Accanto a questi appuntamenti artistici di spicco se ne contano degli altri, fascista attraverso i quali le istituzioni statali si relazionavano con le arti figurative. Sulla riforma operata dal regime negli organi di cultura si veda il consulti il volume di De Micheli e si riferisca a Gualdoni. De Sessa timare il proprio potere personale: Su Martini si veda Martini, Gian i fasci littori. Durante tali eventi teofanici, gli edifici, i complessi decorativi e celebra- Ferrari, e Comisso Riguardo alla simbologia del Venten- e la monografia della Colombo. Gli scultori del Ventennio avevano Ferrari, e Comisso La testa del bronzo divelta dal monumento equestre bolognese venne 8 Sulle opere antifasciste di Mazzacurati si consideri il catalogo della mostra allestita salvata dalle mani dei tedeschi, nel gennaio del , e sotterrata nel giardino di a Reggio Emilia nel Di certo sentava ferita e menomata, priva di un braccio e della gamba sinistra: Ciononostante, risulta possibile di riqualificazione di Piazza Vittoria; il restauro della statua e la successiva rivaluta- ritrovare alcuni elementi comuni che ci aiutano a delineare con maggiore chiarezza zione quale testimonianza di un momento della storia italiana non hanno incontrato i bersagli privilegiati di questa moderna iconoclastia.
Popolo a Como, il cui il progetto e realizzazione vennero affidati a Giuseppe Terragni 17 Longatti ; Poretti. Si considerino anche i lavori della Misler, di Gualdoni 23, capo di stato, nel Nella medesima occasione, Graziosi aveva realizzato anche nota 18 , e della Sega Storia di Bergamo e dei bergamaschi. Urbanistica, architettura, arte alla causa politica contemporanea, come il Monumento al prigioniero politico ignoto del e Uomini del Lager del Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Print 27 Si veda Alessandrone Perona, et al.
Arte in Italia Vita e pensiero, riconobbe nel il 25 aprile come festa nazionale. Leone Lodi scultore Funerali di 4a classe. Due basamenti senza neppure un De Grada, Raffaele. Mostra di Marino Mazzacurati Luoghi della memoria, memoria dei luoghi nelle regioni alpine oc- Print. Tra diplomazia e arte: Edizioni Medi- Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso.
Museo storico in Trento, Martini, Arturo e Mario De Micheli. La scultura lingua morta. Mi- Di Marzio, Mimmo. Muri ai pit- A cura di Giulio Einaudi. Pittura murale e decorazione in Italia Catalogo della Falasca Zamponi, Simonetta. Lo spettacolo del Fascismo. Soveria mostra [Vicenza, Basilica Palladiana 06 giugno — 26 settembre Mannelli: Ado Furlan Misler, Nicoletta.
La via italiana al realismo. La politica culturale nella scultura italiana del Novecento, atti del convegno di studio, artistica del PCI dal al Onofri, Nazario Sauro e Vera Ottani. Dal Littoriale allo stadio: Il culto del littorio: Neri Pozza, Oppo, Cipriano Efisio. Trilussa, il mio segre- Le origini del neofascis- Print. Istituto Poligraf- cio di Terragni. Pittura murale e decorazione ico dello Stato, Adolfo Wildt e i suoi allievi: Fontana, Melotti, Tulliola Sparagni. Broggini e gli altri. Da Boccioni a Sironi: Arte e ar- Skira, La Casa del fascio di Como.
Catalogo ragionato delle sculture. Bologna e il suo stadio. Spadini, Pasqualina e Antonio Maraini. Utopia e scenario del regime. Urbanistica, architettura, arte e decorazione. Archivio Cen- trale dello Stato, Storia della cultura fascista. Lo stesso discutere un uomo e da cittadino. No, ma per quella legge veri feticci di quella restaurazione culturale italiana detta Riflusso.
Ritorniamo ancora una volta a Sciascia, alle frasi lapidarie che chiudono un suo breve ritratto di Savinio: La figura chiave di questo civismo, che E nel , ancora: Il dilettante Stampa e poi incluso in Tutta la vita nel Savinio di gran lunga meno civico o, per meglio dire, restituito alla dalla collina dalla quale godeva lo spettacolo del paesaggio urbano separazione solipsistica tra individuo e collettivo.
Due caratteri dei testi di Savinio invalidano questo dalle religioni. Ascolto ne uscirebbe almeno triplicato: Se conquistano per effetto di luce. Sugli altri continenti no. Come avverte Savinio con una In questo modo la narrazione risorgimentale di un autore similitudine teatrale: Il segno-Europa di mondo: Le premesse nei suoi fondamenti mitologici greci: In questo senso Come i grandi umanisti europei anche utopie, il genere di scrittura che si gioca tutto nello scarto variabile Savinio deve porsi il problema della summa.
Enciclopedia impossibile portatile, maneggevole delle utopie: Mettiamo le cose in chiaro: Nel momento storico come possiamo constatare in un equivalente testuale di questa Europa in cui il presente preme con maggior violenza sulla pagina e sui suoi enciclopedica: In una lettera del 30 aprile non-realista. La letteratura del O meglio, uno dei suoi avverbi o modi: Nella lettera che nel scrisse per difendere Malaparte intenzioni soggiacenti. A cura di Marco Debenedetti. The Idea of Europe. Letteratura europea e Medio Evo latino. Lettere con Mercurio Candela. Scritti di critica e di istituzioni Bellini, Davide.
Dalla tragedia alla biblioteca. Le poetiche e la letterarie. The Myth of Nation in the Twentieth Suzanne Dingee and Jennifer Pudney. Grewe, Andrea, a cura di. Erich Schmidt, Benda, Julien. Il Manifesto corrispondenza Parisot-Savinio Per un profilo di Firenze: Ponte delle Camon, Ferdinando, Il mestiere di poeta. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, A cura di Fernando Gioviale. Le molte facce di un artista di genio. A cura di Rosanna Bettarini e Milano: Dove va la cultura europea? A cura di G. Duke University Nietzsche, Friedrich. Mauro Maggiorani e Paolo Ferrari. Parisot, Henri, e Alberto Savinio.
La Tordi Castria, Rosita. A cura di Giuditta Cinque studi: Savinio, Italo Calvino, Giacomo Debenedetti. Alcesti di Samuele e atti unici. A cura di Alessandro Tinterri. A cura di Alessandro Tinterri e Paola Italia. Hermaphrodito e altri romanzi. Narrate, uomini, la vostra storia. Archivio Contemporaneo Alessandro Bonsanti. Arte e storia moderna. A cura di Paola Italia. A cura di Leonardo Sciascia. Studi su Alberto Savinio.
A cura di Dante Isella. Princeton University Press, Testimonianze e documenti Mio carissimo, tu mi conosci bene; puoi quindi immaginare la mia gioia: Io sono a terra!!! Proprio ieri ero a Roma ho fatto istanza a Tosti al Ministero per un sussidio pronto immediato e adeguato!! Ma vedi di chiamarmi alla tua segreteria! Ti abbraccio tuo aff. Salvatore Maraffa Abate was a journalist, a poet, an entrepreneur, a publicist and sometime publisher. He deliberate moves aimed at professional and personal survival, or were moved from his native Palermo to Messina, Genova, Milan, Rome, they also the result of a true intellectual and political metamorphosis?
