Hermit in Paris (22 page)

Just as in later years it would have been difficult, when Rome became the residential centre of a large number of people who wrote, people from all over and from every literary tendency, to find a common denominator to define a ‘Roman line’ as opposed to any other line. In short, it seems to me that a map of Italian literature today is totally independent of the geographical map, and I leave the question open as to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

As for me, I am fine only when I do not have to ask myself ‘Why am I here?’, a question which you can forget about usually in cities which have such a rich and complex cultural texture, a bibliography so vast as to discourage anyone who was thinking of writing from adding anything else to it. For example, for the last two centuries writers from all over the world have lived in Rome, who have got no particular reason to be in Rome more than anywhere else, some of them curious explorers who found the city’s spirit congenial to them (Gogol, more than anyone else), others profiting from the advantage of feeling like a foreigner.

Unlike other writers, in your case creative activity has never prevented
you from producing parallel theoretical reflections, both metafictional and
metapoetic. Just look, if we needed an example, at a very recent text,
‘How I wrote one of my books’, which came out in
‘Actes sémiotiques. Documents’
, 6:51 (1984) (‘Groupe de Recherches sémiolinguistiques’ from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales).
And confirmation would come from the powerful suggestions that semiologists and literary theorists have always derived from your
oeuvre
,
even though you do not appear to be writing a programmatic work. How
do you explain this sort of brilliant symbiosis?

It is quite natural for ideas in general circulation to have influenced me, sometimes immediately, at other times with delayed action. The important thing would be to have thought in advance of something that was subsequently useful to others. The fact that I had dealt with popular folktales at a time when no one bothered about their mysterious mechanisms, made me particularly receptive to structuralist problems, as soon as they came to general attention about a decade later. However, I do not think I have a real theoretical vocation. One’s pleasure in experimenting with a method of thought as though it were a gadget imposing demanding and complicated rules can coexist with a basic agnosticism and empiricism; the way poets and artists think, I believe, is like this. It is quite different from investing all your expectations of reaching a truth in a theory or a methodology (as one would in a philosophy or ideology). I have always greatly admired and loved the rigour of philosophy and science; but always from a bit of a distance.

How do you feel being part of Italian literature today? Can you glimpse
anything in more recent times that goes beyond pure decorum? Moreover,
does the question about the ‘sense of literature’, which has been asked
by more than one journal, seem to you to have any sense?

To give an overview of Italian literature today – and to reconfigure in this light the literary history of the century – one must take account of various factors which were true forty years ago, at the time of my literary apprenticeship, and which have become clear again now, so they have always been true: a) the privileged position of poetry in verse, containing as it does values that prosewriters and storytellers also pursue, though by different means but with the same ends; b) in fiction the prevalence of the short story and other forms of creative writing, more than the novel, whose successes are rare and exceptional; c) the fact that unconventional, eccentric and atypical writers end up being the most representative figures of their time.

Bearing all this in mind, and going back over the totality of what I have done and said and thought, wrongly or rightly, I have to conclude that I feel perfectly at ease in Italian literature and that I could not imagine myself anywhere but in that context.

[First published in
Autografo
, 2:6 (October, 1985).]

1
Piero Gobetti (1901–26), influential Turinese intellectual, founder of the anti-Fascist journal
La rivoluzione liberale
, which was forced to cease publication in 1925. Gobetti died in exile in Paris from the after-effects of Fascist beatings.

2
Elio Vittorini (1908–66), novelist, journalist, translator (particularly of American literature in the 1930s and 40s) and leading cultural figure in post-war Italy. Initially a Fascist, he switched to anti-Fascism after the Spanish Civil War and in the Second World War fought with the partisans in Milan. His most famous novel was
Conversazione in Sicilia (Conversation in Sicily)
(1938–39), defined by Calvino as ‘a one-off Guernica of a novel’.

