Giraffes in the Garden of Italian Literature: Modernist Embodiment in Italo Svevo, Federigo Tozzi and Carlo Emilio Gadda 9781907975264

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AMBERSON

Yet the ostensible strangeness of these three Italian authors is diminished when their writing is considered within the framework of modernism, a label traditionally avoided by the Italian critical establishment. Indeed, within a modernism preoccupied with human embodiment, these Italian literary giraffes find their kin. Here, the central nexus of body, subjectivity and style that informs and binds the writing of Svevo, Tozzi and Gadda resonates with a modernist renegotiation and revalorization of a human body whose dignity and epistemological authority have been contested by social and technological modernity. Deborah Amberson is Assistant Professor of Italian at the University of Florida.

italian perspectives publishes books and collections of essays on any aspect and period of Italian literature, language, history, culture, politics, art, and media, as well as studies which take an interdisciplinary approach and are methodologically innovative. At a time of growing academic interest, the series aims to bring together different scholarly perspectives on Italy and its culture.

Giraffes in the Garden of Italian Literature

Writing in 1926, Carlo Emilio Gadda (1893–1973) acknow­ ledges his peculiarity within the Italian literary field by describing himself as a giraffe or a kangaroo in Italy’s beautiful garden of literature. Gadda’s self-characterization as exotic and even ungainly animal applies in equal measure to Italo Svevo (1861–1928) and Federigo Tozzi (1883–1920), authors who, like Gadda, thwarted efforts at critical classification.

Italian Perspectives 22

Giraffes in the Garden of Italian Literature Modernist Embodiment in Italo Svevo, Federigo Tozzi and Carlo Emilio Gadda Deborah Amberson

ISBN 978-1-907975-26-4

9 781907 975264

Amberson-9781907975264-cover-12mm.indd 1

cover illustration: Egon Schiele, Aktselbstbildnis (black chalk on paper, 1918)

Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge

6/12/11 17:16:30

Giraffes in the Garden of Italian Literature Modernist Embodiment in Italo Svevo, Federigo Tozzi and Carlo Emilio Gadda

legenda legenda , founded in 1995 by the European Humanities Research Centre of the University of Oxford, is now a joint imprint of the Modern Humanities Research association and Routledge. Titles range from medieval texts to contemporary cinema and form a widely comparative view of the modern humanities, including works on arabic, Catalan, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Yiddish literature. an Editorial Board of distinguished academic specialists works in collaboration with leading scholarly bodies such as the Society for French Studies and the British Comparative Literature association.

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ITaLIan PERSPECTIvES Editorial Committee Professor Simon Gilson, University of Warwick (General Editor) dr Francesca Billiani, University of Manchester dr Manuele Gragnolati, Somerville College, Oxford dr Catherine Keen, University College London Professor Martin McLaughlin, Magdalen College, Oxford Founding Editors Professor Zygmunt Baran´ski and Professor anna Laura Lepschy In the light of growing academic interest in Italy and the reorganization of many university courses in Italian along interdisciplinary lines, this book series, founded now continuing under the Legenda imprint, aims to bring together different scholarly perspectives on Italy and its culture. Italian Perspectives publishes books and collections of essays on any period of Italian literature, language, history, culture, politics, art, and media, as well as studies which take an interdisciplinary approach and are methodologically innovative.

appearing in this series 1. The Letters of Giacomo Leopardi 1817-1837, ed. by Prue Shaw 2. Nelle Carceri di G. B. Piranesi, by Silvia Gavuzzo-Stewart 3. Speculative Identities: Contemporary Italian Women’s Narrative, by Rita Wilson 4. Elio Vittorini: The Writer and the Written, by Guido Bonsaver 5. Origin and Identity: Essays on Svevo and Trieste, by Elizabeth Schächter 6. Italo Calvino and the Landscape of Childhood, by Claudia Nocentini 7. Playing with Gender: The Comedies of Goldoni, by Maggie Günsberg 8. Comedy and Culture: Cecco Angiolieri’s Poetry and Late Medieval Society, by Fabian Alfie 9. Fragments of Impegno, by Jennifer Burns 10. Contesting the Monument: The Anti-Illusionist Italian Historical Novel, by Ruth Glynn 11. Camorristi, Politicians and Businessmen, by Felia Allum 12. Speaking Out and Silencing, ed. by Anna Cento Bull and Adalgisa Giorgio 13. From Florence to the Heavenly City: The Poetry of Citizenship in Dante, by Claire E. Honess 14. Orality and Literacy in Modern Italian Culture, ed. by Michael Caesar and Marina Spunta 15. Pastoral Drama in Early Modern Italy: The Making of a New Genre, by Lisa Sampson 16. Sweet Thunder: Music and Libretti in 1960s Italy, by Vivienne Suvini-Hand 17. Il teatro di Eduardo De Filippo, by Donatella Fischer 18. Imagining Terrorism: The Rhetoric and Representation of Political Violence in Italy 1969–2009, ed. by Pierpaolo Antonello and Alan O’Leary 19. Boccaccio and the Book: Production and Reading in Italy 1340-1520, by Rhiannon Daniels 20. Ugo Foscolo and English Culture, by Sandra Parmegiani 21. The Printed Media in Fin-de-siècle Italy: Publishers, Writers, and Readers, ed. by Ann Hallamore Caesar, Gabriella Romani, and Jennifer Burns

Managing Editor Dr Graham Nelson, 41 Wellington Square, Oxford ox1 2jf, UK www.legenda.mhra.org.uk

Giraffes in the Garden of Italian Literature Modernist Embodiment in Italo Svevo, Federigo Tozzi and Carlo Emilio Gadda ❖ Deborah Amberson

Italian Perspectives 22 Modern Humanities Research association and Routledge 2012

First published 2012 Published by the Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

LEGENDA is an imprint of the Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© Modern Humanities Research Association and Taylor & Francis 2012 ISBN 978-1-907975-26-4 (hbk) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recordings, fax or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher. Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Contents ❖

Acknowledgements Introduction

ix 1

1 Corporeal Revolutions: Interrogating Modern and Modernist Embodiment

14

Controlling the Dangerous Bodies of Scientific and Social Modernity Shocked Bodies: Technology, the Metropolis and the Human Sensorium Modernist Constructions of Alternative Bodily Spaces

14 18 23

2 Corporeal Arrhythmia: Svevo’s Stylistics of Limping and Potentiality

39

Bodies in Motion Arrhythmias of Material Embodiment Health and Predatory Action Svevian Bodies of Temporal Rupture and Waiting Embodied Music Stuttering in Style

3 Blind Refusal: Tozzi’s Stylistic Phenomenology of Hypersensitivity Convulsive Bodies of Emotion Shame and Material Embodiment Disgust and the Borders of the Body Animal Epistemologies Sensory Assault and Pre-Oedipal Bodies Styling Sensory Blindness

40 44 47 49 57 63

76 77 81 84 90 97 100

4 Bodies, Borders and the Offended Self: Gadda’s Stylistic Ethics of Misogyny 117 Configurations of Bodily Identity The Feminine, the Fascist Horde and Weininger Subverting a Masculine Ethics of Becoming Ethics and Horror of Matricide Judging Singular Bodies A Stylistics of Singular Presence

118 127 130 134 137 143

Conclusion: Italian Giraffes, Italian Bodies

159

Bibliography

165 173

Index

for Bob, my father

Acknowledgements v

Many people have helped in the writing of this book. Special thanks, however, are due to Elena Past for her encouragement and her invaluable comments on previous drafts of this text. I am also indebted to Millicent Marcus, my doctoral dissertation supervisor at the University of Pennsylvania. I would like to thank friends and colleagues at the University of Florida for their advice and support. Special mention must go to my friend Gianfranco Balestriere and I thank Dragan Kujundzic, Carol Murphy, Sherrie Nunn, Martin Sorbille, Mary Watt, and Brigitte Weltman-Aron. I am grateful to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida for providing a Humanities Scholarship Enhancement grant which allowed me to carry out research for this book. Gratitude is also due to Dr Graham Nelson, Managing Editor of Legenda, and to Professor Simon Gilson and Professor Zygmunt Baran´ski, Editor and former Editor of the ‘Italian Perspectives’ series. Chapters 2 and 4 include revised elements of articles published in Forum italicum 39, 2 (2005): 441-460 and MLN 123, 1 (2008): 22-39. My thanks go to the editors of these journals for allowing me to incorporate the updated sections of this material. Finally, I thank friends who have provided support in a variety of ways, especially Silvia Carlorosi, Francesco Caruso, Fabiana Cecchini, Chris Cook, Ellie Laughlin, Joshua McWilliams, and Mike Volk. I also express my love and gratitude to my mother, Bernie, and my brother and sister, Alex and Jessica, for their support and continued encouragement. d.a, July 2011

Introduction v

Three Giraffes in Italy’s Literary Garden

Writing to Bonaventura Tecchi in March of 1926, Carlo Emilio Gadda describes his peculiar status within the Italian literary community as that of a kangaroo or a giraffe: ‘Come soggetto strano, come giraffa o canguro del vostro bel giardino: ecco quel che posso valere’ [Like a strange character, like a giraffe or a kangaroo in your beautiful garden: this is what I can be ].1 What is striking about Gadda’s choice is not so much the undeniably non-Italian nature of the giraffe and the kangaroo but, rather, the somewhat ungainly physicality of both animals. The enormously long neck of the giraffe and the hopping gait of the kangaroo make it impossible to conceive of the animal without thinking of its material body. This cannot be said, for example, of the equally ‘exotic’ parrot who can be conceived in terms of vibrant colours abstracted from the materiality of the bird. Gadda selects animals that simply cannot be disentangled from their rather inharmonious physicality. In highlighting this insistent materiality, Gadda also designates his central concerns, as his writing, in fact, revolves around a defining nexus of body, subjectivity and style. In other words, Gadda returns insistently to the relation between human subjectivity and embodiment, and he develops a style that performs his vision of human material embodiment. A similar attention to body, subjectivity and style informs the writing of Italo Svevo and Federigo Tozzi, authors whose writing is marked by the same supposed peculiarity that characterizes Gadda’s work. In short, it seems that Gadda was not the only giraffe wandering through the harmonious literary Italian garden. Giraffes in the Garden of Italian Literature investigates this central nexus in the work of Svevo, Tozzi and Gadda and considers it as evidence of a programmatic attempt to renegotiate human embodiment in order to validate an alternate space of lived corporeality, an authorial agenda that locates these giraffes squarely in the ambit of modernism. Beyond their mutual attention to questions of embodied identity, Svevo, Tozzi and Gadda are also bound by the nature of their reception within Italian literarycritical circles, a reception that already suggests their status as ‘giraffes’. Indeed, in the case of each author, we note a somewhat arduous or circuitous route toward critical acclaim or recognition. Each of the authors seemed initially to stump the Italian critical establishment, and to generate a variety of responses that ranged from an initial disregard with respect to Svevo, to misrecognition and misclassification of Tozzi, and, in the case of Gadda, a continued emphasis on the curious novelty of his work. Accordingly, after a life spent in laborious and frustrated pursuit of critical acclaim, Svevo achieved enthusiastic recognition both in and beyond Italy

