18/natalia-ginzburg-driest-eye/

I really enjoyed this article - the book plots it describes are wonderful. https://t.co/ZDsoD0ObEf

— Laura Waddell (@lauraewaddell) December 17, 2020

This piece on Roberto Calasso is pretty great

https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/the-sorcerer

Nice piece on Frederika Randall, an American-born translator of Italian lit.

https://nybooks.com/articles/2021/09/23/frederika-randall-emissary-of-italian-prose/

I was compiling a list of wants (its getting small as I think I am running out of stuff I am interested in reading) and came across this. The Charles Rosen foreword caught my eye.

https://www.nyrb.com/collections/classics/products/memoirs-of-lorenzo-da-ponte?variant=1094930221

Also, NYRB are issuing Elsa Morante's first novel next year.

https://www.nyrb.com/collections/forthcoming/products/lies-and-sorcery?variant=42438724681896

oh wow. I'm a huge morante fan, that's giant news for me

That would mean all her novels have had at least one complete translation into English.

yeah it's a giant deal. finding a copy of arturo's island at the cincinnati public library when I did an event there was a big deal to me -- copies on alibris were prohibitively expensive & they let me take it home for later return. it's good, Aracoeli was my entry point so it'll probably always be my favorite.

Though History was my first by her I think Aracoeli is my favourite, it's such a strange, one kind of a book (just ahead of Arturo, I took out the old translation from the library too. I should get the new translation)

Important essay on Natalia Ginzburg's politics, and how her adoption as a feminist writer isn't a straightforward matter.

Natalia Ginzburg wrote brilliant fiction, but she was also deeply involved in Italian left-wing politics. From abortion to adoption laws, and feminism to her conception of her Jewish identity – I wrote about her politics for @VersoBooks https://t.co/7ll6DzOaHb pic.twitter.com/67e7driLcs

— Francesca Peacock (@cesca_peacock) July 28, 2022

I read Voices in the Evening last year and immediately bought everything of hers I could get my hands on, she's amazing

Yes, I remember hearing about her through my love for Pavese, checking her out - got everything out of the library that I could and delighted that this revival has taken hold. It doesn't matter that Ginzburg and Morante are being marketed in a post-Ferrante world, its great to see.

I also would like to see a similar piece written on Sciasca's political career.

Campo's essays sound really interesting.

https://thebaffler.com/latest/soul-aristocrats-trela

Anyone read Alba de Cespedes?

https://pushkinpress.com/book/her-side-of-the-story-2/

Great piece by Tooze on Malaparte, around his collection of journalism. This is currently out of print:

https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-344-curzio-malapartes-war