Unsolicited premise: for this fiftieth review of mine on this site (a small and personal milestone), I have decided to do something completely different from my usual and to break some of the rules I set for myself when entering this bar.
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This book must be read.
Because certain books must be read and not chewed from memory (short), reassembled from fragments of readings, school or otherwise, or critiques overheard from other overhearers and summaries gulped on the fly. Certain books must be taken in hand and carefully weighed, otherwise, one risks reiterating nonsense and confirming foolishness.
As for example, Angelo Guglielmi does (who is indeed a perceptive intellectual) in an old interview, where he claimed to owe Gadda his love for popular culture; thus committing the, to me unforgivable, error of labeling Gadda's work as "popular."
But why?
What is there of popular in "La Madonna dei filosofi" or in "La meccanica" or in an "Eros e Priapo" (not to mention "La cognizione del dolore" and all the rest)? And even his work at RAI, upon closer inspection, could not be defined as such.
Perhaps Guglielmi, with an unfortunate synecdoche, alluded to only "Pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana" as an epitome - in his view - thoroughly exhaustive in itself of Gadda's work, which, being a "giallo" (detective novel) and - for good measure - written in Romanesco dialect (and not only), would seem to have all the requirements to be classified, fully, in the category of "popular novel."
But thus the error goes from unforgivable to glaring, colossal, gigantic. And not because there is anything wrong with popular novels, to be clear! But because the "pasticciaccio" is something else and categorizing it as "a giallo written in Romanesco" is, simply, misleading.
There is a crime - it's true – and, apparently, the unfolding of an investigation; but then the novel takes entirely different paths and tangles upon itself, forgetting developments and premises, motivations, deductions, and even to find a culprit. Victims and perpetrators are all the same, all tangled in that inextricable and senseless web that is destiny. All flies imprisoned in the formless web of a dim-witted spider. And the eye of the "great Lombard" is pitiless, it would like to have the cool distance of a philosopher but, too often, it is dominated by a kind of dull rancor.
And even the Romanesco of the Milanese Gadda has nothing "popular" about it: it's a literary Romanesco (Belli's Romanesco), artificial, deliberately counterfeit, mixed with sounds and "talks" of all kinds: from the Molisan of Don Ciccio Ingravallo to the voices of other supporting characters and of Gadda himself (who does not fail, even here, to deliver his usual slaps to the Italian Language), up to the street noises and, even - in a famous page - to the squawking of some chickens.
It's that peculiar "babelism" of Gadda, a cross and delight for those who, unwisely, approach his page. Those "different tongues, horrible languages" that populate this Hell, far more real and frightening than Dante's.
Upon closer inspection, it's a bit what happens to our author, in the musical field, with Captain Beefheart: he is talked about much more than he is listened to, often mistakenly for a pop musician, whereas his intellectually iconoclastic approach to certain "popular" musics (primarily blues and rock, but not only) is something else.
And so he is not read (as Captain Beefheart is not listened to). And yet, this book should be read.
Especially if, like Germi, you want to draw a screenplay for a film from it. But the great Genoese director almost prided himself on never wanting to read that book. Memorable were the sparks between him and Gadda who played cat and mouse during the whole shooting, chasing and avoiding each other. In reality, fearful and, deep down, respectful (although Germi let slip a "stupid intellectual" directed at the Lombard narrator) of each other.
Thus, what came out was a solid and sanguine detective movie ("un maledetto imbroglio"), as unfaithful as subtly "resonant" with Gadda's novel. A classic "giallo" with all its elements in the right place.
With a culprit: the most logical one and – for this reason – the least expected, ultimately a victim himself and not less culpable than the many "innocents" crowding the proscenium of the story. A story that, in this way, can also cloak itself in social and anti-bourgeois critique.
With an investigator: don Ciccio Ingravallo, a sort of Maigret with the build and cynical individualism of a Marlowe and the face carved in stone of Germi himself. Far removed from the other Ingravallo "of medium stature, rather round of person" and with "a somewhat sleepy air, a heavy and ungraceful walk and a somewhat daft manner, like a person battling with a laborious digestion," a mix of sophistic subtlety, Levantine shrewdness, and Southern vitality, with a certain "practical acquaintance" of life's matters; a man of the Mediterranean with attached "oil stains on the collar" and "metaphysical bumps," drawn by Gadda.
With a victim: Mrs. Balducci, the "poor" Liliana. A sacrificial lamb not without, however, her dark sides. In the novel, she is almost a mask from classic Tragedy: the welcoming and oppressive "Mother," soft and devouring, a recurring character in much of our author's work. In the film, she is a beautiful Eleonora Rossi Drago who, at certain moments, even outshines a dazzling Claudia Cardinale.
Great film; but the book is another thing.
A book that should be read (have I told you that already?). Read, however, not devoured, gnawed, consumed (what times when "devouring a book" became a compliment, a testament of value, an appreciation, as if a book could be swallowed up like a disgusting McDonald's sandwich!).
I myself have learned that it cannot be read like a "Journey to the End of the Night," bounced around on a train somewhere in Europe, with a grim and frowning gaze to strike a pose; or like a "The Invisible Cities," declaimed a bit each night, curled up in bed with Tania (or one of the Tanias), one eye on the page and a hand rummaging her breasts.
No, the "Pasticciaccio" requires your time and your attention (that same time of yours I am unjustifiably abusing, and for which I ask your forgiveness, dear Reader) and demands the right space. You must learn to read it - as Nietzsche wanted for his "Zarathustra" – by "ruminating!"
Let it crackle in your mouth, clacking between tongue and palate a "jawed" or a "non-revolving time"; return to the page, let it tinkle between your ears; memorize small maxims like: "He who recognizes himself as genius, and light to the peoples, does not suspect being a poorly dying candle, or a four-legged donkey"; fill your eyes with that sparkling eloquence like a string of firecrackers. Doggedly unravel those inextricable knots, that mocking "gliommero," that tangle of meanings that do not want, nor can, agree in any meaningful sense.
This book should be read. But this book is not for everyone.
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