2

Introduction

in the final decade of his life. Tozzi’s fate at the hands of the critics manifests the most variable and even contradictory itinerary as he was classified and re-classified by successive generations of Italian critics. Gadda was recognized throughout his writing career as a novel and strange author who shared much with stylistic currents and practices of a literary past. Despite this curious status, Gadda achieved what might be described as overnight cult status late in his career when he was embraced by the writers of the Italian neoavanguardia in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Turning initially to the details of Svevo’s laboured journey to critical acclaim, we must address the ‘caso Svevo’ [Svevo case], the term applied to the sudden literary celebrity achieved by the author in his sixties. Svevo had, in fact, published two novels in the 1890s, Una vita (1892) and Senilità (1898). However, beyond a small number of somewhat unf lattering reviews, these novels passed almost entirely unnoticed.2 In the face of a total lack of critical acclaim, Svevo appeared to abandon his literary activities following the publication of Senilità. This renunciation, as well as his disillusionment with literature, is made clear in the pages of his diary: ‘Io, a quest’ora e definitivamente ho eliminato dalla mia vita quella ridicola e dannosa cosa che si chiama letteratura’ [I have now and forever eliminated from my life that ridiculous and noxious thing called literature].3 Yet Svevo’s withdrawal from the field of literature was not definitive. He began working on La coscienza di Zeno in early 1919 and the novel was published in May 1923.4 Initially the novel prompted little critical attention.5 Svevo shared his despair with his friend James Joyce who responded with reassurances about the quality of the work: ‘Perché si dispera? Deve sapere ch’è di gran lunga il suo migliore libro’ [Why do you despair? You must know that this is your best book by far].6 Joyce’s support, however, was more than moral and, in fact, in the same letter, he recommended that Svevo send copies of the novel to Valery Larbaud, Benjamin Crémieux, T. S. Eliot, and Ford Madox Ford, critics and writers with whom Joyce planned to intercede on Svevo’s behalf. The response on the part of Larbaud and Crémieux was enthusiastic. Larbaud wrote to Svevo in January 1925 praising his work and requesting copies of his other two novels. In effect, this attention in French literary circles marks the beginning of the ‘caso Svevo’. Just over a year later, in February 1926, Larbaud and Crémieux edited a special edition of the French literary journal Le Navire d’Argent, dedicated to the work of Svevo. In these pages, Crémieux heralds the unknown Svevo as the first and only analytical novelist produced by contemporary Italy (Ghidetti, 19). While Svevo was being ‘discovered’ in France, a young Eugenio Montale com­ mitted himself to publicizing the author’s work in literary-critical circles. Having obtained copies of Svevo’s three novels thanks to a mutual friend, Roberto Bazlen, Montale published his ‘Omaggio a Svevo’ in December 1925 in the Milanese paper L’Esame. In this short article, Montale describes the nascent French admiration for an Italian author who, he writes, is possessed of a ‘forza spontanea e sincera’ [spontaneous and sincere force].7 Further attention followed. Writing in L’Ambrosiano in February 1926, Giuseppe Prezzolini recognized the value of Svevo who, though challenged stylistically, manifests the ‘coraggio di guardare nell’uomo quotidiano e comune, con una spaventosa illuminazione’ [courage to consider quotidian and common man, with a frightening illumination].8 Critical debate continued after

Introduction

3

Svevo’s death in September 1928.9 Giacomo Debenedetti’s 1929 article ‘Svevo e Schmitz’ is of particular importance here, as the Turinese critic underlines the problematic status of Svevo’s Italian identity.10 In his ref lections on the ‘caso Svevo’, the critic describes a process of legitimization of the Triestine author, a process that he compares with the preparation of an official membership or identity card (Debenedetti, 28).11 Svevo himself was fully and humorously aware of his status, as he makes clear when, writing to Crémieux in May 1928, he compares his acceptance in Italian literary circles with the introduction of a ‘pezzo d’aglio nella cucina di gente che non ne vogliono sapere’ [piece of garlic into the kitchen of people who wish to know nothing about it (Svevo, 1966, 874)]. Though Svevo’s selfcharacterization does not suggest the same resolute materiality of Gadda’s giraffe, the reference to garlic suggests the body in its insistence on a sensory intensity that contrasts meaningfully with the supposed decorum, grace and measure of Italian literary tastes. Tozzi criticism has manifested a very curious evolution that saw the author described as everything from a naturalist to an expressionist, from an a-ideological author to a conservative Catholic and, finally, from an intellectually naïf narrator to an erudite student of modern psychology. Turning initially to what might be termed the naturalist phase of Tozzi criticism, we must start with Giuseppe Antonio Borgese’s identification of the edificatory value of Tozzi’s writing. In fact, subsequent to Tozzi’s early death in 1920, Borgese co-opted his work into a project of novelistic reconstruction that rejected the fragmentism of artists such as the vociani. This literary agenda is described in Borgese’s 1923 Tempo di edificare, where he describes Tozzi as ‘uno dei primissimi edificatori nella nuova generazione letteraria d’Italia’ [one of the very first builders of the new literary generation of Italy].12 Other early critics, however, such as Alfredo Gargiulo dismissed Tozzi’s work on the grounds of its pathological ‘esasperazione egocentrica’ [egocentric exasperation].13 Largely sidelined for the three succeeding decades, Tozzi was resurrected, so to speak, in the 1960s when critical attention finally conferred on him overdue recognition as one of the most important, most modern and most innovative of the narratori of the Italian Novecento. As in the case of Svevo, Giacomo Debenedetti made a significant contribution to this critical debate, so it is he who should receive credit for much of the attention paid to Tozzi. With his 1963 reading of Con gli occhi chiusi, Debenedetti liberated the author from the confines of the Sienese provinces in order to place his innovative work firmly in the narrative avant-garde of expressionism.14 Debenedetti offers a portrait of an a-ideological author for whom narration is equivalent to the act of the ‘primitive’ who paints animals on the walls of his cave in order to dominate a frightening reality.15 Conceptual sophistication, moreover, is absent: ‘le sue idee, sempre comunque assai embrionali, sono di tutt’altra natura da quelle che si ottengono attraverso i libri o la elaborazione mentale e intellettuale’ [his ideas, always however quite embryonic, are entirely different from those developed in books or through mental or intellectual elaboration (Debenedetti, 2001, 60)]. For Debenedetti, then, Tozzi’s is not a naturalist narrative because it records events instead of explaining them (Debenedetti, 1988, 92).

4

Introduction

Though largely accepting of Debenedetti’s claims for a very modern Tozzian expressionism, many critics have subsequently offered convincing counterarguments to this portrait of a naïf author without ideology. Ferruccio Ulivi, Paolo Getrevi and Franco Petroni amongst others have discovered an ideological Tozzi in their exploration of the religious and, specifically, Catholic dimension of Tozzi’s inspiration.16 Addressing, amongst other concerns, Tozzi’s previously overlooked association with Domenico Giuliotti and La Torre (1913), the Catholic journal that they founded together, these critical voices opened the door to an analysis of a social and ideological conservatism in Tozzi’s early work as well as in his later novels. A further evolution in Tozzi criticism is evident in the analysis of the author’s studies in psychology. In fact, Debenedetti’s portrait of a talented dilettante was definitively replaced by that of an erudite though self-taught intellectual, thanks to those critics who addressed the author’s studies in the field of philosophy and psychology and, in particular, his intellectual passion for the work of William James.17 This brief sampling of divergent and even mutually contradictory positions concerning Tozzi illustrates the degree of critical confusion that, for decades, enveloped the work of this Sienese giraffe. Gadda was, of course, fully aware of the classificatory difficulties he posed for the critical establishment, as his self-definition as giraffe illustrates. However, although it has become commonplace to claim that Gadda was not appreciated by his con­temporaries, there are many examples of critical interventions that suggest quite the opposite.18 Though largely appreciative of Gadda’s work, these earlier critics frequently underscore his novelty and the resulting difficulty in locating him within a contemporary literary context. In 1931, Carlo Linati wonders whether a charmingly baroque author such as Gadda can find success in a period domi­ nated by neoclassical writing.19 Raffaello Franchi describes a Gaddian art that is ‘veramente singolare’ [truly singular].20 Writing in the same year, Giuseppe De Robertis identifies a complex, bristling, and utterly novel author who, despite being a humorist, is Italian (the word is underlined to highlight the singularity of the concept).21 Elio Vittorini hails an excellent and novel author whom he locates in a specifically Lombard historical tradition of satire that seemed to have disappeared entirely at the close of the seventeenth century.22 Reviewing Il castello di Udine in 1934, Gianfranco Contini further broadens the temporal spectrum as he draws Gadda’s work toward the Renaissance ‘pasticheurs’, from the Italian macaronic tradition to Rabelais.23 What this gradual extension of the classificatory field illustrates is precisely the need to stretch the contemporary spectrum of critical categories in order to find a suitable niche for this Milanese giraffe. Beyond these shared difficulties of classification within a literary-critical canon, what else binds these authors? What justifies a study that focuses on these three writers whose publications cover such a broad span of time, from the 1890s to the 1960s?24 Why not include the other, no doubt numerous, cases of Italian authors who have achieved recognition late in their literary careers or, alternatively, who have been hailed as entirely novel within an Italian context? The short answer, as indicated above, is what I consider to be the distinctive nexus of body, subjectivity and style that emerges in the work of the three authors and that prompted, at least