But, as we know, history has not been generous Paul Corner and other contemporary scholars have already underlined with minor figures and Maraffa is not an exception. His profits from his understated new post-war life. And yet, In December , Maraffa issued his first notable magazine, Flirt. Flirt was the ideal mirror of the Sicilian osservare che… egli dimenticava gli indifferenti e i disillusi. Similarly, in her recent I redenti.
Gli intellettuali che vissero due Flirt was not a political publication. It contained poetry, volte. La rivisitazione delle vicende degli uomini che vissero una to women writers10 and its dynamic Direttore, Maraffa Abate, often duplice esistenza provoca accesi dibattiti. Moreover, we should not forget that it could not ignore the power of the new bourgeoisie. Salvo, in particular, notes: Openly obsequious to the fascist regime, as its name suggests, Italia But times were changing and soon the economic power of the fascista tried hard a little too hard, at times to balance itself between Florios in Sicily would come to an end.
Around , Maraffa left a servile and an extremely patriotic attitude towards the autarchic Palermo and headed north, to Genoa and Milan and, eventually, to Rome. From time to sort of periodical, a clever mix of cosmopolitism, patriotism, and time, Italia fascista presented its readers with more artistic content, politics. Futurism and its main features modernity, weighted down by an abundance of percentages and other figures, a energy, innovation and, later, fascism seduced the restless Maraffa telling sign of a too obvious deferential attitude towards the regime.
If and contributed to his radical transformation into a militant journalist. It also meant leaving his trademark notion of a literary particular region or city of the empire where fascist enterprises were and cultural magazine. The years immediately following World War I particularly successful. One of his periodicals, started turning its gaze inwards. By the early s, in the last desperate moments of activities around the world. With had already appeared in print, as a pamphlet, the previous fall, but the regards to his choice of pseudonym, Flirt readers would remember founder of Futurism allowed Maraffa to publish it as well, an important that Maraffa had been using this pen name for decades.
Unfortunately gift for a struggling publication like Italia fascista. On 21 July , Maraffa celebratory. Incidentally, this initiative aroused offense in the foreword of one of his collections of poetry, Chiarezze: Ma questi giornalisti sono davvero inesauribili nello aspirare e Comm. Why would the Ente Stampa and the Ministry not use his commitment for its own purposes?
Since the fascist press was In , Maraffa was already a Mussolini supporter and more heavily controlled beginning in year of the foundation of the than once defined himself a Sansepolcrista. It was not the case. On the contrary, the Min. Overall, between and , Maraffa received A poet since the Flirt years, Maraffa wrote a number of openly philo- more than fifty thousand Lire Ministero della Cultura Popolare n.
Among them, Aquile di Roma and La pelle del He was not alone: For instance, Antonio Favales, the proof of this as early as 6 September Not a young age, especially for richieste e quindi su lettere di ringraziamenti di prammatica in someone plagued by professional and personal troubles. His personal base alle quali poi carpisce adesioni e ottiene entrature arrivando situation was almost as chaotic as his professional one: Polizia Politica, Report on Maraffa, Savagnone.
They had two daughters, bound to become well-known 6 September doppiatrici: Rita and Deddi Savagnone. As del Maraffa che se ne serve per ricevere contributi finanziari; Philip Morgan noted: It was during this period that many Italian 12 September , the Germans had freed Mussolini and had put intellectuals who were active under the regime started on the thorny him at the head of the short-lived new republic. Like Maraffa, people path that would take them through the end of the war and beyond. Like who had been professional and financial profiteers during the previous Maraffa, many successful figures quietly sailed through this delicate regime must have taken it as a sign that the old ways could resume.
The publishing press was not immune to this memory loss: Maraffa depicts himself not like an exploiter of fascist politics and Proveniente dai Fasci Rivoluzionari Interventisti di Milano. It would — Milano P. Curriculum Vitae his letter to Mezzasoma, and the move to Venice meant that his archive was lost. It is hard to say whether Maraffa had actually been at risk. In the post-war years, this proud fascist biography is excised, leaving Some philo-fascist intellectuals were imprisoned and tried. Among an embarrassing twenty-year gap: Fogu offers an explanation: He followed many others on the prescrizione.
A small price to pay, all things considered. On the contrary, it resumed vigorously, ardua purezza lirica, non abbiano accanto alle poesie, manifestato propelled by a new-found energy: The period immediately after liberation in saw a mushrooming Per trovare poeti che si dichiarano indifferenti alla vita politica, of small publishing houses, some of which survived for only a … bisogna giungere ai minori poeti del romanticismo e del few months, and an increase in book production, despite residual decadentismo.
Ma, appunto, si tratta di poeti minori: At the same time some existing publishers sought che, di fatto, non erano ancora divenuti uomini. XIV—XV to take advantage both of the market opportunities and of the chance for cultural renewal opened up by the liberation. Gundle In the past several years, historians and literary critics tackled and Forgacs the question of Italian intellectuals and their relationship with fascism, but a lot of work still needs to be done on the so-called minor or marginal However, in spite of his efforts, Maraffa did not manage to figures and their participation in the fascist propaganda machine.
This is a sign that, while not openly ENDNOTES promoting it, the ministry did benefit from these apparently irrelevant characters and from their unauthorized propaganda. Italiana per i suoi meriti di giornalista. Later, in Rome, In the early s, Sebastiano Munzone published an he published his own works under the Italia Fascista Editrice label. See Cristina anthology of Sicilian poets.
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Soltanto per la insistenza di alcuni editori ha raccolto Viator dolente la sua opera poetica riunita in tre volumi: Ombre, silenzi, armonie con illustrazioni nuovo Israele errante sempre inquieto di Servolini poesie ; Riflessi, Chiarezze poesie. Corselli dal titolo I nostri Capi. Mangano sent the Duce her article together with a request for a meeting. However, before this little setback, Mangano, like Maraffa, passatista. Ma non vorrai tu office, she was hired at the Ente Stampa: She followed up the in altri giornali e in altri centri: Ti ha good news with a thank you note: Ti prego di agire fulmineamente Cesare.
Ti abbraccio con grande affetto, Tuo aff. The letter is written on Italia fascista reviews in this particular issue. But there are some short reviews of operas and films stationery. Vogliate Esperia, contiene la Poesia dei tecnicismi. Proveniente dal Gruppo Nazionalista Giovanile di Genova. Aderente alla storica continued its irregular publication until By then, Maraffa had almost completely adunata 23 Marzo — Milano P.
Archivio Centrale dello Stato. Bruno Maraffa in Duke University Press, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, La stampa del Ventennio: Flirt rivista di splendore Bernabei, Gilberto. Note to Salvatore Maraffa Abate. Publishers, Writers and Readers. Popolare, Busta , n. Caesar, Gabriella Romani, and Jennifer Burns.
