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Retablo by Vincenzo Consolo Review by: Rosetta di Pace World Literature Today, Vol. 63, No. 1 (Winter, 1989), pp. 80-81 Published by: Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40145087 . Accessed: 14/02/2014 00:37
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WORLD LITERATURE TODAY " ing. Pessoais, of course, the toweringgray eminenceof Portugueseletters (see e.g. WLT53:1, twentieth-century pp. 5-9). Breynerdoes not resist that fact, for she takes whathis workoffersher, even to the extentof rewriting it, as she seems to do in "TheDead Soldier,"a repriseof "O a sequencethat Meninoda Sua Mae,"or in "Navigations," drawson Pessoa'sgreat sea poems. Still, not all the riches in Breyner'spoetry have their in theirratioto thingsPessoan.Manyof her finest rationale poems are fully independent of her predecessor'sinfluence. Take, for example, "In Crete," a poem in which a in muchthe same "somber Minotaur" is seen to "navigate" the perilsof myth waythe poet windsa sinewywaythrough " "withoutever losing the flaxen thread of the word. Or consider "The Small Square,"a poem that offers us the grievingpoet who wouldeschewmythfor"thehumbleand fold of smallshops/ Whereshopkeepers humanity nostalgic and unfoldribbonsand cloth"but who cannot"unweave / The tissue that death was binding aroundyou." - though each of Breyner's poems are held together - by an invisiblefiber them retainsas well its discreteplace of overall intention. The poet desires not to allow the return of the ephemeraof this world to the nonbeingof death but to turn it by means of poetry into something eternal. What always threatens her hopes for the true poem, however, appears in her nobleman's situation of the Duke of Gandiaon the Death of Isabel ("Meditation of Portugal"): "Neveragain/ Will yourfacebe pure, clear, alive / Nor your step like a fugitive wave / Weave itself between the steps of time. / Never againwill I give my life is to time."The poet knows,however,thatsuchknowledge partialand must not keep her fromcontinuingto serve in her particularway the things that die, for, as her best poems reveal, she too believes (in the words of William of time." Blake),"Eternityis in love with the productions GeorgeMonteiro Brown University

the slippersand, with a glassof brandyat his side (perhaps same mixture of "cazallae anis" that brought welcome releaseto the aged grandmother of the title poem!),pours his tales into the existingmoldratherthanfacethe "quedade uma forja" recommended / e o cara-a-cara by de-brago de Carmona." The result is poetry for plea"O ferrageiro - a masterat play. sure: fluent, never dull, often amusing John M. Parker Universityof Aveiro, Portugal

Translations
Sophiade Mello Breyner.Marine Rose: SelectedPoems. RuthFainlight,tr. & ed. KennethKrabbenhoft, afterword. ReddingRidge, Ct. BlackSwan. 1988. viii + 104 pages. $20. The seventy poems of Marine Rose are followedby three statementsunderthe heading"TheArt of Poetry," one of which contains this sentence: "[Poetry]demandsthat I extracta seamlesstexturefrommy life, apart fromwhatshatters,exhausts,pollutesand adulterates." To fulfill her office, Sophia de Mello Breyner (Andresen) pledges: "Tosave fromdeath decay and ruin / The actual momentof visionand surprise/ Andkeep in the realworld / The real gesture of a hand touchingthe table"("Inthe Poem"). If the poet'srouteBreynerwouldtakebelongs,precisely speaking,to no one else, she neverthelessrehearsesher pilgrim'sinvocations,to Homer, to Dante, to Fernando Pessoa'sheteronymicRicardo Reis, and to Pessoahimself, this "judicious callinghim in "Cyclades" visionaryof cafes facing the Tagus"and reenactingthe devices of the devoted: "Wherestill in the marble-topped tables/ We seek the cold traceof yourhands/ - Theirimperceptible finger-