Introduction

5

in part, the difficulties of critical classification. The longer answer, on the other hand, broaches the particularities of their treatment of human embodiment and, in fact, diminishes the apparent difficulty of classification within an Italian context by placing their work against the broader backdrop of a European and international modernism preoccupied with questions of corporeality. In fact, we might note a critical tendency of sorts to classify each of these three authors by means of reference to non-Italian authors. Svevo is frequently associated with the Mitteleuropean culture of his native Trieste and becomes, then, an Italian(ish) version of Robert Musil with Zeno, in particular, becoming a Triestine ‘man without qualities’. In addition, Svevo’s representation of memory in La coscienza di Zeno has prompted comparisons with Proust. On ‘discovering’ Tozzi, Debenedetti establishes inf luential parallels with the nightmarish qualities of Franz Kaf ka’s literary universe. Gadda, on the other hand, is often termed the ‘Italian Joyce’ as his supposed encyclopaedism and his macaronic style are connected with the work of the Irish author. Alternatively, he is associated with French author, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, on the grounds of a shared attention to a Rabelaisian physicality and stylistics.25 The non-Italian authors selected as points of reference are all, of course, un­d isputed giants of literary modernism, a classification traditionally avoided by an Italian critical orthodoxy that preferred the specificity of terms such as Decadent­ ism, Symbolism, Crepuscularism, Futurism, and Hermeticism.26 The modernist label is, indeed, notoriously vague, covering a diversity of artistic movements that, housed in various countries, stretched from the militant avant-garde movements of the first two decades of the twentieth century, through the arguably more conservative ‘high’ modernism of the 1920s, and on to the more overtly politicized production of the 1930s. Modernism, therefore, is characterized by its great formal and ideological variety, a circumstance underscored by a broad spectrum of critics. While Eugene Lunn, for instance, defines the movement in terms of ‘multiple revolts against traditional realism and romanticism’,27 Michael Levenson identifies a generalized sense of crisis, a term that, though overused, ‘still glows with justification’.28 Richard Sheppard identifies no fewer than nine distinct traits or tendencies in a modernism that he too defines as a response to a perceived moment of crisis.29 While it is not my intention here to review the entirety of critical positions on modernism, it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the critical tendency to approach literary modernism by means of a recurrent set of critical oppositions central to which is that traditional account that attempts to distinguish between a conservative high modernism of aesthetic and subjective autonomy and a social modernity of mass culture and technological innovation.30 Indeed, Matei Calinescu describes an ‘irreversible split’ between ‘modernity as a stage in the history of Western civilization — a product of scientific and technological progress, of the industrial revolution, of the sweeping economic and social changes brought about by the development of capitalism — and modernity as an aesthetic concept’.31 Moreover, Calinescu elaborates, cultural or aesthetic modernity is defined by its ‘radical antibourgeois attitudes’ and its disgust in the face of ‘middle-scale values’, a disgust that generates the ‘consuming negative passion’ of cultural modernity (Calinescu, 42). Central to this critical paradigm is the emergence of a mass culture

6

Introduction

industry whose ‘prearranged harmony’ is described by Adorno and Horkheimer as a ‘mockery of what had to be striven after in the great bourgeois works of art’.32 Moreover, so-called high modernism locates itself, for Adorno, in antagonistic opposition to this mass cultural model.33 This critical view became one of the most inf luential representations of literary modernism. Indeed, though Andreas Huyssen sets out to interrogate the reasons behind the critical resilience of this ‘great divide’ between ‘high art’ and mass culture, he writes that ‘modernism constituted itself through a conscious strategy of exclusion, an anxiety of contamination by its other: an increasingly consuming and engulfing mass culture’ (Huyssen, vii-viii).34 At the core of this oppositional paradigm is the formal and stylistic sophistication of the modernist text, a quality that, for Adorno, exemplifies its attempted refusal of commodification. As with modernism itself, modernist form and style resist mono­lithic description. In broaching a body of artists bound by a self-conscious exper­ience of modernity as something entirely new, critics have identified in the modernist experimental bent an aesthetic self-ref lexiveness with respect both to artistic tradition and to the formal component parts of the given medium. Lunn describes this as a tendency amongst modernists to highlight ‘the media or materials with which they are working, the very processes of creation in their own craft’ (Lunn, 34). In addressing the specifics of the literary field, he underscores the modernist adoption of a form that ‘reveals its own reality as a construction or artifice’, a goal achieved by a variety of means including ‘visual or linguistic dis­ tortion to convey intense subjective states of mind’ (Lunn, 35). Lunn also points to a modernist inclination toward simultaneity and juxtaposition or montage, a practice by means of which ‘narrative or temporal structure is weakened, or even dis­appears, in favour of an aesthetic ordering based on synchronicity, the logic of metaphor, or what is sometimes referred to as “spatial form”’ (Lunn, 35). In this paratactical configuration, narrative organization abandons sequential logic in favour of an art that is ‘without apparent causal progression and completion’ (Lunn, 35).35 This is the vision of a modernism described by Malcolm Bradbury and James MacFarlane as indicative of a ‘new era of high aesthetic self-consciousness and non-repre­sent­ ationalism, in which art turns from realism and humanistic representation towards style, technique, and spatial form in pursuit of a deeper penetration of life’.36 I present this sampling of positions on modernism in order to differentiate a traditional critical stance from the more recent scholarship that tends, for the most part, to minimize ideological and aesthetic oppositions between modernism, high or otherwise, and modernity. Instead, many scholars now propose a modernism that is deeply implicated in the social, economic and technological paradigm shifts that define modernity as a whole. While Astradur Eysteinsson writes that modernist aesthetic practices do not ‘directly reflect social modernity or lend us an immediate access to its distinctive qualities’, he argues that modernism constitutes an ‘attempt to interrupt the modernity that we live and understand as a social if not “normal”, way of life’.37 Jonathan Crary goes further and insists that ‘any effective account of modern culture must confront the ways in which modernism, rather than being a reaction against or transcendence of processes of scientific and economic rationalization, is inseparable from them’.38 It is this desire to locate modernism

Introduction

7

within the social and economic context of technological modernity that animates Bradbury and McFarlane’s well-known description of a modernist art ‘of the destruction of civilization and reason in the First World War, of the world changed and reinterpreted by Marx, Freud and Darwin, of capitalism and constant industrial acceleration, of existential exposure to meaninglessness or absurdity. It is the literature of technology [...] Modernism is then the art of modernization’ (Bradbury and McFarlane, 27). Marshall Berman provides an equally all-encompassing definition of a modernism contingent upon a ‘maelstrom of modern life’ that encom­passes the ‘industrialization of production’ responsible for the transformation of human experience and environment, the acceleration of life, and the transfer of millions of people to the urban centres of the West.39 What emerges in this correlation of the experience of modernity with mod­ ernism is a modernist art of the living human who is both the subject and the object of modernization. Moreover, this same modernist art insistently underscores the embodied dimension of human existence, namely, the fact that modernity is experienced in and through the material human body. Thus, notwithstanding its great variety, literary modernism might be understood as a stylistically selfconscious engagement with the experience of human embodiment in the face of a social and technological revolution felt on, by, and in the body, modifying not only the rhythms of its daily movements, practices and interactions, but also its epistemological and ethical status. This is very much the case made by Sara Danius in her study of the definitively ‘high’ modernist Proust, Mann and Joyce. Indeed, Danius places this living embodied subject of modernity at the forefront of modernism, as she convincingly argues that technological innovation is not just a feature of the aesthetics of high modernism but is, in a real way, constitutive of those same aesthetics (Danius, 3). Modernism, then, responds to a perceived crisis of human epistemological authority, a crisis that is, first and foremost, one of a human sensorium outstripped by the accuracy and scope of technological devices such as the camera and the phonograph. Accordingly, the human body becomes the site of a subjective and even inexact encounter with the phenomena of reality. Indeed, Danius identifies modernism as a ‘general gravitation toward a conception of aesthetic experience based in a notion of the immanence of the body’ (Danius, 194). Ulrika Maude adopts a similar stance as she writes that modernism charts our relationship with our own bodies and our reality in the light of technological innovation.40 Tim Armstrong underscores the indissoluble bond between the material experience of modernity and modernist discourses on embodiment when he writes that a broad ideological variety of modernists ‘saw the body as the locus of anxiety, even crisis’.41 Moreover, he identifies a fascination with, specifically, the ‘limits of the body’, whether in terms of corporeal energies or perceptual capacities, and he defines modernism as an attempt to ‘intervene in the body’ (Armstrong, 1998, 4, 6). Literary modernism, then, must be considered as a generalized albeit varied re-negotiation of human embodiment, a re-negotiation that is not just aesthetic in scope but is also an epistemological and ethical ref lection on the lived experience of a radically transformed social and economic reality. It is, moreover, in this chorus of assorted modernist voices that Svevo, Tozzi and Gadda’s stylistically

8

Introduction

informed attention to the body and embodiment finds resonance. In this light, their zoological peculiarity in a harmonious garden of Italian literature suggests an affirmative engagement with embodiment as, beyond the traditional Italian canons of literary measure and prescriptive grace, each author charts new embodied ethical practices and maps alternate sensory and corporeal regimes. The chapters that follow plot this modernist interrogation of embodiment. The chapter entitled ‘Corporeal Revolutions: Interrogating Modern and Modernist Embodiment’ aims to contextualize, both artistically and socially, the corporeal meditations of Svevo, Tozzi, and Gadda. As such it addresses, firstly, the broader context of the body of social and technological modernity. The chapter opens on the radical contradictions of a human body that is at once the subject and the object of modernization. As the subject of modernity, the body houses increasing knowledge about itself and its environment. Yet, as object, the body succumbs to the weight of this knowledge. As the evolutionary sciences open the door to the concept of biological regression in the atomistic living body, the objectified human form poses a threat to the ideal of progress and, paradoxically, to a society conceived in terms of a hierarchized organic metaphor. This hazardous body must be rendered docile and, by virtue of the intensification of the disciplinary regimes identified by Michel Foucault, must become an efficient cog within an industrial capitalist edifice described by Karl Marx in terms of its dehumanizing instrumentalization of the labouring human body. The modern metropolis is the space in which these developments are most deeply felt and lived. Indeed, this chapter will also encompass ref lections on the embodied experience of urban modernity and will focus, in particular, on discussions of the bodily shock triggered by the encounter with the urban centre. This technologized and shock-ridden metropolis will be linked with a critique of modernity that encompasses an alleged loss of epistemological authority on the part of the human sensorium as well as concerns regarding a perceived destabilization of the body both in its organic and gendered dimensions. My discussion of the perceived crisis of modernity will encompass thinkers such as Walter Benjamin and Georg Simmel as well as the more dubious reasoning of Max Nordau and Otto Weininger. These discourses concerning the body of modernity provide a social and cultural context for a modernism that, rather than simply diagnosing and lamenting a crisis of the human organism, moves beyond this critical space in order to reclaim and revalidate the ethical and epistemological subjectivism of this imperfect living body. This chapter will consider these modernist bodies focusing, in particular, on those configurations that foreground hypersensitivity, infirmity, potentiality, sensorial empiricism and gender, considerations central to the writing and thought of Svevo, Tozzi and Gadda. Having explored the question of modern and modernist embodiment, I will move to a sequence of three critical-interpretive chapters that deal separately with the thought and writing of each author. These chapters are organized chrono­ logically and begin, therefore, with Italo Svevo in the chapter entitled ‘Corporeal Arrhythmia: Svevo’s Stylistics of Limping and Potentiality’. In his novels Una vita (1892), Senilità (1898) and La coscienza di Zeno (1923), I argue that Svevo proposes an arrhythmic embodiment by means of which the body adamantly asserts its