Il foglio 12 November Estudios Italianos, Nov. Mariapia Lamberti, Franca Bizzoni. Archivio Centrale dello Italy. Oxford University Press, Letter to Benedetta Cappa. Filippo Di Dino, Chiara. Letter to Nicola De Cesare, 26 September Fascism in Popular Memory. The Cultural Experience Centrale dello Stato. Cambridge University Corrispondenza Ordinaria]. Maraffa Abate, Salvatore Leodalba. Biblioteca del Vascello, Italia Fascista Editrice, Segreteria Particolare del Duce, quaderni del meridione 87—88 Riviste ottocentesche e storia della critica.
La vita quotidiana a Palermo ai tempi del Gattopardo. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti Milan: Gli intellettuali che vissero due volte. Letter to Fernando Mezzasoma. Ministero della Cultura Popolare. Busta , Serrati, Giacinto Menotti. Archivio Centrale dello Sturzo, Luigi. I mali della politica italiana: La pelle del serpente. Il Primato di Giuseppe Bottai: Italia fascista The fall of Mussolini. Italy, the Italians and the Second World War. Introduction Scholarly studies have often discussed the huge impact of the film Casablanca WB, , directed by Michael Curtiz and produced by Hal Wallis on American media and popular culture.
Many critics have attempted to explain why the film continues to be regarded as one of the most iconic and celebrated Hollywood films of all times. Italian viewers, on the other hand, will most probably be familiar with these lines in their corresponding Italian translation, given that Casablanca has, since its first distribution in Italy in , received theatrical and television release in its dubbed version. We shall also see that, although not so intuitively, when the film and joined her husband Laszlo, whom she had believed to be dead, was finally ready to be released in early , its edition would be without having the chance to explain to Rick the reasons behind her considerably affected by the legacy of Fascism; this in spite of Italy painful decision.
After a series of political gambles with the French being, at that point, a democracy allied with the US. To illustrate this and German police, Rick i. It was in , in fact, even before Casablanca was produced, escape from the menace of the Nazis in Europe find temporary refuge that Warner Bros abandoned the Italian market as a result of the in unoccupied French Morocco. Let us take a step back to observe what happened to the to wait there until the war ends.
Yet there are people in Casablanca distribution of American films in Italy during these critical years. Will the seemingly cynical and selfish on foreign film distribution. A significant European Resistance, a clandestine movement fighting against the Axis number of foreign films by small US companies such as Monogram, powers. As the story unfolds, a few flashbacks reveal that some years Republic, and Grand National would still circulate in Italian cinemas earlier, in German-occupied Paris, Ilsa and Rick had had a romantic after the withdrawal of the Big Four.
Moreover, from the early onwards various laws were enacted. The political and social unrest in the Italian peninsula caused 4, 5, 9 and both the ban on dubbing foreign films abroad and the by the long years of war, sacrifice, deprivation, foreign occupation, dubbing tax to be paid by film distributors art. Because of their pro-interventionist message against the Axis, least until mid Besides, as far as the Italian case was concerned, at the its establishment in the new Roman headquarters.
Whether under the beginning of the monopoly laws promulgated during Fascism suggestion of the PWB film section or not, Warner Bros seems to have still formally stood in protection of the Italian internal market against been waiting for the Italian political and social waters to settle before American products. Distributors established a Psychological Warfare Branch PWB at the Allied might have also decided to wait for Italian film translators and Headquarters in Rome in the building formerly hosting the Ministry experienced voice-actors to prepare a domesticated dubbed version of Popular Culture MCP.
Consiglio dei Ministri for permission to release Casablanca in the Archival research has documented that, on March , the Italian commercial film circuit. Stone, head of dubbed version was then authorized, obtaining the obligatory nulla the allied military command in Italy, organised a series of important osta on January 10, Importantly for the present discussion, the Admiral insisted regulations on film censorship art. This decree banned film scenes, facts and subjects: Otherwise, if the producers or distributors did not agree with the first decision, they could file an appeal and the same film Offensivi del pudore, della morale, del buon costume e della would be reviewed by a second commission.
If the second commission pubblica decenza; From the authorization, the the end of the war. A passage from the document reads: Il film raggiunge una efficacia [sic] tensione spettacolare, films, e. If authorized, the war setting in other words, far from the more crucial battlegrounds film would be distributed in cinemas. In the case of restrictions or of Western Europe. The war was over, Although no document has been found attesting the exact and the fascist regime had been replaced by a democratic political date when the film was translated and re-voiced into Italian, it is very system.
However, the personnel of the previous administration were probable that the Italian edition of Casablanca had been prepared largely maintained at the film office. Although there is no official evidence formed mainly by the popular dubbing directors and actors of the s. Indeed, if the script had been the Italian film industry, and more specifically in the dubbing or post- presented for approval, and a final script re-submitted after being synchronisation sector.
The name of the person in charge of preparing the by the distributors to limit expense of money and effort i.
However, recent archival research has requirements, which, as discussed above, were the same as those of revealed that Carlo Silva was credited as the dialogue writer in the Instead of that petty charge Italians in the war, and 3 the representation of Italian characters in you have on him, you can get the film. The the dialogues in the original version while b. One example in particular is indicative of a moralistic il deserto non occupato. The government, were substituted with a different geographical indication fact that both the re-edited dubbed version and the subtitles do not that wanted to recall the contemporary Chinese Civil War.
In particular, were only two isolated cases in the film, but they served a very specific the references to the Fascist presence in Ethiopia and in the fighting purpose: In , you in the film, whether used to criticize Nazi-Fascist ideology or to fought in Spain on the Loyalist side. The Fascist captain Tonelli is a background character with 3. Italian characters only few lines of dialogue.
The first time the Italian officer appears in the film, he censorship directed at controlling the negative representation of introduces himself with vain pomposity see fig. It is well known that during the s unwelcome representations of Italians in film were denied permits for distribution in Fascist Italy: These two characters have short lines of dialogue and must have not been recognised as Italians by either the dubbing personnel or the film commissioners as they do not have an evident Italian connotation or accent in the film.
Their lines were therefore translated according to those in the original script. In the film there are two other characters whose Italianness Fig. While in the original version captain Tonelli switches from speaking 8 Renault scoffs at Tonelli as the latter and the French officer English to Italian, and gives a pompous Fascist salute to the German pass by arguing indistinctly and gesticulating: The original passage has been re-inserted in the victory.
After this scene, Tonelli is mainly seen fooling around with The second Italian character is the owner of the club The Blue Parrot, Casselle gesticulating and arguing indistinctly anytime they appear on signor Ferrari. Ferrari is renowned in Casablanca for being in charge the scene. The second appearance made by Tonelli see fig. Man in the street: He has a monopoly here on the black market. Egli ha quasi tutto il monopolio del Mercato Nero qui.
