Genital Herpes Look-alikes

Three books for 2011 and the city lights

Cesare Segre, Ten tests fantasy, Einaudi, 2010
"It's up to you to choose between these fragments of history with no connection, and a story (let's say legend) that its logic and its beauty. "The literary work is this: a choice. You choose to approach a text, or a series of acts in a certain way, and let them into the public domain: this body is not always enriched by new works, or even variations of the same fable, or narrative core. And this at the bottom il lavoro che si propone Segre, dopo una vita dedicata alla filologia e alla critica letteraria: mettere in parole quel procedimento di ri-uso fino ad ora solo analizzato, cimentarsi nel campo della narrazione rimanendo legato ai testi oggetto dei suoi studi. Ecco allora una diversa e sorprendente versione della storia di Rolando, qui cavaliere violento e gradasso, o la risposta di Charles Bovary allo scrittore che lo ha reso simbolo dell’inettitudine dello sciocco medico di campagna, o ancora le confessioni degli stratagemmi messi in atto da Isotta per celare al marito Marco la sua relazione con un Tristano imprudente e beffardo.

Forse l’aspetto più interessante di queste prove, non poi così fantasiose in verità, è quello metaliterary: the reuse of texts is not as simple as we believe, and even with the advent of printing we are accustomed to consider the work completed a fact since there are so many versions passed by word of mouth through the various minstrels, singers, court poets, in fact, the text is versatile and in constant metamorphosis and regeneration: become a paradigm, the possibility of reading and rewriting are always open. We think the story of Roland-Orlando, so often interpreted in antiquity, from the origins to the great oral epics of Boiardo and Ariosto.

Among events only possible as the last night of Pavese, or different representations of characters ormai divenuti quasi di carne e sangue nell’ immaginario collettivo, o improbabili interviste con Giulio Cesare che confronta i meccanismi di potere dei suoi tempi con quelli di oggi, l’autore a volte si lascia prendere dal tono erudito dello studioso, eccedendo forse in nozioni e dettagli un po’ scolastici, ma si risolleva con l’ironia della voce fuori campo o del punto di vista.

L’intervista immaginaria a Marie le Jars de Gournay, figlia adottiva di Montaigne, è una sorta di mise en abyme: come l’autore ha inserito del suo in storie da lui amate, così la donna è sospetta di aver variato gli Essais del padre nel curarne l’edizione. Quasi che, quando si ama troppo un testo, non si possa help but change it to read it ever again.

Cesare Segre, Ten tests fantasy, Einaudi 2010, p. 104, € 12.00.

Irene Nava

Pino Cacucci, However, no remorse, Feltrinelli A bullet hole at the left lung, his face is completely swollen. Bonnot has small shoulders, and looking at the photograph of his corpse, shirtless, lying on a wooden table, almost looks like a boy. The day of his death there was a whole army. Units of the gendarmerie, police, firefighters, citizens armatisi voluntarily for the occasion, curious, local and national reporters. There was even a camera, in its infancy in the world of crime. The day of his death, Jules Bonnot was the most famous man in France. An anarchist, a murderess, a criminal, one of those who were betrayed by history, and who sought all his life his own revenge. With

However, no remorse, Pino Cacucci tells the story of Bonnot, how, by the son of a poor worker lost his mother at the beginning of the twentieth century has become, in turn, worker, then a soldier, father and betrayed lover, a criminal, a skilled mechanic, driver of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a new lover, and finally head of the notorious Bonnot Gang, the first car use in armed robberies. What we do know Cacucci is the other side of the Belle Epoque, one made of misery, violence and oppression. It's the story with the tiny, one of the losers who try to hide and forget in a hurry. Behind the displays of modernism and luxurious lounges and upper-class aristocrats and the courts of Europe, lie the violence and corruption of the state, the squalor of the suburbs, the lack of freedoms now more than obvious. Some reflection of the landscape painted by Cacucci comes but to this day: the work that kills, repression in the streets, personal freedoms in crisis, the failure of institutions to turn the look in the direction of progress. And the distance between our time and that of the story is even more subtle, almost disappears due to visceral narrative of the author. The smells and sounds are made palpable, the vividness of the representation is full. The reader follows from the thoughts and the feelings of the protagonists, is a participant. But when he wants to influence behavior, the characters get out of hand and they make their way. However, no remorse is a story, there are many little stories that you would like to change, but have been cruelly written and filed from time. Fellini said that Cacucci "is a craftsman, a builder of plots, atmosphere and characters. " This book is an excellent example.

Pino Cacucci, However, no remorse, Feltrinelli, Milano 2001 (first edition: Longanesi, Milan 1994), p. 308, € 8, 50.

Judith Grechi

Carlo D'Amicis, The Perfect Beat, Minimum Fax, 2010

protagonist of this novel is the Spina family.

's father, Philip, simple and honest man, an elementary school teacher, said the television, this new invention, and sensed right away that will bring the people most complete ignorance.

son, Canio, the exact opposite Strong voter Italy, whose sole purpose is to please everyone, renamed in honor of Silvio Silvio II who loves so much, rebels against the ideology of the father to escape to Milan, making advertising salesman, and even counselor by Berlusconi.

Through this generational conflict is revealed the tragedy of the Italian revolution which, after having hidden for years behind middle-class respectability, went to the apotheosis of superficiality.

D'Amicis complaint as a people that is identified in the superficial and artificial world of show business, driven by advertising, and the perfect stop talking about this, our country, and the decline that has earned it.

Carlo D'Amicis, The Perfect Beat , Minimum Fax, 2010, p.363, € 15.00.

Francesca Di Vaio