3
Emilio Cecchi (1884–1966), influential critic, expert on English and American literature, and author of two major travelogues, Mexico (1932) and L’America amara
(Bitter America)
(1940).

4
Mario Tobino (1910–91), prolific Tuscan novelist and also psychiatrist, whose early works,
Il figlio del farmacista (The Chemist’s Son)
(1942) and
Il deserto della Libia (The
Libyan Desert)
(1950), were largely autobiographical.

5
Carlo Levi (1902–75), Turinese medical graduate, painter and writer. Imprisoned then exiled to Basilicata for anti-Fascist activities in 1935, he based his most famous book on that experience,
Cristo si è fermato a Eboli (Christ Stopped at Eboli)
(1945).

6
Carlo Cassola (1917–87), novelist. His novels of sub-Flaubertian realism, set in provincial Tuscany, were successful in the 1950s but were increasingly the target of more experimental writers such as Calvino. His most famous work is
Il taglio del
bosco (The Cutting of the Woods)
(1949).

7
Giorgio Bassani (1916–2000), famous novelist and poet whose works are nostalgically evocative of Jewish life in his home-town of Ferrara. Largely responsible for ensuring that Lampedusa’s
Il gattopardo (The Leopard)
(1958) was published after being turned down by several publishers, his own most famous novel is
Il giardino
dei Finzi-Contini (The Garden of the Finzi-Continis)
(1962).

8
Domenico Rea (1921–94), important Southern neo-realist writer whose novels and short stories depict life in Naples both during and after the war.

9
Daniele Ponchiroli (1924–79), then chief editor at Einaudi.

10
Calvino and the other writers mentioned were all visiting the USA on a Ford Foundation Scholarship.

11
Alfred Charles Tomlinson (1927– ), poet and artist, the visual qualities of whose verse are evident in
Relations and Contraries
(1951) and
Seeing is Believing
(1958).

12
Claude Ollier (1920– ), novelist. He won the Prix Médicis for his novel
La Mise
en scène
(1958), which turned out to be the first of a cycle of eight novels in the
Nouveau Roman
style.

13
Fernando Arrabal (1932– ), playwright and director. He was exiled from Franco’s Spain in 1955 and settled in France. His plays, such as
Cimetière des voitures
(1958), are often unconventional and evocative of ritual.

14
Hugo Claus (1929– ), major Belgian novelist, poet and playwright. His first novel,
De Metsiers (Duck’s Game)
(1950), which Calvino refers to, embodied both Flemish traditions and American influences.

15
Ugo Stille, New York correspondent of the Corriere della sera, and a personal friend of Calvino and the Einaudi publishing house.

16
Aharon Meged (1920– ), Israeli novelist and leading figure on the Israeli left. His
The Living on the Dead
was considered the best Israeli novel of the 1960s. The novel Calvino refers to was probably
Fortunes of a Fool
(English translation 1962).

17
Robert Pinget (1919–97), novelist. His parodic novel
Le Fiston
(1959) explores the possibilities and limits of language. The other novel referred to is
Clope au
dossier
(1961).

18
Marketing manager at Einaudi.

19
Ottiero Ottieri (1924– ), intellectual and writer. He was particularly interested in the ways in which literature can reflect the industrial world.

20
Charles Van Doren, a Columbia professor, had in 1957 won over $100, 000 on a popular quiz show by having answers fed to him. He confessed to taking part in the fraud in November 1959.

21
Elizabeth is the wife of Ugo Stille (Mischa); Giulio is Giulio Einaudi the publisher.

22
Luciano Foà, in charge of the Rights Office, would shortly leave Einaudi to found the Adelphi publishing house.

23
Giangiacomo Feltrinelli.

24
Antonio Fogazzaro (1842–1911), late Romantic novelist, whose most famous novels,
Piccolo mondo antico
(1895) and
Piccolo mondo moderno
(1901), mix Romantic and decadentist traits.