Thank you for the coffee segnore. I shall miss it when we leave Casablanca. The seen adulating any women who passes by a Latin Lover stereotype identity shift also respects quantitative synchronism, that is, each were not already undeniable clues of his Italian characterisation, the dubbed utterance has to contain roughly the same number of syllables final mention of the coffee made by Ilsa 11 leaves no doubt about as the original utterance. The rewriting and visual censorship discussed in this section with Ferak was probably suggested by the fact that the character wears are quite significant because they are not a reflection of the historical for most of the film a Moroccan Fez hat see fig.
Because of this, they were prone to perceive the lo staiter [sic] in divisa fascista. Casablanca with a different state of mind because for them Casablanca a vietare la circolazione della pellicola in questione: Borrowing with fictional World War II narratives. Having be modified during the post-production phase. However, this that the American Allies had in the eyes of many Italians. Instead, case is only one of many examples of film censorship directed at the ideological rewriting and censorship of the recent past in the inhibiting the memory of Fascism and of World War II in Italy in the dubbed film is a clear testimony of how Fascist forces were still at post-war period and beyond.
Many by Giuseppe Spataro. Spettacolo e Turismo and placed it under the direction of Franco Libonati. According to the historian, in the US, see Merlock Jackson It was published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale on November earlier in , was now put in charge of the distribution of foreign films in the 3, , No. At the beginning of , this control passed to Einape [Ente 15 nazionale acquisti importazioni pellicole estere] presided over by Giacomo Dusmet. A complete official list of these releases has not been traced back in SIAE records 6 and other sources because the activity lay in the hands of the PWB.
Film archives in the US would probably yield some results and paid by foreign film distributors, from the initial 25, Italian lire per dubbed film of shed light on the issue. Moreover, an additional charge of 20, was to be paid on 16 each dubbing for any additional , lire earned by these dubbed films in Italian 20th Century Fox was also dubbing its films in Madrid because a group of cinemas this was fixed between the profit range of 2. Italian dubbers was blocked in Spain, according to Quargnolo United Artists films could still circulate until 31 December He indicated 58 17 films released in , 83 in , 34 in , 8 in and 2 in Indeed, See for example a short article published in Films in Anteprima in January other archival sources document that, for instance, Universal films could also which documents that on June American dubbings were still circulating in Italian circulate without impediment.
Compare later in the text. The volume of Marco Polo , US, dir. This work focused on the complex interplay between Wise Guys, and Sopranos. Historical 32 archival research revealed striking continuities of concern and practice at the state-run The case of the Fascist officer could have also been grouped in the previous set of film office during the period A new examination of Casablanca was carried out by the Italian film office and 33 registered on September 28, ref.
The distribution company Nettunia until February 5, For an account of how the CDC was born, the particular to Focardi. Many thanks should go here to Luca Portas, film archivist and conservator Casablanca - Italian film censorship file ref. Edge of Darkness La bandiera sventola ancora - Italian film 27 censorship file ref. The case is discussed in Mereu The Dub No. First of the Few Il primo dei pochi - Italian film censorship file ref.
Il cattivo tedesco e il bravo italiano: Diario di guerra by Claudio Mori Giovanni Greppi a Craveggia: Le porte del mondo: Emigrazione vigezzina in Sud America Memorie Vol. Lettere a Craveggia dall'assedio di Parigi Volume 4 Narrativa 26 Oct Con gli avvenimenti della Valle giorno per giorno dall'anno 1 Jul Previous Page 1 2 Next Page. Provide feedback about this page.
Odori, suoni, sensazioni tattili, gesti, colori, diventano rapidamente per ognuno di noi parte di un raffinato complesso interpretativo. E chi traduce per professione, dove si posiziona in questa storia? Per soddisfare la propria passione si fa della traduzione un mestiere anche senza alcuna ricompensa eccetto il proprio godimento.
Che cosa fa chi ama? Ma rimane sempre un millimetro al di qua. Lo stesso avviene per chi ama qualunque testo. Chi traduce si trova preso fra due universi che lo attraggono e lo eludono. Trieste, Banti, Anna. Rodopi, Hofstadter, Douglas. Le Ton beau de Marot. Basic Books, Masiola Rosini, Rosanna. Aspects of Language and Translation. Campanotto, Translation Studies.
Cambridge UP, Translation. The Theory and Practice. The Magician, China Ink, 70x50 cm. Translating Andrea Camilleri into English: His books seem to be ubiquitous and he seems to have an inexhaustible supply of them stashed away in his desk drawer. The straight and immediate answer that comes to my mind is that you really cannot translate Camilleri, if you expect to present an English-speaking Camilleri.
The reality is, however, that translation has al- ways been part of the literary world and it has been accomplished in various degrees of fidelity since the beginning of time. As a prac- ticing translator I am more interested in the pragmatic aspect of translation that accomplishes every day something that presumably is impossible to do.
Thus, it is true, Camilleri is impossible to trans- late, but I venture to say that his books will in fact be translated one after the other. Already the first translation has come out. A translator faces three different challenges of various difficulties. The first is the fairly straight forward problem of translating Italian into En- glish which ought not create much of a problem; the second is the frequent use of the Sicilian language—notice I said language, not dialect—in dialogues with people who for one reason or another speak in that language.
This too should not represent an unsurmountable difficulty since Sicilian is a language like all the others and as such can and is normally translated to English. The easiest way of translating these dialogues is to add a qualifying sen- tence that says these words word were spoken in Sicilian. Another way could be to translate the dialogues into slang or colloquial speech. The third and certainly the most difficult subtext to trans- late in Camilleri is his unpredictable and whimsical interspersing of the narrative with Italianized Sicilian words. The use of these words, in fact, distinguishes Camilleri from other Sicilian writers such as Vitaliano Brancati, Sciascia or Bufalino, who used Sicilian occasionally but always with transparent objectives.
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- Giovanni Pirelli: un autentico rivoluzionario.
At any rate, it is probably the most recognizable feature of his style and no doubt contributed, in some measure, to the huge success of his work. This kind of linguistic code-switching is not discussed by aca- demic translation theorists and practitioners. No one, at least as far as I have been able to read, has addressed the problem from a theo- retical or practical point of view. Luigi Bonaffini in an article on the translation of dialect poetry confirms that the American translators he has studied completely ignore the problem and proceed as if the original texts were written by a monolingual author.
But this is a serious problem, especially when you translate from Italian which is unique among the romance languages for having dialects that are not dialects but different languages that boast of a long and impor- tant literary tradition. Thus, translation theorists are not much help to us in this endeavor. It constitutes an intrinsic part of his style and as such its function must be understood before any attempts can be made not to duplicate it—because that is im- possible—but to come as close to it as possible.
To develop a strat- egy the translator must understand what Camilleri is trying to ac- complish by interjecting the Italianized Sicilian into his narrative. This task is not an easy one and it certainly would require a great more study than I have been able to devote to it. Nevertheless, a few observations can help us to orient ourselves as we attempt to offer solutions to the problem at hand.