ITALIAN Fiction
VincenzoConsole Retablo. Palermo.Sellerio. 1987. 164 pages, ill. L. 8,000. Once again, by virtue of his talent and originality, Vincenzo Consolo has created with Retablo a short novel, a recit, that is limitless in what poetic truth it can reveal and suggest. It is writersof Consolo'sstaturewho the novel keep on provingwhatprodigious metamorphoses as a genre is still capableof achieving. Vaguelyrococo, vaguelyhistorical,yet sharplyoutlined and precisely drawn, the novel is built like a triptych balancedin the centerby the traveldiary(through western ancient Sicily) of the main character,FabrizioClerici, a historical figure whose eighteenth-century painting La has actuallybeen chosen grandecrocifissione palermitana Writtenas a longletter by Consoloas the coverillustration. dedicated to a Milanese noblewoman of Spanish and Sicilianparentage,Donna TeresaBlasco(soon to become the diaryis CesareBeccaria), engagedto the "newtoncino" replete with picaresquescenes teemingwith exoticcharacas it were, distanced ters and events, all seen in miniature, throughClerici'sgently detached, mildly parodicstance. of the As always in Consolo, a unique characteristic novel's style is the languageitself, a seeminglyinexhaustible resourceforthe writer,who uses it with greatease and wit to create or re-createspeech and dialect, prose forms is couched and lyric utterances.Clerici'slucid articulation that of the young monkIsidoro, between two confessions: vehementin its innocenceof the victimof love; and thatof Rosalia (the objectof Isidoro's love), vehementin its mocksublime falsehood. Just as Lunaria (1985) could be read as a theatricalbe understood partly metaphysical fairytale, so canRetablo as allegory. Clerici'sadversarial position towardhis own

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ITALIAN: FICTION is Consolo's protestagainsthis own. age of enlightenment For Clerici, art is a necessaryillusion againstreality and travelis both an antidotefor love and a means of escape from the pain of existence. In Clerici'sown words, "To travelas a wayto detachourselvesfromourown realityis a to write of the past as And it is dreaming way of dreaming. to of the presentdailyliving.Andit is dreaming suspension writeof a voyagein the landof the past."Therecan be no end to the roadfor this asocialpicaro,unless perhapsthat dimension. roadleads him to an atemporal,metaphysical Rosettadi Pace Universityof Oklahoma

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RosettaLoy. Le strodedi polvere.Turin.Einaudi.1987. iv + 248 pages. L. 20,000.