Introduction

9

material presence. This is a mode of embodiment that, explicitly differentiated from an animalistic regime of predatory domination, revolves around a temporal rupture deriving from a continued suspension of bodily action, a suspension that introduces Svevo’s crucial arrhythmia. Svevo’s protagonists, from the hypersensitive Alfonso Nitti, through the senile Emilio Brentani, and, finally, on to the famously hypochondriac Zeno Cosini, inhabit bodies defined by the category of potentiality. Indeed, while animalistic action diverts focus from the acting body toward the domain impacted and transformed by the performed action, the protagonists’ ability to act but repeated refusal or failure to do so insists on the workings of the body itself. This is a programmatic dimension of Svevo’s thought that, in La coscienza di Zeno, underpins an entire project of embodied culture constructed on Zeno’s arrhythmic and limping organism. This arrhythmia carries equal weight when considering Svevo’s distinctive writing style. He writes in an Italian imbued with Triestine dialect and he measures this language against the supposed rhythmic regularity of a canonical Tuscan. Repeatedly confronting his irresolute protagonists with active and healthy antagonists capable of conversing f luently in Tuscan, Svevo, I will argue, invites us to consider his infamous ‘scrivere male’ or ‘bad writing’ as a key component of his theorization of a materially self-aware human embodiment. Thus, Svevo’s writing, described as erratic, awkward and ugly, performs Zeno’s limp and his inability to play the violin without furiously beating the rhythm with his entire body. This erratic or limping style, I argue, is founded on a determined principle of irregularity that seeks to render the cognitive triumph of an arrhythmic body and, simultaneously, to challenge the validity of a stable and majoritarian Tuscan model characterized, like the healthy, by a lack of corporeal self-knowledge. My analysis of Tozzi’s literary and stylistic considerations of embodiment follows in the chapter entitled ‘Blind Refusal: Tozzi’s Stylistic Phenomenology of Hypersensitivity’. Tozzi is most frequently considered as an author whose thought and style are shaped by an introspective exploration of the mysteries of the human psyche. Focusing on his principal novels, Adele (1979), Ricordi di un impiegato (1927), Bestie (1917), Con gli occhi chiusi (1919), Il podere (1921), Tre croci (1920), and Gli egoisti (1923), I propose instead a reading that places the sensory experience of material embodiment at the forefront of Tozzi’s thought and writing. This focus on embodiment, in fact, tallies with the work of an author for whom the thought of William James remained a crucial point of reference. Like James, Tozzi stresses the role of sensation in the encounter between world and self. However, unlike James, for whom perception leads to the abstract organization of concept, Tozzi creates characters who seem to remain at the level of sensation. As with Svevo, questions of bodily action are central to Tozzi’s thought. However, while Svevo humor­ ously underlines the cognitive validity of arrhythmic embodiment of non-action, Tozzi describes a schizophrenically hypersensitive f lesh overwhelmed by sensory stimuli experienced as an assault. This assault also comes from the body itself, as the f lesh is repeatedly represented as an uncontrollable dimension that twitches, stutters and blushes. Here, the embodied subject suffers a shameful incarnation tied to an abject f lesh (Levinas, Kristeva) that relegates the human to the level of an epistemologically blind animal (Heidegger). However, this often terrifying space

10

Introduction

constitutes an alternative mode of embodiment intended to counter a paternal order founded on the active and violent domination and exploitation of bodies. Tozzi writes this space of hypersensitive embodiment in a style that renders the immediacy of non-conceptualized sense perception. Frequently described as paratactical, antihierarchical, visionary and oniric, Tozzi’s style and narrative organization shun abstract causality in what I consider to be a deliberate authorial attempt to perform in style the embodied experience of a schizophrenic subject who dwells beyond the paternal metaphor. Gadda’s work is analysed in the chapter entitled ‘Bodies, Borders and the Offended Self: Gadda’s Stylistic Ethics of Misogyny’. Focusing my analysis on his novels La cognizione del dolore (1963) and Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana (1957), as well as his treatise Meditazione milanese (1974) and the anti-fascist pamphlet Eros e priapo (1967), I address Gadda’s obsessive return to the porous borders of a gendered body. Though his novels are inhabited by a broad variety of bodies, Gadda suggests three distinct constructions of subjective identity, each grounded in a corresponding configuration of the body. These three embodied identities, namely, a self-consciously permeable male monad, a proliferating and memorably grotesque peasantry, and a bourgeois femininity fixated on maternity, develop in conf lict one with the other. This, however, is an essential antagonism by means of which the author addresses the ethical shortcomings of a subjectivity intent on stability and permanence. Here, Gadda gives full voice to an apparent misogyny inspired by the thought of Otto Weininger. However, Gadda’s is a profoundly ambivalent misogyny. Indeed, as he opposes a femininity of carnal passivity intent on accumulation and self-preservation by means of maternity to an ethical masculinity equipped to shape the future, Gadda’s gendered categories crumple in on themselves. Indeed, it is the carnal female body that reveals the deep offence committed by a modernity that performs an epistemological, legal, social and scientific exploitation of feminized bodies, an exploitation operated, for the most part, by a masculine ideological authority. Thus, Gadda includes ambivalent instances of a matricide that is corrective of an ethically deficient femininity and, at the same time, profoundly unjust in its devastation of a female body constructed as passive object to a lethal and masculine penetration. Moreover, Gadda’s famously baroque or macaronic style embodies this ambiguity. Shattering linguistic order and stability by incorporating a variety of styles, registers and points of views, he comes to write the proliferation of the material body in a highly self-aware game of authorial anonymity, a game that strives to give voice to a feminine materiality. My conclusion, ‘Italian Giraffes, Italian Bodies’, returns to the question of the traditional Italian critical resistance to the label of modernism in order to argue that, while such classifications as Decadentism and Symbolism might permit a greater analytical precision, they intensify what Italo Calvino identified as an Italian cultural isolation stemming from what he saw as the untranslatable nature of the Italian language. Moreover, in the specific cases of Svevo, Tozzi, and Gadda, this critical attitude fails to recognize writing that, at once European and deeply Italian, was above all modernist. The sustained attention they paid to bodily materiality places these Italian authors securely amongst the ranks of Proust, Joyce and Kaf ka

Introduction

11

where, like their non-Italian counterparts, these ‘giraffes’ contemplate and write the rhythms of an embodiment intent on subverting the rational and instrumentalizing project of modernity and reclaiming the subjective body of lived experience. Notes to the Introduction 1. Carlo Emilio Gadda, A un amico fraterno: lettere a Bonaventura Tecchi (Milan: Garzanti, 1984), p. 43. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations in the following chapters are my own. 2. Writing in the Corriere della sera in December 1892, Domenico Oliva is critical of Una vita as a novel, though he does recognize certain qualities in its author: ‘sebbene scarso d’interesse, sebbene d’un valore tecnico assai limitato, questo romanzo rivela una coscienza artistica ed un osservatore dall’occhio limpido’ [though of little interest, though of limited technical value, this novel reveals an artistic consciousness and a keenly observant eye], cited in Il caso Svevo: guida storica e critica, ed. by Enrico Ghidetti, (Rome: Laterza, 1993), p. 3. Ghidetti also includes part of a somewhat favourable review of Senilità written by Silvio Benco (pp. 8–10). Though Benco objects to the author’s choice of title on the grounds of the novel’s lack of synthesis, he praises an authorial sincerity (Ghidetti, p. 8). 3. Svevo, Opera omnia III, Racconti, saggi, pagine sparse (Milan: Dall’Oglio, 1968), p. 818. The diary entry is dated December 1902. 4. In a letter to Benjamin Crémieux, Svevo writes that he began working on the novel four months after the arrival of Italian troops in Trieste, a detail that dates the start of composition to February 1919. Svevo, Opera omnia I, Epistolario (Milan: Dall’Oglio, 1966), p. 825. 5. In his ‘Profilo autobiografico’ Svevo describes an initial ‘incomprensione assoluta ed un silenzio glaciale’ [absolute incomprehension and a glacial silence]. The only significant exception to this was Giulio Caprin, whose attitude Svevo describes as one of hostility (Svevo, 1968, pp. 809–10). 6. The letter was written on 30 January 1924 and is included in part in Ghidetti, pp. 14–15. Svevo’s friendship with Joyce dates from 1906 when he began studying English with the Irish author at Trieste’s Berlitz School. 7. Eugenio Montale, Carteggio con gli scritti di Montale su Svevo (Milan: Mondadori, 1976), p. 72. Montale published a further presentation of Svevo in Il Quindicinale, January 1926. 8. Giuseppe Prezzolini, ‘Rivelazioni: Italo Svevo’, from L’Ambrosiano, 8 February 1926, repr. in Ghidetti, p. 24. 9. The literary journals Solaria and Il Convegno dedicated entire issues to his work in 1929. 10. The article was initially published in Il Convegno in 1929, repr. in Giacomo Debenedetti, Saggi critici. Nuova serie (Rome: O.E.T. Edizioni del secolo, 1945), pp. 27–85. 11. Richard Robinson writes that the ‘caso Svevo’, or the ‘battle within Italy for the acceptance of supposedly badly written novels such as those of Svevo’, was ‘caught up with the political programme of an increasingly Fascist state’. He also writes that the poor reception of La coscienza was led by Triestines and was a ‘symptom of the nationalist (recently irredentist) culture of 1920s Trieste’; Robinson, ‘From Border to Front: Italo Svevo’s La coscienza di Zeno and International Space’, Journal of European Studies 36.3 (2006), 243–68 (p. 262). 12. Giuseppe Antonio Borgese, Tempo di edificare (Milan: Treves, 1923), p. vii. In an interpretation similar to Borgese’s reading of a naturalist Tozzi, Luigi Russo establishes parallels with Verga’s work; Russo, ‘Federigo Tozzi’, I narratori (Milan: Principato, 1958), pp. 273–76. 13. Alfredo Gargiulo, ‘Federigo Tozzi’, originally published in L’Italia letteraria, 12 June 1930, cited in Martina Martini, Tozzi e James: letteratura e psicologia (Florence: Olschki 1999), p. 52. 14. Giacomo Debenedetti, ‘Con gli occhi chiusi’, Aut Aut, 78 (November 1963), repr. in Il personaggio uomo (Milan: Garzanti, 1988), pp. 81–101. 15. Giacomo Debenedetti, Il romanzo del Novecento (Milan: Garzanti, 2001), p. 202. 16. I would mention the following texts: Ferruccio Ulivi, Federigo Tozzi (Milan: Mursia, 1963); Paolo Getrevi, Nel prisma di Tozzi. La reazione, il sangue, il romanzo (Naples: Liguori, 1983); Franco Petroni, Ideologia del mistero e logica dell’inconscio nei romanzi di Federigo Tozzi (Florence: Manzuoli, 1984).

