1 Royal Holloway, University of London School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures Italian ‘Fantastic News’: Literary Modes of Representation in Dino Buzzati’s Journalism by Francesco Schiavon Supervisor: Dr. Fabrizio De Donno Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Royal Holloway, University of London 2013 2 Declaration I Francesco Schiavon hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Francesco Schiavon 27.4.2013 3 To Melania and Concetta, equally beautiful creatures 4 Abstract My main purpose is to investigate the characteristics of the merging of the literary mode of the fantastic and journalism that constitutes the most original element within Buzzati’s non-fictional production. I intend to analyze the modes of representation that his journalism borrowed from fiction in order to demonstrate that Buzzati’s journalism forces us to challenge our idea of objectivity and that the fictional element of representation which characterizes his articles provides a further option to investigate the ambivalence of the real. In order to understand Buzzati’s contribution to the creation of this new hybrid prose that I will define ‘fantastic news’ I intend to focus on the cultural role of Buzzati’s journalistic production, his relationship with his historical, cultural and social time, and the readership effected by Buzzati’s distinctive narrative between the 1940s and 1970s. I will ground my discussion on journalistic and literary theory, by taking in particular consideration those works which deal with the fantastic and the relationship between journalism and fiction. The close reading of the most relevant collections of his pieces of journalism will help to identify the factors that shaped the author’s non- fictional prose. Particular attention will be given to the influence of Fascist censorship, the experience from Italian colonies, and aboard Italian Navy ships during the Second World War. I will also investigate Buzzati’s interest in occultism, paranormal phenomena, and crime news. My research aims to provide a broader idea of the cultural implications carried by Buzzati’s journalistic writings and the author’s role in the context of fantastic journalism as a literary mode. Despite his great success all around the world, It was the French, not the Italian scholars who initially studied Buzzati. Furthermore, Italian scholarship focused on his journalistic production only at the end of the 1990s. The amount of criticism is considerable in French and Italy today, whereas Buzzati still remains almost unknown in Anglophone criticism. Lastly, in spite of the increasing interest in Buzzati’s production among Italian scholars during the last three decades, Buzzati is still not unanimously included in the Italian literary canon and his works are rarely anthologized. It is my purpose to treat Buzzati’s articles as part of a unitary production. I will analyze the author’s modes of representation in order to demonstrate how his atypical position in the Italian cultural panorama, often defined ‘isolated’ by scholars, is due to the continuous dialogue between fantastic literature and non-fiction which characterizes his entire oeuvre. 5 Table of Contents Acknowledgements …………………………………………………………….p. 7 Introduction .........................................................................................................p. 8 1. An Attempt to Reverse the Process: A New Kind of Journalism 2. What Has Been Done 3. A World beyond the Page: Buzzati and His Time 4. Issues of Otherness 5. Fantasy and the Fantastic; Mode, Genre, and Kind: Clearing the Field 6. Entropy, Metamorphoses, and Reflexive Reading: From Theory to Texts PART 1: Theory Chapter 1: ‘Fantastic News’: a Theory………………………………………….p. 36 1.1 What ‘Fantastic News’ is 1.2 A World around the Writer 1.3 A Modernist Writer? 1.4 The Other and the Self: is Conciliation Possible? 1.5 Realities PART 2: Texts Chapter 2: Colonized ‘Otherness’ Correspondence from Libya and Ethiopia (1933, 1939, 1940)……………………………..p. 99 2.1 ‘Fantastic News’ in the Age of Colonialism: Aesthetics and Politics 2.2 Desert and Heroes: History in L’Africa di Buzzati 2.3 Racism and ‘Orientalism’ 2.4 Engagement and Disengagement 6 Chapter 3: ‘Fantastic News’ at War Il Buttafuoco (1940-1943)……………….p. 128 3.1 Fantasy and Reality aboard Navy Ships 3.2 Battles, Heroes, and Dread 3.3 ‘Acque deserte’: Incommunicability of War and the Sea 3.4 Fantasy and Censorship Chapter 4: Crime News outside the Dogma of Referentiality (1945-1960s)………………………………………………………….p. 157 4.1 Genre Fiction and ‘Approaches to Fantasy’ (Meraviglioso, Assurdo, and Orrido) 4.2 Crimes, Gothic, and Noir 4.3 Imagination and Mimesis: the lost Cause of Realism 4.4 A Silent Revolt: Crime News and Society Chapter 5: Paranormal Activities Inquiries into the Unknown (1950s and 1960s)…………………………………………………….p. 187 5.1 Esoteric Journalism: (Not Only) a Question of Genres 52. Existentialism, Nostalgia, and