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Antonio Tabucchi by Claudio Pezzin (review)

2002; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 97; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/mlr.2002.a828500

2222-4319

Marina Spunta,

Educational and Social Studies

i ooo Reviews us to the whole question of prolepsis/analepsis. The conversation with the caretaker had been described in full in Chapter 2 and was more than sufhcient to have the protagonist, Milton, set offto sort things out with his rival. Why are those phrases not repeated here? Does Fenoglio, while typing, not have the earlier chapter to hand? or is it a sign that he is still not satisfied, that the key phrases should be made more telling? If so, he would have rewritten the earlier episode. Arguing backwards and forwards in an unfinished text, or from text to text in a hypothetical continuum, is not without its dangers. Fenoglio's reader, Cooke tells us, should be 'looking out for invitations to return to early sections of the narrative' (p. 55). The example he gives is, as it happens, highly instructive. Johnny and his men are patrolling the banks of the Tanaro. I quote: 'This is the description of the river that the narrator gives: "Sull'acqua correva un brivido come di postuma felicita estiva, ma il greto e l'argine erano desolati, come sterilizzata dalla stessa arressata, miserabile presenza dei fascisti"' (1.2 628). The word 'brivido', we are told, is a clear 'signpost back to a scene in Pbi when Johnny,then a university student, spends a relaxing day by the river. [. . .] Here is the description that the narrator gives on that occasion: "Sull'acqua correvano brividi di felicita [etc.]".' The 'alert reader' of what is presumed to be a whole is, on this hypothesis, invited to east 'his/her mind back to Johnny's earlier, idyllic existence' and to make the comparison. There are, it is pointed out, 'four clear lexical connections ("acqua", "correva", "brivido" and "felicita")'. The question is at once more simple and more complex. The link is Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. In the very firstchapter Mole comes up from underground into the springtime world and finds himself on the banks of a river,'that sleek, sinuous, full-bodiedanimal'. His experiences ofthe summer that follows will be summed up in the finalparagraph: 'imparo a nuotaree a vogare, e penetro nel tripudio de\Yacqua corrente?the translation is Beppe Fenoglio's own (Einaudi, 1982), the emphasis is mine. But the paragraph which must have enchanted the young letterato from Alba comes earlier: 'giudico la sua felicita totale quando, a furia di gironzare senza meta, improvvisamente stette sulla proda di un fiume. [. . .] Tutto tremolava, tutto brividiva [...]'. In the night, 'pernuctating' in a house that reminds him of that 'wherein Lady Winter [. . .] got his long, overdue fate' (1. 1 227), the Johnny of UrPj will listen in bed to 'the continuous,/w//-6odzedroar ofthe river'. Italianists, especially those in love with the Grand Style, would do well to lend an ear to Fenoglio's English. University of Pavia John Meddemmen Antonio Tabucchi. By Claudio Pezzin. Sommacampagna (Verona): CIERRE Edizioni . 2000. 115 pp. ?9.3. The fiction of Antonio Tabucchi has received much critical attention over the years, and the many differentapproaches that have been taken to his work highlight the difhculty of categorizing an opera that is not only characterized by multiplicity and self-reflexivity,but that resists clear-cut genre boundaries through its intricate intertextuality . Acknowledging the complexities presented by Tabucchi's work, Claudio Pezzin combines a diachronical and generic perspective in order to explore Tabuc? chi's fiction as a 'linea retta qua e la ispessita in alcuni punti nodali particolarmente densi' (p. 7), giving ample evidence of its extensive internal and external intertextuality . In four main chapters Pezzin carefully traces the development of Tabucchi's fiction from his two early novels, through his experimentation with the short story, and the coexistence of short story and novel, to the predominance of the novel. The apparent linearity of this development, which, according to Pezzin, moves from a MLR, 97.4, 2002 1001 more fragmented to a more dialogic and narrative style, is none the less disrupted by a continuous experimentation with both genres, short story and novel, that defeats any attempt at rigid categorization. In his firstchapter, 'Gli inizi', Pezzin discusses the fragmented and theatrical nature of Tabucchi's early 'romanzi...