12

Introduction

17. Chief amongst these critics are Marco Marchi and Martina Martini. I would mention here Marchi’s inf luential article, ‘La cultura psicologica di Tozzi’, in Tozzi in America, ed. by Luigi Fontanella (Rome: Bulzoni, 1986), pp. 33–48; Martina Martini, Tozzi e James. Letteratura e psicologia (1999). 18. Riccardo Stracuzzi makes this point quite strenuously. He attributes the erroneous commonplace to Gadda’s own oversensitivity in the face of any critical intervention and also ascribes the most inf luential pronouncements on this incorrect commonplace to writers and scholars of the Italian neoavanguardia, in particular Alberto Arbasino and Angelo Guglielmi; ‘Gadda al vaglio della critica (1931–1943)’, ed. by Riccardo Stracuzzi, ‘Prefazione’, Edinburgh Journal of Gadda Studies, Supplement 7, 6 (2007), [accessed on 2 June 2011], section 1. In his review of Gadda’s relationship with the critics, Giorgio Patrizi describes Gadda’s ‘discovery’ by the neoavanguardia as the discovery of a ‘father’ whom others had ignored or only acknowledged in part; Patrizi, ed., La critica e Gadda (Bologna: Cappelli, 1975), p. 14. However, rather than a ‘discovery’, this elevation of Gadda reveals an affinity with the author. This is evident in Arbasino’s identification of Gadda’s literary ‘nipotini’ [nephews or grandchildren], a group in which he places himself as well as Pasolini and Testori. Arbasino’s article, ‘I nipotini dell’ingegnere’, appeared in 1960 in Il verri and is repr. in Arbasino, L’Ingegnere in blu (Milan: Adelphi, 2008), pp. 173–86. 19. Originally published as Carlo Linati, ‘Un umorista. Carlo Emilio Gadda’, in L’Ambrosiano, 8 May 1931; repr. in Edinburgh Journal of Gadda Studies, Supplement 7, 6 (2007), [accessed 2 June 2011]. 20. Originally published as Raffaello Franchi, ‘La Madonna dei Filosofi’, in L’Italia letteraria, 3, 9 August 1931, 1; repr. in Edinburgh Journal of Gadda Studies, Supplement 7, 6 (2007), [accessed 2 June 2011]. 21. Originally published as Giuseppe De Robertis, ‘La Madonna dei filosofi’, in Pègaso 3, 6 (1931), 753–55; repr. in Edinburgh Journal of Gadda Studies, Supplement 7, 6 (2007), [accessed 2 June 2011]. 22. Originally published as Elio Vittorini, ‘Evviva la frusta!’ in Il bargello, 21 May 1931: 3; repr. in Edinburgh Journal of Gadda Studies, Supplement 7, 6 (2007), [accessed 2 June 2011]. 23. Originally published as ‘Carlo Emilio Gadda, o del “pastiche” ’, in Solaria, 1 ( January-February 1934), 88–93, repr. as ‘Primo approccio al Castello di Udine’ in Gianfranco Contini, Quarant’anni d’amicizia (Turin: Einaudi, 1989), pp. 3–10 (p. 4). 24. The reference here to the 1960s ref lects the dates of publication of Gadda’s works. In fact, the texts to which I refer in my chapter on Gadda were actually composed in a period that stretches from the 1920s to the 1940s. 25. Albert Sbragia, in fact, writes that Gadda falls ‘between Joyce and Céline’, connecting Gadda’s macaronic encyclopaedism with Joyce, and the abject physicality represented macaronically in his texts with the work of Céline; Albert Sbragia, Carlo Emilio Gadda and the Modern Macaronic (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996), pp. 24–26. Stracuzzi notes that Carlo Bo is the first to establish the parallel with James Joyce: ‘Gadda al vaglio della critica (1931–1943)’, ‘Prefazione’, Edinburgh Journal of Gadda Studies, 6 (2007). It should also be pointed out that Gadda has been compared with the Italian Scapigliati and, more specifically, with Carlo Dossi (Linati, ‘Un umorista. Carlo Emilio Gadda’). Other comparisons of Gadda’s work have been made with Piero Jahier, with dialect poets Porta and Belli and, of course, with fellow Lombard, Manzoni. 26. Mario Moroni and Luca Somigli address this critical resistance in their introduction to Italian Modernism: Italian Culture between Decadentism and Avant-Garde (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004). I shall return to this question in my conclusion. 27. Eugene Lunn, Marxism and Modernism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), p. 34 28. Michael Levenson, ‘Introduction’, The Cambridge Companion to Modernism (Cambridge: Cam­ bridge University Press, 1999), p. 4. 29. Richard Sheppard, ‘The Problematics of European Modernism’, in Theorizing Modernism, ed. by Steve Giles (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 33. Sheppard describes these nine responses as follows: 1. the nihilist response (e.g. sado-masochistic double bind of Kaf ka’s early writings);

Introduction

13

2. experience of ecstatic release, occasionally incorporating use of drugs, alcohol or violent experience (e.g. early Expressionists); 3. mysticism (e.g. Yeats’ esoteric hermeticism); 4. aestheticism (e.g. Symbolists); 5. turning away from modern age in the form of a conservatism that embraces the past or a socialism that anticipates a utopian future; 6. primitivist elevation of pre-modern or non-European cultures; 7. idolatry of the modern age (e.g. Italian Futurism, early Vorticism); 8. constructivist assertion of need for modern classicism; 9. renunciation of nostalgia or desire for epiphany in a modernist anticipation of postmodern acceptance of plurality (Sheppard, pp. 33–40). 30. Sara Danius lists these oppositions as follows: ‘art/commerce, art/instrumentality, art/industry, aesthetic discourse/communicative discourse, art/market, aesthetic value/economic value, beauty/utility, autonomy/reducibility, innovation/standardization, originality/reproducibility, high culture/mass culture, body/machine, organic/mechanical, individual/collective, minority/ majority, elite/masses, and so on’; Danius, The Senses of Modernism: Technology, Perception, and Aesthetics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), p. 29. 31. Matei Calinescu, Five Faces of Modernity (Durham: Duke University Press, 1987), p. 41. 32. Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment (New York: Continuum, 1994), p. 126. 33. Andreas Huyssen describes Adorno’s dialectical understanding of modernism and mass culture as follows: ‘Adorno never lost sight of the fact that [...] modernism and mass culture have been engaged in a compulsive pas de deux. It indeed never occurred to Adorno to see modernism as anything other than a reaction formation to mass culture and commodification’; Huyssen, After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), p. 24. 34. While Huyssen accepts that the boundaries between high modernism and avant-gardism are ‘f luid’ (Huyssen, p. viii), he maintains the opposition because ‘no other single factor has inf luenced the emergence of the new avant-garde art as much as technology, which not only fueled the artists’ imagination (dynamism, machine cult, beauty of technics, constructivist and productivist attitude), but penetrated to the core of the work itself ’ (Huyssen, p. 9). 35. Lunn also identifies the modernist tendencies toward paradox or ambiguity as well as its focus on the ‘demise of the integrated individual’ (Lunn, pp. 36–37). 36. Malcolm Bradbury and James McFarlane, ‘The Name and Nature of Modernism’, in Modernism: A Guide to European Literature 1890–1930, ed. by Malcolm Bradbury and James McFarlane (London: Penguin Books, 1991), p. 25. 37. Astradur Eysteinsson, The Concept of Modernism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), p. 6, emphasis in original. 38. Jonathan Crary, Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992), p. 85. 39. Marshall Berman, All That is Solid Melts into Air (London: Penguin Books, 1988), p. 16. 40. Ulrika Maude, ‘Modernist Bodies: Coming to our Senses’, in The Body and the Arts: Writing the Body, ed. by Ulrika Maude, Jane McNaughton and Corinne Saunders (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 116–30 (p. 117). 41. Tim Armstrong, Modernism, Technology and the Body (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 4.

Chapter 1

v

Corporeal Revolutions Interrogating Modern and Modernist Embodiment The body of technological modernity is a veritable paradox. By means of a range of scientific and mechanical technologies, from the camera and the x-ray machine to the automobile and the locomotive, the body perceived previously unknowable dimensions of reality while moving through an electrified space at speeds that were, until that time, out of the question. Yet these enhancements came at a price. Even as the scope of the human sensorium was technologically augmented, naked human perception was surpassed and the body’s epistemological authority contested by the accuracy of these technologies. Similarly, the apparent symbiosis between organism and machine, both in the sphere of mechanically enhanced movement and in the ever-expanding sphere of industrialized machinic production, seemed to threaten the integrity and health of the human body. This contradiction is constitutive of the body of modernity and ref lects what Tim Armstrong describes as the simultaneous ‘fragmentation and augmentation of the body in relation to technology’, a process according to which modernity offers the ‘body as lack, at the same time as it offers technological compensation’ (Armstrong, 1998, 3). This is the disquieting paradox identified by Sigmund Freud: ‘Man has become a kind of prosthetic God. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs he is truly magnificent; but those organs have not grown on to him and they still give him much trouble at times’.1 This chapter interrogates this fundamental paradox of a human body that is the confident subject of the project of social and technological modernity and, at the same time, the hazardous biological object to be shaped and controlled in the service of a larger social collectivity. This is the imperfect and dangerous human body that a chorus of modernist voices, amongst which I would locate Svevo, Tozzi and Gadda, strives to re-appropriate as it works to re-negotiate and, ultimately, re-validate modern embodiment. Controlling the Dangerous Bodies of Scientific and Social Modernity The nineteenth century was famously one of massive scientific and technological innovation.2 Scientific discoveries across a variety of fields delivered increasing knowledge of the world and the material self as they contested prior concepts of a stable, mechanistic and impenetrable human body.3 Advances in the intertwined fields of chemistry and physics unveiled, in fact, an atomistic body animated by