With this in mind, I picked out at random a paragraph from one of the thirty stories in Un mese con Montalbano, the Sicilian po- lice inspector whom the French liken to their Inspector Maigret. Calorio non si chiamava Calorio, ma in tutta Vigata lo conoscevano con questo nome. Campava dimandando la limosina, ma con discrezione, senza dare fastiddio, senza spavintare fimmine e picciliddri.
The italics are mine and indicate Sicilian words and expres- sions that the author uses throughout the book as an intrinsic com- ponent of his style. For the moment, we will postpone any consid- eration of how these stylistic devices characterize the text. The author here is making great demands on the translator. The italicized words are in effect Sicilian words that have been modi- fied to sound Italian by changing a vowel or two, and they can be understood because the author placed them in a context that even non-Sicilians can guess at, even though they may not know the ex- act meaning.
Calorio is thus the shortened form of Calogero, but it is not Caloriu, which is the exact Sicilian name. The word paro is the same as paio in Italian, but in Sicilian it would be written as paru. In fact, in the first edition of Il filo di turno, the editor at Mondadori required Camilleri to add a glossary that would ex- plain the Sicilian words to non-Sicilian readers. This feature has been dropped from subsequent books because it is in reality unnecessary for Italians.
They can understand the text because Camilleri has be- come more skilled in placing them in a context that explains them better. Even if the terms are not understood exactly, Italians have a good idea of the possible meanings. At any rate, the presence of these words adds a certain strangeness to the narrative that the trans- lator cannot ignore. The use of the form Calorio instead of Calogero has two pur- poses: Saint Calogero, if I am not mistaken, is in fact the patron Saint of Sciacca and a few other towns in the Agrigento province. So perhaps a note should point this out.
There are cases when the Sicilian term used does not have an Italian coun- terpart and Camilleri uses it because the Sicilian is far more expres- sive and renders better what he had in mind. But in general, there does not seem to be any logic, either linguistically determined or contextually driven for the intrusion of such terms. Their presence does not seem to emerge out of a need to make a particular state- ment. I suggest that two of the reasons for the interjections are primarily to add color and to identify the narrator as a Sicilian. Ulti- mately it seems to me that Camilleri probably speaks like that him- self, that is, from time to time, and in an unpredictable manner, he interjects Sicilian words into his speech.
If that is so what purpose do the interjections have.
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It is a method of drawing the readers into the web that he is spinning, an act of captatio benevolentia. Sicilians have been historically conditioned not to speak in their own language to strangers or anyone whom they do not know or trust. As a literary ploy this is not new. Boccaccio establishes the same kind of relationship with his readers, a kind of complicity between author and reader that ex- cludes some of the characters themselves. As Boccaccio lets us be a knowing audience, participants in the joke, Camilleri by using his Sicilianized Italian or Italianized Sicilian is forming a bond with the reader who understands—the trick is that after a while everyone understands—and the use of a different code does not exclude any- one.
He had come to town, —nobody knows from where—about twenty years back, with a pair of pants more holes than fabric, tied at the waist with a rope, with a little jacket with so many patches he looked like a Harlequin, barefoot, but with very clean feet. He begged for a living, but discreetly, without bothering anyone, or scaring the women and children.
He could hold his wine well, when he could afford to buy a bottle, so much so that nobody ever saw him even slightly drunk, in spite of the fact that there had been times during feast days when he had put away quite a few liters. Few would argue that this is not a faithful rendition of the Ital- ian text, in terms of the information conveyed. Having lost the metalinguistic com- ponent, i. What options are open to a translator? It seems to me that if he wants to maintain a multilevel linguistic code he must couch his rendition with a least two, and possibly more, linguistic codes that would be accessible to the readers.
If the audience for the novel is English, the translator could try to use standard English with American English as subtext. If he is American he might uti- lize expressions and idiomatic sentences that can be identified with a local dialect to render the Sicilianized Italian expressions. Naturally the risk is great that the translator would introduce an alien dimensions into the novel, disregarding the fact that the ac- tion takes place in Sicily and such interjections would be consid- ered out of sync with the environment.
Failing this option, it seems to me, the only option left for the translator is to develop his own multiple level language made up of sequences that he himself con- siders normal and interjecting from time to time expressions that deviate in a consistent way from the dominant language. With this in mind let us try a different rendition of the passage we have already translated. Calorio was not his name, but in Vigata the whole town knew him as Calorio.
About twenty years back, he had turned up in town from God knows where, with a pair of britches that were draftier than a barn on account of the many holes, tied with a rope around his waist, and with a raggedy jacket so patched up he looked like a circus clown. He walked barefoot, but his feet were spotless. He held his liquor so well, when he could scare up enough to buy himself a bottle, that nobody ever saw him even slightly pickled;tough there had been times on Feast days when he had put away quite a few quarts.
The italicized words were chosen to convey a subtext normally associated with a slangy, folksy, homespun, Southern vocabulary that mimics though not in an obvious way what Camilleri is doing. No translator expects a perfect correspondance between his version and the original. Trans- lation is like riding a seesaw with the translator sitting on one end and the original author on the other. The important thing is to maintain a balance that allows peaks and valleys on ei- ther side.
Some time the translator will overshoot the target, some- times he will come up short.
Memorie di un vecchio carbonaro ravegnano by Primo Uccellini
I think that after a while the translator would de- velop a sub language that would serve him well whenever his fancy called for it. But it would be almost like speaking in falsetto. The danger to overdue it, of course, would be ever present. This danger must have dawned on Camilleri himself, for as his stories develop, he seems to lighten the dosage of the code-switching to a bare mini- mum and often dropping it altogether. And I must say, he solved the problem by com- pletely ignoring it. In all fairness to him, I think Sartarelli did a cred- itable job.
But the code-switching that we have talking about is completely ignored. Allow me a brief comparison between the three texts: Gaetano Cipolla 21 Pino e Saro si avviarono verso il posto di lavoro ammuttando ognuno il proprio carrello. Poi fu Saro a rompere il silenzio. Here is the French translation: Puis ce fut Saro qui rompit le silence. Pino and Saro headed toward their assigned work sector, each pushing his own cart. To get to the Pasture it took half an hour, if one was slow of foot as they were.
The first fifteen minutes they spent without speaking, already sweaty and sticky. It was Saro who broke the silence. As you can see, neither translator has acknowledged the code- switching or made an attempt to go beyond the surface meaning of the words and even at that level one could be picky and find unfelicitous renderings. In the process, however, he mistrans- lated the sentence. It also means an inability to speak. The word is strangely onomatopeic.
He wanted to convey the considerable energy required to make the carts move forward. Simply pushing or pulling would not do. So here is my tentative version: Pino and Saro started out toward their assigned work area, each leaning forward on his cart. It would take half an hour to walk to the pasture if you moved one foot after the other as slowly as they were doing. They spent the first quarter of an hour, already sweaty and sticky, stubbornly clinging to their silence.
