•
Rating:
The city is far away. Sometimes, in the calm of the evening, I hear the sound of the bells. But now, I no longer hear those bells inside me but outside, ringing for themselves, perhaps trembling with joy in their buzzing cavities, in a beautiful blue sky full of warm sun between the screeching of swallows or in the cloudy wind, heavy and so high on the airy bell towers. To think of death, to pray. There are also those who still have this need, because I die every moment, and I am reborn new and without memories: alive and whole, no longer in me, but in everything outside.
The analysis of the human personality in this novel becomes deeper and more complex compared to the view - for example - that Pirandello provided us in "Each In His Own Way": it's no longer a series of occasional masks that characterize us each time according to the situations, but rather a multitude of different I's within ourselves. We are One because we are always the same person; we are One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand, because in relating to each person, we behave according to how that particular person sees us, and we are No One, as a consequence of our multiplicity. This identity crisis is triggered by a remark from Dida about her husband's nose, Vitangelo Moscarda, known as "Gengè": Dear, what are you doing, seeing which way your nose is hanging?
In Moscarda, a series of thoughts will arise, bringing him to the brink of madness (according to the One or the One Hundred Thousand?), he will decide to destroy other people's certainties about him, behaving in the most unpredictable ways, incomprehensible to the eyes of the One Hundred Thousand. Moscarda will reject every self, alienating himself from the world and - much more importantly - from himself. He will burn all the things that kept him in his place in a world with a predetermined order, even attempting to rid himself of the reputation for usury hovering around his figure.
When talking about a writer of Pirandello's caliber, one must always lower their voice and be careful that no one is listening, so much is the meat on the grill. What is the theme of the depersonalization of the individual in modern society, so dear to post-modern writers (Joyce, Kafka, Svevo, just to mention three names from bar discussions), is tackled with that mix of irony and tragedy that conveys contradictory and real sensations together, a vision as lucid as it is distorted of those around us, provided on a platter of stylistic perfection and truly enviable narrative fluidity.
A book not for all ages, but certainly for everyone. It will open your eyes to who you are and who you are to others. It will help you revisit your social position. It will make you understand if you are important to someone. Provided that the consciousness of One Hundred Thousand others doesn't prevent you from doing so.
Loading comments slowly