Corporeal Revolutions

15

quantifiable electrochemical energy.4 At the same time, the biological sciences argued for the evolutionary principle, a project brought to fruition most notably in the work of Charles Darwin (1809–1882).5 In The Origin of Species (1859), Darwin argued for a brutal evolutionary process of natural selection and, though he did not explicitly address this mechanism in the human species, the implied relevance to human action is obvious in the closing pages of the text: ‘Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history’.6 The medical sciences saw equally momentous advances over the course of the century. Innovation in laboratory techniques and equipment permitted the scientific confirmation of a germ-based theory of disease.7 These findings prompted increased attention to antiseptic practices, which ultimately laid the groundwork for the safe development of new surgical procedures that enhanced the scope and efficacy of medical intervention in the life of the human body.8 These and other advances prompted a widespread privileging of the natural sciences and bolstered an optimistic confidence in the moral, social and economic value of the project of modernization. As science revealed ever more about human reality and advances in the fields of electromagnetism and thermodynamics received mechanical application in industry, the ascendant bourgeoisie witnessed with progressivist optimism the transition from the First Industrial Revolution to the Technological or Second Industrial Revolution.9 This confidence in scientific practice is most evidently encapsulated in positivism, a doctrine that proposes scientific method as the foundation of all knowledge and the privileged instrument of social progress. Auguste Comte (1798–1857) began to formulate his positive philosophy in 1822 when he called for the development of a science of ‘social physics’ defined as the ‘study of the collective development of the human race’.10 Distancing his ‘social physics’ from the metaphysical bent of a ‘theoretic politics’ that seeks to establish an eternal and absolute social order (Comte, 35), he proposes a discipline that, in its analysis of a changing human civilization, is as ‘positive’ as any other scientific practice founded on observation and verification (Comte, 65).11 This is the methodological basis for a discipline whose goals are the precise formulation of the laws of societal development and the practical determination of the system that ‘ought to prevail as the final social system’ (Comte, 67). Broadly applying the metaphor of a ‘social organism’, Comte views sociology as the study of the entire social system in which individual elements are related to the harmony of the whole just as the organs of a body are seen in terms of their specific and delimited function within the body. Comte’s extensive use of the organic metaphor for society is highly problematic. Although the metaphor has been deployed in various ways over time, it traditionally designated a hierarchical social coherence demarcated by borders inside which organizational tasks were allocated to a privileged socio-political class or head while the more menial functions were assigned to a mass of labourers or limbs.12 More importantly for Comte’s purposes and for the ideological convictions of a progressivist bourgeois ascendancy, however, is the fact that the body is self-causing or self-moving, directed, of course, by the activities of the guiding class or mind. As such, in contrast to a passively functioning mechanistic body, the organic metaphor

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Corporeal Revolutions

embodies, as it were, the very idea of an active or subjectively willed progress. In short, it encapsulates the very concept of a body that moves confidently forward as the subject of the project of modernity. Implicit also in the organic metaphor is the discourse of health. This state of well-being is to be maintained by means of the identification, classification and, even, exclusion of potential contaminants. Yet, in the wake of the aforementioned scientific discoveries that established the atomistic and electrochemical cellular human body, this sealed and hierarchical bodily configuration becomes obsolete.13 Furthermore, the biological sciences had introduced a human organism that carried within itself the possibility of evolutionary degeneration and, therefore, by virtue of its own biological materiality, threatened the anachronistic social body of harmonious coherence. Thus, Comte’s ordered social body of scientific progress must paradoxically be deployed, first and foremost, against the same organism that inspired it. The material body, now a volatile constellation of electrochemical atomism and evolutionary struggles, destabilizes the metaphoric body of social progress as it introduces the threat of disorder and degeneration. In fact, degeneration comes to form an intrinsic component of the discourse of progress, figuring as its necessary and even repulsively fascinating counterpart.14 This circumstance prompted what Robert Nye describes as the dominance within sociological discourse of binaries such as progress/decline and social/individual.15 The proponents of a scientific sociological method could not, Nye elaborates, ‘discuss the progressive aspects of social evolution without considering the negative effects that accompanied it, and that threatened to stall or even reverse the “normal” condition of advance’ (Nye, 49). Thus, while the progressivist impulse underscored the larger and metaphoric social body, sustained attention was paid to a project of classification that identified and demarcated the potential degeneracy of the individual biological form. Nowhere are the biological menace and resulting project of classificatory demar­ cation more evident than in the positivist criminology of Cesare Lombroso (1835– 1909). Lombroso’s project, it is worth underlining, was guided by a sustained focus on the concrete body of the criminal rather than on the abstract concept of crime.16 Fusing positivist method with the lessons of evolutionary biology, he theorized a ‘born criminal’ who was biologically predisposed to delinquency. Inspired by a post-mortem examination of the skull of Giuseppe Villella,17 he hypothesized a determinism stemming from an atavism or evolutionary regression evident in the individual body of the criminal. In fact, beyond the cranial depression or ‘median occipital fossetta’ that he discerned on Villella’s skull, he identified a series of biologically degenerative traits common to born criminals including ‘jug ears, thick hair, thin beards, pronounced sinuses, protruding chins, and broad cheek­ bones’ (Lombroso, 46, 53).18 Lombroso’s extensive project of biological classification repre­sents a programmatic attempt to differentiate by scientific method the sick or criminal body from the purportedly healthy ‘norm’. As such, it implicitly becomes a means to isolate and protect the ideal of ‘normality’ so that the project of social progress might continue unabated. Renzo Villa makes this point succinctly: ‘è l’antropologia del negativo, dei bordi e dei confini entro cui il “normale”, come una sorta di specie assediata, si rinserra e difende’ [it is the anthropology of the negative,

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of the borders and limits within which the ‘normal’, as a type of species under siege, barricades and defends itself ].19 Lombroso’s project also envelops the human organism in a process that Horn describes as one in which the body becomes an ‘index’ and ‘can testify (or be made to testify) to legal and scientific truths’ (Horn, 1). This is a process of bodily objectification that, for Norbert Elias, is evident in nascent form in the Renaissance attention to the bodily self.20 Harvie Ferguson identifies two distinct but correlated Renaissance images of the body: an ‘intact and liberated star-man, harmonically attuned to, and master of, cosmological forces’ and, on the other side, an ‘anatomized and helpless creature, forced to yield up its historic secrets to intensified forms of self-examination’.21 It is in this context, according to Ferguson, that the distinction between the social exteriority of the body and its repulsively fascinating interiority acquires an increased significance. As such, we already have a body that, as observing subject, looks to its material or object-self. This is a project by means of which the objectified inside, both in the literal and metaphoric sense, is forced to submit to a multiplying barrage of dictates concerning its baser functions, dictates imposed by an externalized subject-self. Of particular significance here is Elias’s theory of the homo clausus that paints the individual as a ‘little world in himself who ultimately exists quite independently of the great world outside’.22 It is precisely this image of man that becomes, in industrial societies, the ‘dominant concept of man’.23 Here, the subject dwells within a closed body and is called upon to shape, civilize and patrol his or her own f lesh by means of what Ferguson terms the ‘inculcation of new codes of bodily self-control and self-discipline’ (Ferguson, 2000, 47). This subject-body transformed into object of disciplinary control is, for Michel Foucault, constitutive of modernity as a whole. In fact, it exemplifies what he describes as bio-power, a practice that brings ‘life and its mechanisms into the realm of explicit calculations’ and makes ‘knowledge-power an agent of transformation of human life’.24 This disciplinary regime gradually replaces the historically prior exercise of sovereign power and, though Foucault identifies the emergence of the disciplinary practices in Enlightenment discourses of social reform and the birth of the prison, these practices are a necessary precondition for modern capitalism where large social and national groupings must be shaped through processes of ‘hierarchical observation, normalizing judgment and [...] examination’.25 Foucault, moreover, writes that classical modernity ‘discovered the body as object and target of power’ and that Descartes, in fact, wrote the first pages of the ‘anatomicometaphysical register’ of the ‘great book of Man-the-Machine’ (Foucault, 1979, 136). This parallels the ‘technico-political register’ in a larger process designed to achieve a ‘docile’ body that may be ‘subjected, used, transformed and improved’ (Foucault, 1979, 136). The relationship between bio-power and the individual human body is intimate and total, as is evidenced by the terms Foucault chooses to describe the four traits of the individuality created out of and in bodies: cellular, organic, genetic and combinatory (Foucault, 1979, 167). While the ‘cellular’ refers to the determination of the spatial distribution of the body, ‘organic’ ref lects the ‘coding of activities’ deemed appropriate for those bodies (Foucault, 1979, 167).

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‘Genetic’ suggests a control over the evolution of these bodily activities and, finally, Foucault’s reference to the ‘combinatory’ trait addresses the combined force of many bodies into a single group of trained activity. This project of combinatory bodily discipline receives its most evident practical application in the trained workforce of modern industrialized production. Karl Marx’s critique of the capitalist political economy is, in fact, consistently attentive to industry’s disciplinary objectification of the living human body. The alienated reality of human existence contrasts with a Marxian philosophy that places embodiment at the heart of human activity. Marx writes that industrialized capitalism denies the true essence of man who, as a ‘living natural being’, manifests the potential of his embodiment in his active abilities.26 Man, for Marx, is a ‘species being’ defined by a need to make and shape his world (Marx and Engels, 1978, 116). This is, in part, the goal of an ideal labour practice that would constitute the actualization of ‘man’s species life; for he duplicates himself not only, as in consciousness, intellectually, but also actively, in reality, and therefore he contemplates himself in a world that he has created’ (Marx and Engels, 1978, 76). The estrangement of labour that, for Marx, characterizes industrialized capitalism deprives man of this indispensably human activity, as it transforms his labour-power into a mere means of preserving his individual physical life (Marx and Engels, 1978, 77). This industrial model calls for the ‘technical subordination of the workman to the uniform motion of the instruments of labour’ and demands a ‘barrack-like discipline’.27 Here, the workers are trained to ‘identify themselves with the unvarying regularity of the complex automaton’, becoming ‘living appendages’ to the ‘lifeless mechanism’ of the factory (Marx, 1992, 548–49). This mechanistic dimension becomes ever more pronounced as the doctrine of industrial rationalization seeks to extract a maximum productivity from the labouring body, culminating infamously in the doctrine of Taylorism or scientific management developed by American mechanical engineer, Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915).28 The body reaches entirely mechanistic and objectified dimensions in Taylor’s vision of a machine-like workforce trained to perform repeatedly their assigned tasks with discipline and scientific precision. Indeed, the ideal labourer is pure animal matter as, transferring the duty of decisionmaking to a managerial class, Taylor writes that manual tasks would be best performed by a worker ‘so stupid and so phlegmatic that he more nearly resembles in his mental make-up the ox than any other type’.29 Taylor’s method finds its most complete realization in the mechanized rhythms of the Ford assembly line. This, it is worth underlining, is a configuration that exhibits a marked similarity with Bentham’s disciplinary panopticonism central to Foucault’s well-known discussion of modern surveillance.30 Shocked Bodies: Technology, the Metropolis and the Human Sensorium The embodied experience of modernity becomes central in discourses concerning the metropolis as it was in the urban centre that the full extent of the extensive technological innovation was most immediately felt on the human body. Now the living body navigated a metropolitan space marked by the accelerated and noisy