25
Ada Negri (1870–1945), poet and novelist whose works were popular in the first two decades of the twentieth century.

26
Giovanni Papini (1881–1956), iconoclastic intellectual and writer. He co-founded the important literary journals
Il Leonardo (
in 1904), and
Lacerba
in (1913), but later became a representative of Fascist Catholicism.

27
Egidio Ortona (1910–95). A major Italian diplomat at the UN, he went on to become Italian Ambassador to the USA (1967–75) and a major architect of Italian foreign policy. ¶ Gap in the typescript.

28
Giancarlo Menotti (1911– ), composer. He taught in Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute, and later founded the Spoleto Arts Festival. His most famous opera at this time was
The Consul
(1950).

29
A satirical song written by Calvino in 1958, set to music by Fiorenzo Carpi.

30
Antonio Segni (1891–1972), major Christian Democrat politician. He was Prime Minister of Italy from 1955–57 and 1959–60, before becoming President from 1962–64.

31
Giuseppe Prezzolini (1882–1982), writer and critic. Founder, in the early twentieth century, along with Giovanni Papini, of influential cultural journals such as
Leonardo
, and editor of
La Voce
(1908–14), he later moved to the USA. A conservative critic of Italian culture, he also wrote about his life in America.

32
Cesare Cases (1920– ), literary critic, expert on German as well as Italian literature, and the first to introduce into Italy the work of the Marxist critic György Lukács.

33
Carlo Fruttero was at the time one of the editors at Einaudi.

34
Georges Rouault (1871–1958), French painter, subjects include biblical characters.

35
Raniero Panzieri (1921–64), editor at Einaudi, dealt in particular with books on politics and sociology.

36
Paul M. Sweezy (1910– ), Marxist economist, author of
The Theory of Capitalist
Development
(1942) and (with Leo Hubermann)
Cuba: Anatomy of a Revolution
(1960).

37
Set This House on Fire
, which Einaudi would publish in 1964 as
E questa casa diede
alle fiamme
.

38
Adlai Stevenson (1900–65), Democrat politician, ran for President in the 1952 and 1956 primaries.

39
Max Ascoli (1898–1978), liberal philosopher and sociologist. He left Fascist Italy in 1931 and settled in the USA, where he founded the journal the
Reporter
, a forum for liberal views.

40
Phrase in English in the original.

41
Thomas Watson Jr, president of IBM.

42
Adriano Olivetti (1901–60), industrialist and publisher, with socialist leanings. He introduced Taylorism and scientific management into the family firm, but was also active culturally, establishing the Fondazione Olivetti. His Movimento di Comunità, unattached to the main political parties, was popular at the time.

43
Palmiro Togliatti (1893–1964), leader of the Italian Communist Party from 1926 until his death. He was highly regarded by the Kremlin, and despite advocating pluralism he sided with Moscow over the Hungarian question in 1956, to the dismay of many left-wing intellectuals, including Calvino, who then left the party.

44
Calvino is here alluding to the covers of the Einaudi series ‘I coralli’, which were illustrated with masterpieces of contemporary painting.

45
United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America.

46
Calvino is confused here. This is not Nancy but her sister Jessica Mitford, who eloped with Esmond Romilly, a nephew of Winston Churchill.

47
Again Calvino’s information is incorrect: Greene was not living in California at the time, but was visiting San Francisco on a round-the-world tour with Michael Meyer.

48
Guido Piovene (1907–74), novelist and journalist. He wrote Catholic novels in the Bernanos tradition as well as a travelogue,
De America
(1953).

49
Giovanni Malagodi (1904–91), politician. He was Secretary of the Italian Liberal Party 1954–72 and then its President, before becoming President of the Senate in 1987.

50
In 1925 the Fascist Education Minister, Giovanni Gentile, issued a pro-Fascist manifesto signed by 250 intellectuals, including Pirandello; the Idealist philosopher Benedetto Croce responded with an anti-Fascist manifesto, signed among others by the poet Montale.