Rosetta Loy's new novel, her fourth in just under fifteen years and winner of both the Viareggioand Campiello prizes, is castin the formof a familysagaof local life in nineteenth-century Italy. As such, it includes the usualtopicsof family-centered all portrayed from narrative, the highly individualperspective of nineteenth-century villagelife:war,disease,the politicsof conquestandliberation, the Church,marriage,love, birth, and death. Loy's novel breakswith the tradition of totalizingfamilialstories in its persistentfragmentation of both narrative perspective and narrativepresentation.This genuine strength of he Fra e con Fatto d'amore: Costa. politico private Beppe strode de polvere, the freshnessof its continuallyshifting riflusso senza Stato. Dante Maffia,postface. Rome. Pelpoint of view and of its brilliantlysuggestive descriptive licanolibri.1987. 112 pages. L. 15,000. passages, thus stands at one and the same time as its Fatto d'amore,a sequel to Beppe Costa'sRomanzo literarylimitation,in the book'soveralltotalitydespite its and genealogy. siciliano(see WLT60:1, p. 88), takes anotherlook at repeated interest in familialorganization One of the principal reasonswhy this odd combination of the same protagonist's life, now askingwhether Marco's reminiscent of and framework, nineteenth-century Verga, discontentand suicidehad its originsin socialproblemsor reminiscentof Vittorini fragmentation, alien- twentieth-century love. Marco's ones suchas unrequited just emotional even or of succeeds so convincingly is to be Hemingway, ation dates back to his childhoodexperiencesin various in the charitableinstitutions,where he encounterednuns and found in the book's use of language.Occasionally narrative's which evinces bits of local dialect and dialogue, priestswho used sexualviolence as punishment.For him of French, and still more consistentlyin the text's local the wordsGoodand God stoodfor somethingfarremoved fromhis world.His youthis lacedwith a constantdesire to descriptions,he strode di polvere managesto be at once the next corner.Once precise and subtle, its subjectsfinely drawnyet uncannily finda fairygodmother hidingaround in out of school,he findsmeaning love, but due to slander evocative.An early exampleof this blend of effectsoccurs of "ilGiai"("ilgiallo") as he description both familiesstop him just shortof in the firstchapter's and incomprehension, sits at the edge of a well playinghis violin while gazingat surrounded the specificperiod 1968-77, During marriage. Marco is very involvedin commu- the starsreflectedin the waterbelow. The perspectivesof by friendsandgirlfriend, the seeminglyneutralnarrator, the frightenedwife, and, that affairs and national is, he reachesa momentof from nity a the cousin named "il Mandrognin" all play distance, full potentialand enthusiasm.That sense of purposeand theirpartsin composing the scene, whichincludesnot only that both to the deserts him, however, point slowly stability he and his girlfrienddo not "knowhow to define them- the timeless elementsof mythbut also the leitmotivof the violin, the spectral apparitionof the family founder, "il selves, not even after lovemaking." GranMasten," and the fundamental pointsof referencefor Marco's storyis meantto mirrorItalianpostwarpolitical the familyas a whole, embodiedin the concludingimages and social history, and reference is frequentlymade to of the landandthe house, "laterrae la casa": "Unaserasi e specificpeople, places, politicalparties, and events. The sedutoall'imboccatura del pozzoe If si e messo a suonareil vital of and of social questioning upheaval(1968) period violinoguardando le stelle riflettersi giu nel tondospecchio values coincideswith Marco'sintervalof stability,during si e spaventata. . . lui e rimastoa La moglie d'acqua. to be an avant-garde whichhe is considered personage.On suonarecon i piedi nel vuoto e quandoil Mandrognin si e the national level, after1977thingsseem to settle backinto affacciato al giardino,vedendo quel busto uscire dal pozzo feels betrayedonce more,andthe ha pre-1968designs.Marco pensatoche fosse tomato il GranMastenmai stancodi idea of "good"moves back beyond the horizon. la terra e la casa." sorvegliare new bookis less to Romanzo In contrast siciliano,Costa's In brief, he strode di polvere is a fine novel, both a wittilywritten,withhardlya glintof humor,andit strikesa pleasureto read and a significant extensionof the literary duller chord. Perhapsthe authorhas presented a more traditionof which it is a part. Its story is molded by the faithfuland more abjectaccountof the modernindividual concernsof familial genealogy,but its finalsubject,as is the him on the politicaland case in so much contemporary who, awareof whatgoes on around narrative,is the ever-pressocial level, realizes his own impotence and his lack of ent if also thoroughlyelusive motion of time itself. in the events. He loses interest and forgets, participation GregoryL. hucente only to be attractedby the next "hot"dilemma. His is a Universityof Michigan trulyepisodiclife-style.As a result,his mindis a jumbleof disassociatedmoments, ideas, and actions. The novel's Its structureis based on reflectsthis disarray. organization and a mixtureof flash- FerruccioParazzoli. author-character interchangeability Vigiliadi Natale. Milan.Rizzoli.1987. backs and present action. Such a narrativeform reflects 190 pages. L. 20,000. Costa'sattemptto underscorethe depth of contemporary in FerruccioParazzoli's The principalcharacter novel man'sdisorientation. Denise WaltzFerreri Vigiliadi Natale is Nazareno,who relatesthe storyin Universityof Connecticut the formof letters addressedto severalpeople but mainly

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