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movement of trains, cars and trams, by electrified buildings and streets, by pressures of punctuality intensified by the massive diffusion of personal timekeeping devices, and by a mass culture consisting of a sensationalist popular press and the excitements of cinematography.31 Indeed, the discourse of corporeal shock dominates a broad ideological variety of theoretical writing on the metropolitan experience. In ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’ (1903), Georg Simmel describes the urban experience in terms of an ‘intensification of nervous stimulation which results from the uninterrupted change of outer and inner stimuli’.32 The city-dweller must protect his ‘subjective life’ against the shock of the metropolis, something achieved by means of a blasé intellectuality that also stems from a stimulation so constant that the nerves ‘finally cease to react at all’ (Simmel, 411, 414). Even the reactionary cultural project of Max Nordau’s Degeneration (1892) departs from a concept of the metropolis as a place of overstimulation in which the inhabitant ‘feels himself in a state of constant nervous excitement’.33 The embodied experience of modernity remains central as Nordau writes that while past epochs of discovery did not ‘change the material life of man’, the transformation wrought by the technological revolution has ‘turned the customs of life of every member of the civilized nations upside down’ (Nordau, 37). The discourse of sensory shock dominates again in Nordau’s diagnosis of a nervous system overwhelmed by the ‘little shocks of railway travelling [...], the perpetual noises, and the various sights in the streets of a large town, our suspense pending the sequel of progressing events, the constant expectation of the newspaper, of the postman, of visitors’ (Nordau, 39). Perhaps the most famous theorist of metropolitan sensory shock, Walter Benjamin, describes the optic dimension of the experience of newspaper advertising and urban traffic.34 As the individual moves through the traffic of the city, he or she undergoes a ‘series of shocks and collisions’ and is traversed by ‘nervous impulses’ compared to the ‘energy from a battery’ (Benjamin, 1969, 175). In fact, Benjamin identifies a specifically modern transformation of the sensory apparatus realized by a technology that has ‘subjected the human sensorium to a complex kind of training’ (Benjamin, 1969, 175). This technological re-training of the senses is, it seems, a further stage in the ‘forming of the five senses’ that Marx identifies as a ‘labour of the entire history of the world down to the present’ (Marx and Engels, 1978, 89). The increasing sophistication of technological devices associated with the recording of sensory phenomena, from photography and chronophotography to cinematography, from radiography to electricity, and from phonography to telephony, constitutes what Ulrika Maude describes as ‘one of the most radical paradigm shifts’ in this history of the human sensorium (Maude, 116). Promising a more detailed, a more lasting, and a more scientifically reliable record of the phenomena of reality, this technological revolution resonates with any and all progressivist discourses intent on penetrating the secrets and ambiguities of the body in order to further the project of disciplining and steering that body. Indeed, Danius highlights the appearance of technological tools able to ‘chart, explore, and record sensory phenomena that had never before been possible to perceive as such’ (Danius, 19). Equally, scientific innovation had perfected medical instruments such as the stethoscope, the ophthalmoscope, the laryngoscope, and, finally, the X-ray discovered by William Röntgen in 1895, tools

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that, for Tim Armstrong, constitute a ‘barrage of devices’ designed to penetrate the human body (Armstrong, 1998, 2). Though less pessimistic in his prognosis on technological and metropolitan modernity, Walter Benjamin identifies a comparable penetration of reality in cinematography. In ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, he significantly compares the work of the filmmaker to the act of surgical penetration (Benjamin, 1969, 233). Indeed, by employing techniques such as the close-up or the slow motion sequence, film accesses a world that is of a ‘different nature’ than that available to the naked eye as the camera reveals the ‘unconscious optics’ of human movement and gesture (Benjamin, 1969, 236–37). Cinematographic penetration, however, offers liberatory potential as it dwells on the ‘familiar objects’ of reality in order to ‘burst this prison-world asunder by the dynamite of the tenth of second’ (Benjamin, 1969, 236). Yet the very accuracy of this technological record of reality also challenges the epistemological authority of the human sensorium by underscoring the limits of human vision, hearing and voice. This ref lects the central disquieting contradiction of modern human perception, augmented by its technological prostheses and fragmented or outstripped by the far-reaching precision achieved by these same devices. Phonographic and telephonic technologies transform the human relation to voice, a circumstance Maude underlines when, referencing Derrida, she writes that voice in western culture has ‘notoriously’ been ‘associated with unmediated presence’ (Maude, 123). However, the recording capacity of the phonograph or gramophone granted the voice an existence beyond its spatial and temporal location, just as the telephone permitted access to voice over distance in a manner far beyond the perceptual capacities of the human ear. Similarly, Étienne-Jules Marey’s chronophotography, for example, delivered a heightened visual penetration of the physiological world of human and animal movement. However, by the same token, the startling detail evident in, for instance, his 1882 study of the moving pelican underscored the profound limits of human vision. In revealing aspects of movement that were invisible to the naked human eye, Marey’s work comes to appropriate the ‘epistemic privileges of the human senses’ (Danius, 19). For many, then, the shock experience of a technologized urban modernity represented a condition that required diagnosis and treatment. Indeed, discourses of infirmity and degeneration come to the forefront in the work of a variety of social theorists and medical practitioners. References to nervous exhaustion or neurasthenia became commonplace in the psychiatric or neurological literature of the period, a trend due in large measure to the work of American neurologist George Miller Beard (1839–1883). Beard’s work provides a clinical definition of a neurasthenia explicitly associated with the accelerated rhythms of American metropolitan modernity.35 Indeed, he employs the metaphor of a battery to describe a body overtaxed and drained by the ‘additional lamps interposed in the circuit’.36 His work proved highly inf luential beyond the American borders and was gradually translated into a variety of European languages.37 Hysteria also emerged as a condition of modernity, thanks largely to the clinical research of Jean-Martin Charcot who, over the course of a career spent in large part at the Salpêtrière hospital, came to theorize a traumatic origin for hysteria. Although he maintained

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the traditional association of the condition with female biology, Charcot attributed its onset to the shocks of modern life.38 Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg references the work of Antigono Raggi, Professor of Neuropsychiatry at the University of Pavia, who identified clitrophobia, a condition described in 1878 as analogous to agoraphobia but where the ‘subject has no fear of wide spaces, but dreads the opposite, narrow, confined localities’.39 Describing the symptoms of clitrophobia as a ‘horror of rest’ and ‘the compulsive need for movement’, Stewart-Steinberg identifies the condition with Lombroso’s 1880 diagnosis of a very novel and modern ‘claustrophobia’ that prompted compulsive movement in the sufferer (Stewart-Steinberg, 151–52). Max Nordau draws on the symptomatology of hysteria and neurasthenia in his critique of what he deems a widespread social, cultural and, specifically, literary crisis that manifests itself as ‘degeneration (degeneracy) and hysteria, of which the minor stages are designated as neurasthenia’ (Nordau, 15). Part of his polemic ref lects a concern with the well-being of the human organism, as is evident in his description of the metropolis as a locus of contagion where the inhabitant ‘breathes an atmosphere charged with organic detritus; he eats stale, contaminated, adulterated food’, resulting in an entire generation defined by a sense of fatigue (Nordau, 35). Moreover, his concerns for the human organism also lead him to pathologize the purported deviance of the effeminate character of modern man. In short, organic infirmity is now bound up with a discourse of gender that is central to modernity. The social and cultural decline is evident, Nordau writes, in a sexual psychopathology that sees masochists, ‘who form the majority of men’ freely dress in clothing that resembles ‘feminine apparel’ (Nordau, 538–39). Women, on the other hand, seem to have embraced masculine roles as they ‘wear men’s dress, an eyeglass, boots with spurs and riding whip, and only show themselves in the street with a large cigar in their mouths’ (Nordau, 539). This state of degenerate disorder is also manifest, Nordau insists, in literary tastes that seek titillation beyond accepted heterosexual norms: ‘Priapus has become a symbol of virtue. Vice looks to Sodom and Lesbos’ (Nordau, 13). Nordau’s concern for the gendered integrity of the human organism is sympt­ omatic of a diffuse preoccupation with a perceived crisis of traditional configurations of gender. This preoccupation emerged, in large measure, as a reaction against increasingly vociferous feminist demands for rights of suffrage, education, employment and property ownership, demands that threatened to destabilize and even diminish the spheres of masculine socio-political and economic inf luence and power. Historically, the period of the technological revolution coincides with the culmination of what is known as First Wave Feminism, a largely middle and upper class movement focused on legal equalities for women. Centred in the English speaking sphere of Britain and the United States of America, this social movement is famously encapsulated in the demand for voting rights. The increasing social, political and, indeed, literary visibility of women gave rise to the figure of the ‘New Woman’, described by Katherine Mullin as ‘educated, emancipated, independent, outspoken, feminist’.40 The perceived threat to traditional masculine roles and spaces, however, was not limited to this historical demand for feminine empowerment, but also encompassed

