THAT AWFUL MESS ON VIA MERULANA

by Carlo Emilio Gadda ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 30, 1965

The dictum ""Le style c'est l'homme"" to a large extent defines the work of Carlo Emilio Gadda; he has had great recognition in Europe, won the $10,000 International Literary Prize in 1963, and this is his most important book. Gadda, whom the translator William Weaver compares with Joyce for his ""fascination with language"" and his revolutionary use of it, has an astounding command of words and they cascade off the page with aural and visual effects, conveying the vociferous vitality of everyday life in Rome. However his very distinctive style is also extremely dense and demanding; sometimes it is allusive to the point of unintelligibility and full of linguistic rarities --i.e. ""To concert with immediate parapathia an encounter, vespertine and casual,"" etc..... Pasticcio, in its primary sense, meaning a work of art made up of fragments, was used in the original title when it appeared in Italian and this further defines the novel which is fragmentary or as Weaver says, the ""perfect parts of impossible wholes."" Physically, it centers around two incidents, a burglary, and three days later, the murder of childless, middle-aged Liliana Balducci, in a middle class section of Rome in 1927. While Ingravallo, assigned to the case, investigates, her family, the occupants of the building, the maidservants, delivery boys, doctor lawyer, merchants, a priest, all pass across the canvas. Actually it is a multi-levelled political and social satire. In a phrase (""he beat her like a rug"" or ""allocated there, in his big chair, amid souffle of cushions"") Gadda can manage a wonderful kind of humor. And from start to unresolved finish, he has recorded the animated, random confusion of life in a remarkable manner...Gadda has had a coterie readership until now; one questions whether it can be extended even with every attention of the publisher and the press.

Pub Date: Aug. 30, 1965

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Braziller

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1965

Categories: FICTION