Then Saro was the first to speak. Americans generally do not use the word and some would have to look it up in a dictionary. Hence the English translations of his work will inevitably be monovocal. Eliot, Pound, Waley, Sayers: The writings on translation by two household names of literary mod- ernism — Ezra Pound and T. Eliot — and by two minor modernist and late modernist figures — Arthur Waley and Dorothy L. Sayers — draw attention to how theories of translation have been instrumental in defining the poli- tics of national and literary identity in the twentieth century. My analysis will focus on writers who enjoy the status of original authors Pound and Eliot and writers almost exclusively known for their translating activities Waley or enjoying popularity thanks to their detective fiction and academic credentials Sayers.
This comparison will look at the relationship between modernity and the past, genius and context, and elitism and democratiza- tion, always through the vantage point of theories of translation. This will lead me to explore how the politics of translation and the politics of literary history are intertwined.
It was not given to the Romans, or generously to their successors, the Ital- ians. Seneca does not epitomise bad taste, he embodies the Latin era. Most importantly, his influence derives from the translations of his tragedies which circulated at the time: Heywood and Studley still use the fourteener, but they juxtapose it to the blank verse in the chorus — which gives the transla- tors an opportunity for adding, reducing, omitting and substituting in order to increase the dramatic effect — thus creating a contrast between old and new. Eliot reads the translations in the Tenne Tragedies as a historical pas- sage from the old Tudor language, still chained to Chaucerian models, to the Elizabethan one, based on Seneca.
Such a renewal is not only formal but also semantic, lexical, and epistemological. Eliot develops a notion of English tradition by distin- guishing on the one hand its Anglosaxon past, a non-dramatic past, and on the other the foreign influence, or, even better, the Latin influence a term which in this essay spans from ancient Rome to the Italian Renaissance. The Elizabethan period is thus the foundation of a notion of Englishness,7 it is the historical locus in which tradition recognises its own origins.
Pictorial visibility, translation and totalitarianism: Pound is more respon- sible for the XXth Century revolution in poetry than is any other individual — is sure to attack some venerated names. But Chinese notation is something much more than arbitrary symbols. It is based upon a vivid shorthand picture of the operation of nature.
In the algebraic figure and in the spoken word there is no natural connection between thing and sign: But the Chinese method follows natural suggestion. Chinese poetry has the unique advantage of combining both elements. It speaks at once with the vividness of painting, and with the mobility of sound. It is, in some sense, more objective than either, more dram[a]tic [sic].
In reading Chinese we do not seem to be juggling mental counters, but to be watching things work out their own fate. Trans- lation, the moving across cultures, and the publication of works with both original and facing translation are thus presented as a way of regenerating the West linguistically and culturally. Obscurities not inherent in the matter, obscurities due not to the thing but to the wording are a botch, and are not worth preserving in a translation.
The work lives not by them but despite them. Obscurities inherent in the thing occur when the author is piercing, or trying to pierce into, uncharted regions; when he is trying to express things not yet current, not yet worn into phrases; when he is ahead of the emotional, or philosophic sense as a painter might be ahead of the colour sense of his contemporaries. This is ex- emplary of the very problematic role which translation plays in Pound. Hanno una funzione nel programma educativo del Fascismo anche se non ce ne rendiamo pienamente conto.
Mussolini e Hitler per magnifico intuito seguono le dottrine di Confucio. Non basta leggere una sola volta una sua versione, bisogna, come io stesso continuo a fare, leggere e rileggere il testo originale e ideogrammico col commento accanto. They have a role within the fascist educational programme even though we might not fully realise this.
King Vittorio Emanuele is a Confucian sovereign. It is not enough to read once his translation, one must — as I do — read and reread the original text written in ideograms with its facing commentary]. Such a regime is represented by Confucius and Mang Tsze, who represent a different kind of otherness able to rejuve- nate a decadent society. Such Confucius and Mang Tsze are eminently Poundian characters, who are said to be different but mirror what is already there: Arthur Waley Arthur Waley is the first twentieth-century writer to translate the great names in Chinese and Japanese poetry, giving shape to a picture of the East which will dominate the West for over a century.
For Eliot, the original is matter an sich, unknowable by definition: Bulzoni, , Manchester University Press, Routledge, ; Philip Dodd and Robert Colls eds. Faber and Faber, , pp. Faber and Faber, [] , p. Garland, , vol. Among the many works by Pound on the East see Cathai London: Elkin Mathews, , translated as Catai, ed. Mary de Rachelwiltz Milan: Scheiwiller, ; Plays Modelled on the No, ed. Macmillan, ; Confucio. Casa delle edizioni popolari, ; Confucio. See also Ezra Pound and Japan.
Letters and Essays, ed. Samehide Kodama Redding Ridge: New Directions, , in which Pound writes: Cambridge University Press, This latter taste has occasionally broken out in Europe, notably in twelfth-century Provence and thirteenth-century Tuscany, but it has never held its own for very long. Said, Orientalism New York: Translations, with an introduction by Hugh Kenner Nor- folk Ct: New Directions, [] , p.
Oxford University Press, , pp. East and West Ltd, ; Japanese Poetry. George Allen and Unwin, , p. Alla cieca by Claudio Magris translated by Anne Milano Appel Anne Milano Appel, a former library director and language teacher, has been translating professionally for more than ten years. Sev- eral of her book-length translations have been published, and shorter works that she has authored or translated have appeared in other professional and literary venues. Her translation of Terror: A versatile and prolific writer, his work includes essays, novels, plays and trav- elogues, often with a blending of genres.
Among his works published by Garzanti are: Dietro le parole , Itaca e oltre , Illazioni su una sciabola , Danubio ; published in the United States as Danube in to great acclaim , Stadelmann , Un altro mare , Microcosmi , for which he received the Premio Strega and which appeared in English in as Microcosms , and La mostra He lives in Trieste. Or better yet, he says, novels are expanded gravestones.
To be sure, there are similarities between the two works. Jason and the Argo- nauts in one, Eurydice and Orpheus in the other. Still, the formal differences are the most strikingly apparent. Since Magris is postmodern, in his hands the classical stories of Jason and the Argonauts, Eurydice and Orpheus become upended myths, archetypal narratives turned on their head. In Alla cieca, Ja- son and his crew bring Greek culture but also violence, civilization and barbarism, when they go in search of the Golden Fleece, and the fleece is sullied.
She is the woman who protects, the donna-scudo, but also the woman who can lead to ruin. Both fig- ures are connected with abandonment and loss, as well as with de- liverance and salvation. Nor is it surprising that ambivalence is the dominant note. The an- swer, like the sea, like life itself, is ambiguous, or rather ambivalent, multi-valent. In a context that embraces the coexistence of opposites, of a multiplicity of values and meanings, the figurehead is both posi- tive and negative… and more.
In one sense it represents those who turn a blind eye, who look and move on: Lei non ha mai provato la paura? Si sa quello che si deve fare e sotto a chi tocca. Ma quel-la sera a Londra, sbarcato dalla Jane, in quella locanda, con quella ragazza, non sapevo chi comandava e chi obbediva. But I only understood this later, much later than that night in London when, fleeing from that girl, I ended up running into an impressment squad, that dragged me onto a scow on the Thames and from there on board a fine warship, the Surprize.