Parody 5.2 Materialism, Spiritualism, and Didacticism 5.3 Looking for Meaning Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….p. 218 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………..p. 231 7 Acknowledgements First of all I am deeply grateful to my Supervisor, Dr. Fabrizio De Donno, whose expertise and passion guided me in every moment of my research. His patience and helpfulness were fundamental all along my way, from the early, chaotic months of the doctorate until the final submission. Knowing that I could always count on him was vital in order to arrive here. Thank you for believing in me and what I had to say, more than I believed in it myself. Thanks to Dr. Giuliana Pieri, my Adviser. Her experience was essential to help me understand how to face my work in the best possible way. Thanks for her precise annotations, her suggestions, for the constant encouragement and appreciation. I want to thank also Prof. Jane Everson and Dr. Stefano Jossa, my first contacts not only with Royal Holloway, but with the British academic world in general. Along the arc of these years of work I met many scholars who were the source of suggestions and support and who somehow made the realization of this thesis possible, even without knowing it. Thanks to Dr. Patrizia Dalla Rosa and Dr. Maria Bianca Da Rif of the Centro Studi Dino Buzzati. Thanks to Prof. Guido Baldassarri, my supervisor in Padua: without him I would have never arrived to Royal Holloway. Thanks to Francesca Tramma of the Historical Archive of the Corriere della Sera; to Prof. Charles Burdett for his help with the study of the Italian colonial period; and to Prof. Federica Pedriali for the enthusiasm and the energy she transmitted me every time we met. Thanks to Dr. Katia Pizzi, Dr. Daniela La Penna, and Dr. Federico Faloppa for their suggestions and advice arising from the I.G.R.S. Italian Studies Joint Programme. Thanks to Dr. Monica Jansen, whose humility and gentleness are equal only to her greatness as a scholar. I want to mention the colleagues that I met in these years who became good friends and those who were friends already and were with me at every step, also from far away. Thanks to Alessandro, for his generosity which is really without limits; to Michele who, in my first day at Royal Holloway, gave me the best welcome I could desire and who crossed with me a big part of the walk; to Federico, Stefano, Irene and Giacomo, ‘visiting’ only as students, not as friends; to Francesca and Ilaria, sweet study-mates at the British Library; to Mark, Federica, Daniela, Alessandro, Matilde, Wanda, Edoardo, and Alessandra who have been my family in London during these years; to Derek, whose kindness, helpfulness, and professionalism were fundamental to succeed in giving solidity to my writing. Thanks to Prof. Biancarosa Bagioli, wherever she is, because she was the beginning of everything. Thanks to Chiara, who enlightens my days, for having decided to take me by the hand. Finally, the most important ‘thank you’: to my family. I cannot even begin to list the reasons for a gratitude and love that words will never be able to explain. Without you nothing would have been possible and this thesis is only the last finishing line we have crossed together. You are always with me, in every word I say, think or write. 8 Introduction [...] the realistic adaptation of fantasy [...] his odd mixture of fantasy with journalistic devices […] resulted in what we might call fantastic journalism.1 Lawrence Venuti The aim of my thesis is to demonstrate how Dino Buzzati re-interpreted the role of journalism in the twentieth century by giving it a literary status through the use of fantasy. I intend to analyze the modes of representation that his journalism borrowed from fiction in order to demonstrate that Buzzati’s journalism forces us to challenge our idea of objectivity. The fictional element of representation which characterizes his journalistic articles provides the opportunity of investigating the ambivalence of the real. Finally, the merging of literature and journalism which is at the core of his narrative guarantees him a unique role within the European modernism framework. 1. An Attempt to Reverse the Process: A New Kind of Journalism The merging of journalistic devices with fantastic narrative that characterizes his fiction represents a unique case study in the Italian literary panorama, and is still understudied. There is, in particular, a consistent discrepancy between the regard for this author in Italian and French scholarship and the lack of it in Anglophone scholarship.2 In general, it is a sufficient body of studies in English that is missing, whereas there are many works conducted by non-Italian native speakers.3 With the exception of scholars such as Felix Siddell and Lawrence Venuti, studies in English on 1 Lawrence Venuti, ‘Dino Buzzati’s Fantastic Journalism’, Modern Fiction Studies, 28 (1982), 79-91 (p.