Carlo-Emilio Gadda



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CarloEmilio Gadda (Italy, 1893)

"La Meccanica" (1929)

synopsis forthcoming

"Quer Pasticciaccio Brutto de Via Merulana" (1957) ++

synopsis forthcoming

"La Cognizione del Dolore/ Acquainted with Grief" (1963), originally published in a magazine between 1938 and 1941, is an unfinished novel that is mostly autobiographical, especially in the way the protagonist is modeled (physically and psychologically) after the author. There are also satirical and parodistic elements. Maradagal is Italy, Nea Keltike is Brianza, Pastrufazio is Milano, Prado is Erba, Novokomi is Como, etc. Lukones is Longone al Segrino, the village where in 1899 Gadda's father had erected a vacation home. More importantly, Gonzalo is Gadda himself, and his mother is Gadda's mother Adele Lehr. Gadda coins his own language, often stretching the grammar and the vocabulary of Italian, a delirious pseudo-lyrical language that tests the baroque limits of grammar and vocabulary. But the novel doesn't coalesce and remains an incomplete and unsatisfactory experiment.

The story is set in the fictional Latin American republic of Maradagal, and specifically in a village called Lukones. A war veteran, Pedro Mahagones, is hired as the night guard on bicycle, a function of the Nistituos Provinciales de Vigilancia para la Noche. Mahagones was the subject of a scandal: arriving in town, a medical officer, DiPascuale, recognized him as Gaetano Palumbo, a war veteran who had cheated the government pretending to be deaf and perceived a pension until the same DiPascuale unmasked him. The doctor, Felipe Higueroa, is summoned to the villa of his patient Gonzalo Pirobutirro d’Eltino o del Tino, who lives alone with his aging mother, a 73-year-old widow. Along the way he meets their servant Battistina who reveals that the mother is scared of her son. She even fears that Gonzalo wants to steal her jewelry. Battistina describes Gonzalo as lazy, cruel, voracious and stingy. The doctor doesn't find anything wrong with Gonzalo's health: Gonzalo, a hidalgo and an engineer, is just a neurotic unhappy person. Gonzalo's main resentment against his mother is that she spent everything for building a mansion. The doctor invites Gonzalo to an excursion with his daughters Pina and Giovanna. Gonzalo launches into a lengthy rant against everybody. Gonzalo despises everybody. He claims to be tired, sick and broke, and desires only solitude. The doctor notices that the fence of the property is in bad shape and recommends that Gonzalo hires a guard of the Nistituos. Gonzalo angrily refuses and launches into another rant, this time about all the money that he has to pay.

The town has three villas that are comically targeted by lightning. The epic poet Carlos Caconcellos died in one of these villas, the villa Giuseppina, owned by the Italian immigrant Bertoloni. The villa is now rented to a new tenant, the medical officer DiPascuale, who has five daughters. We learn how DiPascuale discovered that Gaetano Palumbo was cheating.

One night Gonzalo's neighbor is the victim of a burglary: he too had refused to pay for the night guard. This neighbor then hires two night guards. They hear suspicious noises coming from Gonzalo's house. They enter the house and realize that burglars have broken into the house. Gonzalo left the house when he heard that his mother had visitors, peasants who smelled bad. Gonzalo's mother is lying in bed fatally injured. The doctor gives her few chances of surviving.

"Racconti"

Nel "Teatro" e nel "Cinema" e` un testimone distaccato di un rituale che non lo riguarda, esamina con minuziosa curiosita` il comportamento della folla, scegliendo dal mazzo le figure piu` tipiche e gli stereotipi ambientali.

Nella "Madonna dei filosofi" il racconto dei due delusi dalla vita, Maria Ripamonti e l'ingegner Baronfo, ferito a colpi di pistola dalla madre del suo figlio illegittimo, e` il pretesto per una rappresentazione borghese che pero` compendia anche i moti dell'animo (le meditazioni dell'ingegnere) e gli ampi spazi (i viaggi in treno, l'avventura in auto) con quel senso cupo dell'esistenza umana che e` la "cognizione del dolore".

"Compagni di prigionia" e` una delle memorie di guerra in cui risaltano l'interventismo etico (e non politico) di Gadda e quel senso di meraviglioso/pietoso con cui egli visse la sua grande avventura.

"La festa dell'uva a Milano" e` un ritratto del folklore che per Gadda e` istinto sociale allo stato puro, manifestazione della gioia dell'uomo nascosto nella folla; "Sibili dentro le valli" e` la registrazione d'eventi d'un viaggio in treno, freddo e minuzioso catalogo di frasi tecniche, conversazioni e luoghi comuni uditi a bordo del treno: la festa popolare ed il treno sono due ambienti complementari in cui s'esprimono diverse qualita` dell'individuo, quelle pubbliche in privato e quelle private in pubblico rispettivamente.

La borghesia milanese e` protagonista con i suoi meschini problemi [le domestiche per i Cavenaghi ("Quando il Gerolamo ha smesso"), il figlio maschio per i de' Marpioni ("Quattro figlie ebbe e ciascuna regina")], con i pettegolezzi concitati ("Al parco in una sera di Maggio", "Adalgisa") in cui si mescolano informazioni mondane e finanziarie; in "Strane dicerie contristano i Bertoloni" e "Navi approdano al Parapague" Gonzalo Girobutirro, malato d'un male invisibile, sovverte queste regole suscitando dubbi, astio, diffidenze.

Dal cameratismo, al folklore, alla mondanita`, si sviluppa il processo d'astrazione dell'io.


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