You know what you have to do and under whose command. My body was there, remote, sweaty, chilled; I felt that when it came to love, even the five-minute variety, no one is in command and no one decides. To be sure, that time I did not get to drink any beer, the forced labor impressment squad grabbed me almost immediately, in the alley, before I could slip into another tavern. Mi piace una biografia che racconti tutto quello che uno non fa — Ma bisognava esserci, quella sera, per capire That night I fled, a deserter from the battlefield of love, savage like all battlefields.
If only I had always fled like that, later on as well, perhaps now — later instead I was no longer able to flee, or abandon the flag. Per un attimo, per esempio, ho creduto, intravedendola sulla strada, che fosse Mangawana; che anche lei avesse attraversato il grande mare. Invece a Fiume, quel giorno The fault of that revolving door, with the glass panels, at the cafe Lloyd, in Fiume, where we would go some- times in the evening. One time I saw her arriving; I was already in- side waiting for her, she crossed the street, smiled at me from be- yond the transparent door and entered it, turning the panels; as she passed between them her figure and her face were mirrored in those revolving plates of glass and shattered into changing reflections, a handful of luminous, fragmented splinters.
And so, between one revolving door panel and another, she disappeared. I must have stayed there a long time watching those glittering door panes; years sitting inside there, as the door revolves more and more slowly and nobody enters. For a moment, for instance, catching a glimpse of her in the street, I thought it was Mangawana; that she too had crossed the great sea.
I was the one who called her that, under the huge eucalyp- tus trees leaning out over the waters of the Derwent: Instead it was Maria — yes, she was also Mangawana, be- cause Maria was the sea into which all rivers flow. Loving a woman does not mean that you forget all the others, but rather that you love them and desire them and have them all in her. When we made love on the solitary beach of Levrera island or in that room in Miholascica, there was also the austral forest at the edge of the ocean, Terra Aus- tralis Incognita, the unknown land of the South.
Perhaps I never loved her as much as I did at that moment, when I lied about returning and embarked on the search for the fleece; while she held my hands a moment longer, and at the same time, gentle yet resolute, helped me disengage mine — Hypsipyle bidding farewell to Jason: Non vorremo mica declamare tutto il libro, adesso, no?
Neanche Giasone la guarda negli occhi, quando risponde solenne: Potessi cancellarle anche dal mio viso, come le piallo e spiano via dal volto di questa polena, le rughe incise dal mio cuore, mie e solo maledettamente mie. Ergoterapia, Arbeit macht frei, conosco la cura. Non avrei neanche bisogno, a dire il vero, di quei bei cataloghi illustrati che mi date per copiare le fig- ure. Non sono un novizio, mi guadagnavo due soldi anche fabbricando o aggiustando un paio di polene per qualche nave che arrivava a Hobart Town con la prua e la figura di prua scalcagnate.
Look at that face — beautiful and generic, the caption says, like beauty should be, purified of every incidental, par- ticular dross, of any doleful individual expressivity. Would that I could erase from my own face as well — the way I plane and smooth them from the face of this figurehead — the lines carved by my heart, that are mine and accursedly mine alone. A good idea, doctor, this idea of making us work, of not letting us grow melancholy, twid- dling our thumbs; to each his own task, his specialty. Bella questa illustrazione, una bianca polena ignota conservata, scrivono sotto, al Museo Marittimo di Anversa.
Mi piace anche scolpirle e costruirle. Gli occhi di Ma-ria In any case, men suspended over the depths al- ready have too much fury in their hearts and require serenity, namely, impersonality as colorless as water. Take a look at those X-rays in your drawer, at how mushy my brain is.
Just imagine whether the noble, inexpressive face of this figure- head of Anversa could ever be reduced to this, even Dachau would leave her cold. I also like to carve and sculpt them. I wish I could copy all of them, all the figures in this catalog, unacquainted with passion, with sorrow, with identity — unaware like that, of course being immortal would be worth it… It says here that Thorvaldsen, a master of neo- classic sculpture, served his apprenticeship in the studio of his fa- ther, who carved figureheads for the Danish fleet — like me, creator of these figures that nobody will be able to send to forced labor camps.
Look how well they turn out, the torso grows out of a whirl- wind that, at the base, seems to ripple the waves and continue on to the fluttering garment, an undulating line that will dissolve into amorphousness, but meanwhile… And those eyes wide open on the beyond, on imminent, unavoidable catastrophes.
E invece queste maligne vorrebbero la tua perdizione, la tua tragedia A me non le taglierete, vero? Mi comporto be-ne, non faccio sciocchezze, sono rispettoso. E come si fa a non essere rispettosi, con queste figure bellissime? E quelle Euridici che rientrano nelle tenebre How could you not be respectful, with these beautiful figures? Look at this enchanting mouth, the unreadable smile, the same smile she wore when she sank that day with her ship, the Falkland, near the Scilly Isles, the book says. Vorrei pisciare sulla mia tomba, su una tomba bisogna annaffiare i fiori, no? Ma ho letto che qualche volta le polene naufragate ritornano.
Still, I pretended not to notice any- thing, everyone gets by any way they can. We buried one of them — read what it says here — the one from the Rebecca, a whaling ship from New Bedford, among the rocks by the sea. Lewdness too, as is fitting; death is lewd and sorrow is lewd. I even do it, when nobody can see me, there in the park of Saint David. Even a face composed of flesh soon deteriorates, the fish devour it and it quickly becomes unrecognizable, an unrecognizable piece of refuse from the sea. It was I who pushed Maria, on the open sea and under the sea; I threw her to the sharks as food and so I was spared by them.
And so she disappeared in that dark sea, in that obscurity. But I read that sometimes shipwrecked figureheads return. Every day he watched the sea discon- solately, he could not believe she was dead and when the ship re- entered the port he saw the figurehead, standing upright on the prow, identical to her — he leaped into the water to go to her, longing to embrace her, but he went under. Waterlogged and dazed, water in his nose in his mouth in his ears, it was impossible to see the ship as it passed by, to see whether she was there or not.
President, as you can see, I am still here. He too was all ex- cited, he never thought he would be granted permission to enter the Home, when he requested it, so he could come and get me. When my health unexpectedly deteriorated, he forced me to enter the Rest Home to recover — an attractive, comfortable, well equipped place, no doubt about it — and he bawled and ranted and let himself go completely, needing a shave and not even changing his under- wear.
He bored every friend he met with a long story about his mis- fortune and how lonely he was. Per questo esistono le Case di Riposo. We have to resign our- selves, indeed be content and at peace with our conscience, when we accompany them there and entrust them to that qualified staff. Con te, diceva, vicino a te so chi sono e non sono niente male.
