Italo Calvino the Sun and the Moon Cesare Cases
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OCTOBER 1986 THE ITALIAN REVIEW OF BOOKS - LIT. 5.000 Tullio Pericoli: Italo Calvino Italo Calvino The Sun and the Moon by Natalia Ginzburg Cesare Cases: Rethinking the Absurd Salvatore Settis: The Importance of Being Originai Giorgio Caproni: Sbarbaro s Asparagus Francis Haskell: The Enlightenment of Franco Venturi pag. 2 L'INDICE N.8 • dei libri del meseBì A Note front the Editor As the subtitle of this special issue indicates, "L'In- Wie der Untertitel dieser Sonderausgabe verrat, dice" likes to think of itself as the Italian review of books. versteht sich "L'Indice" als die italienische True, it is a mere two years old: but it has illustrious Buchkritikzeitschrift. Sie existiert zwar erst seit zwei foster parents, and like most children it strives to live up Jahren, hat aber dafiir illustre Vorfahren und ist bemiiht, to their fame while maintaining a distinct identity of its ihren Ruf zu nahren, indem sie eine klare Eigenidentitat own. Though published in Italian, it hopes to build up a aufrechterhàlt. Obwohl sie nur auf Italienisch erscheint, readership in other countries. hofft sie auf weitere Leserschaft aufierhalb Italiens. This special issue in English offers a sample for those Diese Sonderausgabe auf Englisch bietet eine who do not read Italian but are interested in Italian Kostprobe fiir diejenigen, die zwar kein Italienisch books. It is, of course, much briefer than a regular verstehen, aber an italienischen Buchern interessiert sind. monthly issue (only 16 pages instead of 48, reviewing up- Natiirlich ist sie mit nur 16 gegeniiber 48 Seiten einer wards of a hundred books); stili, we trust that it will give regularen Monatsausgabe, welche iiber 100 the reader a good idea of the kind of service "L'Indice" of- Neuerscheinungen rezensiert, wesentlich kiirzer gefafit; fers. wir hoffen dennoch, dafi sie dem Leser einen The choice of articles in such a small number of pages hinreichenden Ùberblick iiber Art und Aufmachung der is obviously highly arbitrary. We decided at the outset to Zeitschrift "L'Indice" vermittelt. limit ourselves to recent Italian books. While this issue Die Auswahl der Artikel in einer derart gekiirzten certainly cannot claim to reflect "ali the best in Italian Ausgabe ist notwendigerweise hòchst willkiirlich. Wir publishing", an effort has been made to offer a balanced haben uns entschieden, uns prinzipiell auf italienische picture. Neuerscheinungen zu beschrànken. Da diese Ausgabe We are also taking this opportunity to show off the sicherlich nicht nur die "Glanzpunkte" aller italienischen portraits of our artist, Tullio Pericoli. Veròffentlichungen wiederzugeben behaupten kann, haben wir uns bemiiht, ein ausgeglichenes Bild zu vermit- teln. Wir mòchten diese Gelegenheit auch nutzen, um die Portràts unseres Zeichners Tullio Pericoli vorzustellen. Contents: 3 Natalia Ginzburg: The Sun and the Moon REVIEWER AUTHOR TITLE 4 Cesare Cases Primo Levi I sommersi e i salvati 5 Giorgio Caproni Camillo Sbarbaro L'opera in versi e in prosa 6 Carla Marello Manlio Cortelazzo, Ugo Cardinale Dizionario di parole nuove (1964-1984) 7 Lidia De Federicis Franco Frabboni et al. (Eds.) Fare scuola. 1. La narrazione Mario Picchi Storie di casa Leopardi 8 Alessandro Baricco Alberto Basso (Ed.) Dizionario Enciclopedico Universale della Musica e dei Musicisti Renato Nicolini Stefano Benni Comici spaventati guerrieri 9 Riccardo Bellofiore Giorgio Ruffolo La qualità sociale. Le vie dello sviluppo 11 Francis Haskell Luciano Guerci, L'età dei Lumi. Studi storici sul Settecento Massimo Firpo (Eds.) europeo in onore di Franco Venturi Gian Giacomo Migone Giorgio Galli Storia del partito armato 1968-1982 12 Ronald Witt Sergio Bertelli et al. Le corti italiane del Rinascimento Sergio Bertelli et al. Rituale cerimoniale etichetta 13 Salvatore Settis Licia Vlad Borrelli, Due bronzi di Riace. Ritrovamento, restauro, Paola Pelagatti (Eds.) analisi ed ipotesi di interpretazione 15 Corrado Mangione Gabriele Lolli Le ragioni fisiche e le dimostrazioni matematiche Luigi Tavolaccini Michele Tansella (Ed.) L'approccio epidemiologico in psichiatria \Ve gratefully acknowledge the help and support receivedfrom a number ofItalian institutions (and, as always in these cases, those in- dividuals within them who bave believed in the usefulness of what we are trying to achieve with this English edition): the Comitato per la promozione del libro italiano all'estero, coordinated by the Direzione Generale delle Informazioni Editoriali e Proprietà Letterarie of the Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri,; the Direzione Generale delle Relazioni Culturali of the Ministero degli Affari Esteri; the Dire- zione Generale degli Scambi Culturali of the Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione; the Direzione Generale per gli Affari Generali (Divi- sione Editoria) of the Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali; the Associazione Italiana Editori. It goes almost without saying that they bave no responsibility for the choice of books or the contentof the reviews. Where not otherwise indicateti, the articles bave been translated into English by Malcolm Skey. We thank him and Donata Ongo, who has done the other translations. Francis Haskell and Ronald Witt wrote their pieces directly in English. We also thank Katia Lysy and Virginia Kay who helped us with the editing and the proofreading ofthe English text. wmmmmmmm^ IINDICF 3 Ili DEI LIBRI DEL MESE^I in Italy since Pinocchio. It ought to tati has pointed out. What the rea- be read in schools. Perhaps it is: if sons for this transformation may The Sun and the Moon so, it ought to be read more. The have been, what were the processes style is swift and trasparent. One by which it carne about, we cannot by Natalia Ginzburg can learn concreteness, conciseness, teli. It was noticeable, if anything, and a feathery brightness by reading in Calvino's walk, in his smile, in it. It is brimming with that same fes- his way of looking at you. And it The last time I saw Italo Calvino paper. There were only a few of us White Elephants. tive sunny light you find in II vis- was reflected in his writing. alive was in a room in the hospital working at Einaudi in those days: Calvino used to bring his stories conte dimezzato and in his earliest Citati writes: "With ever-increas- at Siena, the day after his brain oper- we were stili waiting for Pavese to for Pavese and me to read. They stories. ing tenacity and restlessness, with ation. His head was bandaged; his return from Rome, where he had were written in a minute, rounded Of ali the articles that have ap- an extraordinary capacity for pick- bare arms, strong and bronzed, lay been living for some months. Cal- hand, bristling with erasures. They peared recently in memory of Cal- ing up and transmitting vibrations, outside the sheets; and he seemed to vino and I stood there for ages, talk- struck me as very fine indeed, with vino, I feel the finest is that by Pie- Calvino delved into that enormous be asleep. His face was cairn, his ing by that stove: heaven knows their festive landscapes bathed in tro Citati; because, in his words, I part of our existence which lies hid- breathing steady: there were no vis- why we didn't fetch a couple of bright sunlight; at times they told of seem to recognize Calvino as he den behind our feelings and our ible signs of suffering. I imagined chairs. war, of death, of blood, but nothing really was, both in his youth and as thoughts, lurking in tne crevices, that he would recover quickly I well remember the stove, and seemed to detract from that sun- he later became. Not that he the depths, the abysses of the enough, and soon be able to leave the snow outside; but I cannot recali light; no shadow ever darkened changed much, physically speaking: spirit...". And again: "His mind un- that bed. Over the next few days, I what it was we spoke of. Short those green leafy woods, with their to look at, he remained a boy. But verwent a profound change. It be- read in the papers of things he had came the most complex, labyrin- said on awaking. Looking at the thine, winding, architectonic mind tubes protruding from the drips by of any modem Italian writer... He his bed, he had commentea: "It was no longer able to affirm any- looks like a chandelier". When his thing whatever, nor could he rule daughter entered the ward, asking anything out; for each affirmation him "Who am I?", he had replied: generated its own negation; and the "The tortoise". When one of his negation yet another affirmation, doctors asked him the same ques- and so on, in a dizzy movement tion, he got the answer "A police in- which at times rendered him inca- spector". To those of us who loved pable of speech or of writing". Calvino, those few phrases were a precious gift, a sign that he was stili Little by little the green and leafy himself, that nothing in him had landscapes, the glistening snow, the changed, that his mind was stili bright daylight, disappeared from peopled by tortoises, chandeliers, Calvino's books. A new light filters and police inspectors. through them, no longer radiant and sunny, but white: not cold ex- Ifind it quite impossible to think actly, but somehow utterly de- of him as dead. I don't know why, serted. The irony remained; but it but death always seemed such a long was imperceptible, no longer glad to way from Calvino. When I first met be alive, white and uninnabited as him, he was only twenty-three: a the moon itself. mere boy. And now I realize that I have never stopped seeing him as a Already, in that wonderful book boy, really. It never did strike me Le città invisibili — the best of ali, in that he could age, be transformed my opinion — this transformation into an old man with a limp and can be seen clearly.