
Italy Literature Part 4
In fact, we are witnessing in the first place an attempt to recover the classic form of the nineteenth-century novel based on the character-story connection, in the different but similar articulations of the traditional story based on the character as a medium for the contemporary social portrait, or of the historical novel. These forms, which as mentioned above essentially represent an extension and recovery of nineteenth-century objectivism, are generally re-proposed in a reworking that alternates direct representation with representation mediated through memory, or the interior monologue. The theme of childhood, the interior landscape, the contradictory expression of an ambiguous reality, with two dimensions that are difficult to reconcile, often resolved in the easy formula of the contrast between history and the individual,
In this sense, despite the diversity of his attempts, we should remember A. Barolini, for the revival of a psychological taste (Una long madia ; The memory of Stefano), PM Pasinetti (Rosso Veneziano ; Il ponte dell’Accademia) and F. Cialente (Levantine Ballad ; A very cold winter ; Interior with figures) for the attempt to represent at the analytical level of historical and social contrasts, L. Santucci (The velocifer ; Orpheus in paradise ; Do not shoot on narcissus) for a sketchy reduction of the narrative module of naturalist mold; M. Pomilio (The compromise; The fifth evangelio) and G. Saviane (The long pass ; The vertical sea) aimed in various ways at the investigation on the theme of existential anguish, partly identifiable also in the last Parise (The crematorium of vienna ; Syllabary n. 1), interested in a contrast between biology and ethics. The theme of sex, but represented in understated terms of objectified recovery or neurosis, is at the center of E. Siciliano’s narrative with Racconti ambigui e Rosa (mad and desperate) and D. Beauty (Letter from Sodoma ; Il executioner). Remnants of a typical southern realism inspire in various ways the pages of M. Prisco (La dama di piazza ; A spiral of fog) complicated by subtle psychological analyzes, of S. Strati (Mani vuote ; The knot), of C. Bernari (It was the year of the quiet sun) already more restless and aimed at experimenting with stylistic solutions borrowed from the novel-essay (A hole in the windshield). The modules of a realism complicated by the presentiment of irresoluble ambiguities give life to the work of F. Tomizza (from Materada to La better life) and of N. Palumbo (The long days ; The train of hope), while a search for objectivity purified of lyricism is at the basis of the novels by M. Cancogni (The Return), and by A. Benedetti (Il Passo dei Longobardi).
According to THEMEPARKTOUR.COM, an overcoming of neorealism is achieved in L. Romano (The penumbra we have gone through ; The words between us read), in R. Rosso (La dura spina), in A. Vigevani (A certain Ramondès ; Fata morgana) with recourse to analysis novel articulated in various ways, from the mimesis of the psychoanalytic procedure to the subtle clash of adolescent sensitivity with the obsessions of adult reality and with the ambiguities of conscience. In the direction of the psychoanalytic novel G. Berto in particular began with Il male oscuro(1964), supported by the use of a sort of interior monologue whose possibilities of disarticulation of the real are however shattered by the emergence of a sort of masked thesis related to the theme of the ideal clash between generations.
The story of a generation, that between fascism and resistance, is instead underlying the substantially autobiographical inspiration of N. Ginzburg (Family Lexicon ; The little virtues) and the autobiography, albeit less exhibited, also inspires the pages of G. Bassani (Il garden of the Finzi Contini ; L’airone) enriched by a polemical intention of denunciation and condemnation. A desire to deseroicize, in controversy with the exemplary rhetoric of neorealist intertwining, determines the option of C. Cassola for a humble, humble, everyday world (La ragazza di Bube ; Un cuore arido); which, however, quickly transforms into the recovery of a minor sketch constantly threatened by a stereotyped intimism and moralistic sentimentality (The antagonist). In the same way, but with a greater load of pathetic, the ambitious construction of E. Morante (The story) is resolved, in which the attempt to introduce more narrative levels does not redeem the repetitiveness of a plot based on a belated recovery of the story-individual conflict theme exemplified on the topical motif of war and resistance seen against the background of an individual destiny. Eclectic are the choices of G. Arpino who, having overcome an easy neorealistic scheme, first attempted the formula of denunciation, in the novel of costume (Un delitto d’onore) Or in the story more directly engaged in ethical and social sense (A cloud of anger), then move to the form of the novel analysis in the latest version of anguish, obsession, neurosis (A lost soul ; The dark and honey). Uncertain between the recovery of the neorealist scheme that had given birth to Metello, detectable in The constancy of reason, and the overcoming of this narrative structure now felt as insufficient to reflect the data of a reality that is no longer perceptible directly except in its most immediate aspects and superficial, V. Pratolini appears. The last two volumes (Lo scialo ; Allegory and derision) of the trilogy entitled Una storia italiana, appear to be strongly oriented towards the use of expressive modules typical of a certain type of analysis novel characterized in particular by the obsessive iteration of the interior monologue.