A FICTIONAL INQUIRY

The narrator of this obliquely told novel searches through literary history.

Upon its initial publication in Italian, Del Giudice’s 1983 novel found an avid readership, including Italo Calvino and actor/director Mathieu Amalric, who adapted it for the screen in 2002. Appel’s translation is its first appearance in English, and it isn’t hard to see why this has become a cult classic for some. The novel abounds with false starts and misdirection; the narrator begins on a train that’s broken down and is immediately reluctant to talk about why he’s traveling in the first place. Gradually, we learn more: He’s going to Trieste, where he visits a few of the city’s bookstores. He also has, in his own words, an “evidently foreign appearance.” The combination of a driven protagonist and withheld information gives this book the feeling of a spy novel, but it turns out that the narrator is in search of traces of Roberto Bazlen, a real author who died in 1965. At one point, a woman tells the narrator, “I think that only through stories will you be able to understand,” and it’s that layering of stories upon stories that gives this novel a compelling sense of mystery. (The translator’s use of the word “Negro” adds an occasionally dissonant anachronism to the mix.) One person’s cult book is another’s source of frustration; in a note at the end, Appel observes that “the elliptical quality creates an air of ambiguity that leaves you wondering if you missed something.” But it’s that contrast between the narrator’s mysterious journey and the precise details of Bazlen’s life—including evocative passages about clothing and class—that make this slim book so memorably disconcerting.

A haunting novel with traces of thrillers and metafiction in its text.