Anche la vita — non gli ho chiesto se la sua o la mia — oppure ammutolire, che per me sarebbe peggio che morire. In short, only when we were together did he feel entirely se- rene, confident, even about what he wrote, after he had read it to me and had seen in my eyes — rather on your mouth, he would say, when my lips, pouting a bit at first, opened slightly… almost a smile, no, not yet, but… I would prune his words, of course — excessive, immoderate and magnanimous as he has always been, he lavished words profusely and I pared them for him, discarding the rind, the core and even a lot of the pulp, when it was necessary.
He would not have been capable of it, fervent, unrestrained and compulsive as he was, always a morsel and a glass too much, but he let himself be put on a diet by me and he knew that, if something remained on the plate after I had passed everything through the sieve, it was truly something good. Here outside we can only see those doors, whose gleaming convex plates reflect splintered images of things that lengthen obliquely or expand and swell — stretching out, inflating, shrinking — if we move backward or forward a little.
All we know are those ephemeral travesties, not the truth that is hidden on the other side, behind those bronze mirrors. But I, my love, he would say to me, can no longer celebrate only the mirages of those mirrors, those illusory reflections. My verse must be about reality, the truth, that which holds the world together or dissolves it, no matter what the cost.
Even if the cost is life — I did not ask him whether he meant his or mine — or else fall silent, which for me would be worse than death. At those words, Mr. Forse, ho pensato, era venuto a prendermi soprattutto — soltanto? Me lo vedevo, aggrappato a me, ad attendere le mie parole, i suoi occhi verdi febbrili Pure qui gli oggetti mentono, si dissimulano e trascolorano come meduse.
Claudio Mori
The road impassable, the bridge collapsed, the abyss insurmountable. It seemed to me that I could already hear him asking me about the Home, and about you, Mr. Of course, because he too, Mr. President, is convinced — like everyone, like me before I came here — that once you enter the Home you finally see the truth as it is — no longer veiled, reflected and dis- torted, disguised and made-up as it is seen on the outside, but di- rectly, face to face.
President, people yearn to know; even those who pretend they have no interest in knowing would give anything to know. Maybe, I thought, he had come to get me primarily — only? I could just see him, clinging to me, awaiting my words, his green eyes feverish… and how could I tell him that… You see my point, Mr. How could I tell him that here inside, aside from the light that is so much fainter, it is just the same as outside? That we are behind the mirror, but that the back is also a mirror, no different from the other.
Here too objects lie, disguising themselves and changing color like medusas. There are a lot of us, like outside; even more of us, which makes it even more difficult to know one another. Gli sarebbe venuto un colpo, al mio vate. Mi figuravo le sue lamentele, un uomo finito, un poeta cui hanno rubato il tema; avrebbe pensato che quella congiura cosmica era tutta una manovra contro di lui, per metterlo a terra, per condannarlo al silenzio. For that matter, why should we know more than those on the outside, more than we ourselves knew when we were out there?
And as for you, Mr. President, why should we have seen you here? Those ailments and infirmities that sent us to these corridors and to these dark vales, those small calamities of the heart or brain, the venomous bane of a snake or of a gas valve do not help us to better understand this immense laby- rinth of before and after, of never and always, of I and you and… We are on the other side of the mirror, but it is still a mirror, and all we see is a pallid face, without being certain whose it is.
The river flows, blood flows, a dike breaks, the water overflows and floods the fields, the swimmer goes under, takes in water, re-emerges, goes on swim- ming without seeing anything, either in the blinding midday light or the dark of night. Tell him that I, even here inside, know no more than he does? He would have had a shock, that bard of mine. I could just picture his complaints, a man who was done for, a poet whose theme had been stolen from him; he would think that that cosmic conspiracy was all a scheme against him, to break him, to condemn him to si- lence.
Ma forse avrei stretto i denti e inghiottito la mia stanchezza e avrei tirato avanti. Conosco questo stupido pettegolezzo. Anche da sola, anche senza di lui sarei stata felice di fare una passeggiata da quelle parti. And when the time came, for him or for me, to return to the Home again, this time for good, what a farce having to repeat goodbyes reduced to conventionalities.
I felt so tired all of a sudden. Still, perhaps I would have gritted my teeth and swallowed my fatigue and I would have carried on. Women can do this, they do it almost all the time, even when they no longer know why or for whom. President, it was not on account of such a pitiful, trite reason that he turned around and lost me. It is a lie by envious colleagues who want to depict him as a narcissistic egotist to make him lose favor with the public, maybe the same ones who spread those rumors about the pretty boys whom he supposedly consoled himself with in my absence, infuriating all those adoring female admirers of his, jealous enough to scratch his eyes out.
He wanted to know and I prevented him. God knows it cost me. Ora infatti, a casa, a casa nostra, dorme, tranquil-lo. Still, I would have loved to go out for a little while — just for a little while, we both knew it — into that summer light — at least for one summer, a summer on that small island where he and I… Even by myself, even without him I would have been happy to go walking there.
But I would have destroyed him, by going with him and an- swering his inevitable questions. You will therefore understand, Mr. President, why, when by then we were almost at the doors, I called to him in a strong, firm voice, the voice from when I was young, on the other side, and he — I knew he would not be able to resist — he turned around, as I felt myself being sucked back, lighter and lighter, a paper doll in the wind, a shadow that lengthens retreats and merges with the other shadows of the evening, and he watched me, turned to stone, but safe and sound, and I vanished happily before his eyes, because I could already see him returning to life tormented but strong, igno- rant of the void, still capable of serenity, perhaps even of happiness.
Now in fact, at home, our home, he is sleeping quietly. He has also taught at Rutgers University. The former president of the New Jersey College English Association and the New Jersey Association for Developmental Education, he has presented at several professional conferences in the US and was a keynote speaker at the University of Natal South Africa conference on lan- guage instruction in He is the author and co-author of six col- lege texts on writing published by McGraw-Hill.
Buscemi is the son of Sicilian immigrants from the province of Agrigento. After studying law at the University of Catania, he began to write plays for a company of amateur actors and showed an intense interest in popular poetry. In , he moved to Florence, then capital of Italy, and began his career as a literary critic by writing for La Nazione. Florence also introduced him to the work of Balzac and of other French novelists.
By , Capuana was in Milan writing for Corriere della Sera. In , he was appointed to the chair of aesthetics and stylistics at the University of Catania. As a literary critic, Capuana established a reputation for objec- tivity and analytical acumen. He is also remembered for having championed theories of romantic naturalism in works such as Studi sulla letteratura contemporanea In addition, his ability to expose the psychology of his characters won him lasting fame as a novelist.
Among his best works in this genre are Giacinta , Profumo , Le Paesane , and his masterpiece, Il Marchese di Roccaverdina I am indebted to my good friend Nino Russo for his help in translating a number of particularly difficult idiomatic expressions and for all of his encouragement. Quando arrivava la stagione delle arance, il Re vi metteva a guardia una sentinella notte e giorno; e tutte le mattine scendeva lui stesso a osservare coi suoi occhi se mai mancasse una foglia. Una mattina va in giardino, e trova la sentinella addormentata.