51
Giovanni Ansaldo (1895–1969), journalist. Originally a Fascist, he went on to become the editor of the main Naples daily,
Il Mattino
.

52
Eugenio Scalfari (1924– ), journalist and writer, founder of the popular weekly magazine L’Espresso and the major daily paper La Repubblica.

53
Carlo Salinari (1919–78), Marxist literary critic, expert on Manzoni and Boccaccio, and champion of realist literature.

54
Antonello Trombadori (1917–93), Marxist art critic, journalist and politician. He co-edited with Salinari the left-wing journal
Il Contemporaneo
in the 1950s and 60s.

55
Antonio Giolitti (1915– ), Communist MP in the 1950s, he was in the reformist wing of the party during and after the events of Hungary in 1956, after which he joined the Socialist party. Giolitti’s expulsion from the PCI was one of the reasons that led Calvino to resign as well.

56
Alberto Arbasino (1930– ), journalist and avant-garde writer. He was a member of the Gruppo 63, and his most famous novel,
Fratelli d’Italia
(1963), articulated his critique of his own country and his delight in linguistic play and parody.

57
Franco Venturi (1914–94), historian and key figure in the Einaudi publishing house. Brought up in exile in France, he later took part in the Resistance, lived in the USSR (1947–49) and became a famous historian of the Enlightenment as well as of Russian populism.

58
György Lukács (1885–1971), Hungarian literary critic and philosopher. His Marxist aesthetics, particularly as expounded in
The Historical Novel
(1955), were very influential in Italy.

59
Togliatti gave a positive interview in spring 1956 regarding Khrushchev’s moves towards de-Stalinization. However, he later toed the Moscow line over the uprisings in Poland and Hungary that year, thus causing many Italian intellectuals to leave the party.

60
Paolo Spriano (1925–88), historian. Friend of Calvino before and after the latter’s departure from the Communist party, he went on to write the definitive history of the party (1967–75).

61
Luigi Longo (1900–80), politician. After fighting in the Resistance, he was a key figure in the PCI, eventually succeeding Togliatti as leader of the party (1964–72). § Giancarlo Pajetta (1911–90), politician. Leader of the Communist Youth, he was imprisoned under Fascism (1933–43). He went on to become editor of the Communist daily
l’Unità
several times, and was on the reformist wing of the party.

62
Antonio Roasio (1902– ), politician. Inter-regional head of the Communist Youth under Fascism, he lived in exile in France, the USSR and Spain (during the Civil War). After the war he became a Communist MP, head of the Turin Federation of Communists, and later a member of the Senate. His autobiography,
Figlio della
classe operaia
(
Working-class Boy
), was published in 1977.

63
Giorgio Amendola (1907–80), politician and historian. Imprisoned under Fascism, he went on to become a key figure in the reformist wing of the PCI.

64
Pietro Secchia (1903–73), politician and historian. Also imprisoned for leading Communist Youth activities under Fascism, he was later more hard-line than Amendola. Wrote histories of the Resistance and of the Italian Communist Party.

65
In 1944 Togliatti urged his party at the Salerno conference to put aside its hostility to the monarchy and to join the royal government in opposing the Nazis and Fascists: national liberation was to take priority over constitutional questions.

66
Achille Starace (1889–1945). Hard-line secretary of the Fascist party 1931–39, he was obsessed with external trappings such as Fascist uniforms, the Roman salute and the use of ‘
Voi
’ instead of ‘
Lei
’. He was shot by partisans and his body was hung up alongside Mussolini’s in Piazzale Loreto in Milan in April 1945.

67
Giaime Pintòr (1918–43), writer and Resistance leader. He took a heroic part in the defence of Rome against the Germans in September 1943; his
Sangue
d’Europa (The Blood of Europe)
was published posthumously (1950).

68
Giorgio Caproni (1912–88), Ligurian poet, novelist and translator. Like Calvino, he fought in the Resistance, as this extract shows.