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the realities of metropolitan life itself, in particular the urban crowd and the mass culture industry.41 The anonymous masses become a crucial element in theoretical writings on the metropolis. Simmel broaches the encounter with the urban crowd and insists that ‘one nowhere feels as lonely and lost as in the metropolitan crowd’ (Simmel, 418). For Simmel, the experience of being engulfed by the masses impacts the integrity of the individual and, accordingly, prompts attempts at self-differentiation evident in the ‘specifically metropolitan extravagances of mannerism, caprice, and preciousness’ (Simmel, 421). However, notwithstanding these behaviours, the individual is reduced to the status of a ‘mere cog’ in a social organization that transforms subjective values into ‘a purely objective life’ (Simmel, 422).42 Walter Benjamin dedicates significant space to literary attitudes to the inevitable crowd. Differentiating Baudelaire’s attitude of familiarity with the urban masses from the ‘fear, revulsion and horror’ felt by those who encountered the crowd for the first time (Benjamin, 1969, 175), Benjamin references Engels’s distaste before the teeming anonymous London throng and Poe’s ‘purposely distorting’ depiction of an ‘oppressed’ urban mass (Benjamin, 1969, 166, 171). Yet elsewhere, on referencing Baudelaire’s claim that the ‘pleasure of being in a crowd is a mysterious expression of the multiplication of number’, Benjamin contrasts the obscurity of the French poet’s comment with the lucidity of Engels’s vision.43 Indeed, Baudelaire’s misguided celebration of the urban crowd stems, for Benjamin, from an imperfect appreciation of the commodification of labour power (Benjamin, 2003, 33–34). This urban crowd is inextricably bound to prevailing meditations on gender as the crowd is transformed into a feminized entity that threatens to overwhelm the integrity of a subject that is, first and foremost, male. In The Sphinx in the City, Elizabeth Wilson identifies the application of feminine stereotypes to an urban throng described as ‘hysterical’ or, using ‘images of feminine instability and sexuality, as a f lood or swamp’.44 Wilson in fact draws the title of her book from Gustave Le Bon’s 1895 text The Crowd, in which he claims that crowds are ‘somewhat like the sphinx of ancient fable: it is necessary to arrive at a solution of the problems offered by their psychology or to resign ourselves to being devoured by them’.45 Le Bon unambiguously identifies the devouring crowd with femininity: ‘Crowds are everywhere distinguished by feminine characteristics’ (Le Bon, 59). These characteristics he lists as follows: ‘impulsiveness, irritability, incapacity to reason, the absence of judgment and of the critical spirit, the exaggeration of the sentiments, and others besides’ (Le Bon, 55–56). Le Bon’s feminized mass of compulsive bodies animated by irrationality and sentiment anticipates Otto Weininger’s notorious Sex and Character (1903). Lamenting the ‘increasing effeminacy of the age’, Weininger identifies a feminine carnality that he parallels with the purported effeminacy of the Jewish male.46 Woman, he writes, is entirely and passively determined by her biology, while man is only partly so, a circumstance evident in woman’s allencompassing sexuality: ‘man possesses sexual organs; her sexual organs possess woman’ (Weininger, 91–92). Though Weininger’s misogynistic invective does not locate itself within a feminized crowd, he echoes Le Bon in a description of a woman entirely ‘without logic’ (Weininger, 148), unable to make judgments (Weininger, 194), and motivated by a sentimentality undifferentiated from thought (Weininger,

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100). Le Bon and Weininger’s characterization of the feminine points to a further misogynistic parallel, namely the prevailing equation of a commodified mass culture with woman. Indeed, the carnal throng that threatens to engulf or castrate the male subject is, it seems, equally adept at consuming the sentimental trivialities of the culture industry, a parallel explored by Huyssen in a chapter entitled ‘Mass Culture as Woman’ that opens with a reference to Emma Bovary’s appetite for romance novels and also encompasses Le Bon’s feminine crowd (Huyssen, 44–62). Moreover, Huyssen also reveals that this prevailing nexus is as socio-political as it is gendered when he identifies the engulfing feminine masses of the metropolis with ‘a threat to the rational bourgeois order’ (Huyssen, 53).47 The all-consuming feminine horde, then, challenges a nexus of purportedly masculine ideals that are intellectual and sexual, socio-political and economic. As such, the misogynistic backlash constitutes a project of reconstruction that strives to re-establish the traditional male as subject of the process of modernization. Entrenching himself now against a dangerous and disordered feminine body, the misogynist deploys the categories of biological and moral degeneration in order to neutralize and objectify a feminine body pathologized as pure carnality. This becomes a further attempt at disciplinary control, directed against modernity’s gendered Other, now a material body splayed out alongside modernity’s sexual, racial and criminal Others.48 Moreover, the misogynistic posture evokes the hierarchical coherence of the organic metaphor in order to reclaim the subjective agency implicit in the traditional configurations of the healthy organism. Weininger and his kin optimistically oppose the disordered carnality of the feminized Other with a triumphalist masculinity of moral and organic integrity. Indeed, Weininger subverts Platonic categories in order to describe an entirely passive feminine ‘matter’ waiting to be shaped by man who is ‘form’ (Weininger, 293). This ideal of a formative masculinity draws us back toward the profound disquiet triggered by the paradoxical augmentation and fragmentation of a body that is both subject and object of the project of social and technological modernity. Accordingly, the prevailing misogynistic discourse reveals itself to be a symptom of the perceived crisis of a modernity inextricably bound up with the status and experience of the embodied human. Modernist Constructions of Alternative Bodily Spaces What, then, is the relationship between modernism and this paradoxically aug­ mented and fragmented body that is both subject and object of technological and urban modernity? Deeply embedded in this critical context, modernism most definitively encompasses a perceived crisis of the body. Yet, though the masculinist currents of modernism echo the misogynistic and racial social critique of such thinkers as Weininger and Le Bon, modernist literature embarks on a more multi­faceted engagement with the bodies of technological modernity. Literary modernism turns to this living human body and unleashes what Ferguson describes as a ‘new language of corporeality’ sustained by ‘new and provocative body images’ (Ferguson, 2000, 49–50). What, then, is the nature of these provocative bodies?

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What is it that prompts Maude to identify a modernism that ‘begins to revel in the subjective nature of perceptual experience’ (Maude, 2009, 123)? Mapping in full the plethora of modernist literary bodies is not feasible here, but the following examples highlight what I consider a defining modernist shift to an experiential mode of corporeality. Indeed, modernist expression distances itself from an analytical model intent on establishing an objective or externalized perspective on the body and its world. Instead, modernism offers an embodied discourse and speaks from within hypersensitive, infirm and gendered bodies, of the encounter with the phenomena of the world. As such, we discover that regimes of transformative and controlling action are replaced with bodies that, in eschewing action, point to a realm of potentiality and, simultaneously, to a new domain of heightened and, even, hypersensitive perception. Similarly, health is challenged by infirmity as a site of cognitive engagement with the body and with the world. Even modernism’s misogynistic currents barely mask a discourse attuned to the ethical status of the embodied subject, a status that points beyond the edifice of capitalist modernity. Given the centrality of the urban space to a broad variety of critical discourses on modernity, it will come as no surprise that modernism is, to a great extent, a metropolitan literature and speaks specifically of the embodied encounter with the city. Eugene Lunn highlights modernism’s defining and often contradictory confrontation of urban experience and writes that the city can offer ‘liberation from tradition and routine’ and can also become the ‘locus of interpersonal estrangement and fragmentation’ (Lunn, 35).49 Indeed, though modernist representations of the city vary, modernism as a whole is anchored by the embodied dimension of the urban encounter. In fact, Benjamin’s aforementioned comparison of Baudelaire and Poe’s mid nineteenth-century urban crowd highlights not the abstract theori­zation of the significance of the crowd formation, but rather its sensory impact on the embodied subject. As we move into modernism proper the variety continues to be anchored by an experiential bodily dimension of, for instance, physical sensation and visual or auditory experience. Founder of Futurism, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s exhilarated metropolitan vision underlines the auditory dimension of the encounter with the technological space and, specifically, with the urban crowd: ‘We shall sing the great masses shaken with work, pleasure, or rebellion: we shall sing the multicolored and polyphonic tidal waves of revolution in the modern metropolis; shall sing [...] the oscillating f light of airplanes, whose propeller f laps at the wind like a f lag and seems to applaud like a delirious crowd’.50 Though Marinetti’s triumphalism contrasts with Robert Musil’s construction of an unresolved tension before the urban crowd, we still note in Musil the centrality of the embodied sensory dimension of the experience. Ulrich, protagonist of The Man without Qualities, stands in proximity to a crowd before which ‘it is not oneself that matters but only this mass of faces, these movements wrenched loose from the body to become armies of arms, legs, or teeth’.51 This battalion of militarized partial bodies to whom ‘the future belongs’ (Musil, 785) incarnates the forces of historical and social progress. Indeed, the subject’s sense of estrangement before this depersonalized army comes from the ‘feeling that being a whole and inviolate strolling human being is positively anti-social and criminal’ (Musil, 785). Ulrich,

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then, is torn between an anti-social but pleasing solitude of heightened perception outside the crowd and the possibility of losing himself in the crowd, where, having cast off his ‘illusory individuality’, he might attain the mystical promise of a ‘somnolent sweetness’ beyond the enclosed sensual body (Musil, 785). Either option, significantly, is firmly rooted in the body. Nowhere is the embodied sensory experience more evident than in the work of authors such as Franz Kaf ka, Samuel Beckett, Herman Melville, and, notably for our purposes, Svevo, Tozzi and Gadda. Here the corporeal shocks of metropolitan modernity seem to inform a self-defensive posture of hypersensitivity. Beckett’s Murphy famously sits out of the London sunshine in a cage-like mew where, drawing on the philosophical legacy of Descartes and Geulincx, he struggles in vain to pacify an overwhelmed and overwhelming material body. His disobedient body, however, refuses systematization as it contains ‘such an irrational heart that no physician could get to the root of it’ despite the fact that medical science has ‘inspected, palpated, auscultated, percussed, radiographed and cardiographed’ it.52 As such, his attitude suggests a hypersensitivity that, for Armstrong, is ‘part of the psychopathology of modernism’ (Armstrong, 2005, 93). Armstrong identifies this defensive attitude with a ‘literature of refusal’ that encompasses Melville’s agora­phobic and anorexic Bartleby, Proust’s ‘world-avoidance’, and Kaf ka’s later tales about trapeze and hunger artists (Armstrong, 2005, 93). While this literary self-defence might be made to resonate with a (largely masculine) anxiety of contamination before a (feminized) crowd and mass culture, the attitude is not neces­sarily, or at least not exclusively, part of a project of subjective entrenchment against plebeian crowd formations and tastes. In other words, this ‘literature of refusal’ should not be seen exclusively in the negative terms of a reactionary conservatism. Rather, it should be considered in light of its radical and insistent return to the space of embodiment. Kaf ka’s hunger artist displays a perfected art of immobility in a body that is emaciated because, he confesses just before dying, he never found any food he liked.53 Equally, Melville’s anorexic Bartleby negates corporeal and professional necessity without ever positing an alternative as he responds to any and all requests made of him, ‘I would prefer not to’. Though Bartleby’s formula implicitly references that which he does not prefer, his refusal to posit a preferred alternative opens an indefinable space that is neither negation nor affirmation.54 This inscrutable space resonates with the category of potentiality, which Agamben, in clarifying Aristotelian potentiality, defines as the ‘presence of an absence’ because ‘ “[t]o have a faculty” means to have a privation’ (Agamben, 1999, 179). What this implies is that the potential to perform any given task must also imply the potential to not-perform that same task; the potential to be is also, then, the potential to not-be. While other living beings are capable only of their ‘specific potentiality; they can only do this or that’, human freedom is to be found in the ‘abyss of impotentiality’ (Agamben, 1999, 182–83). What, however, does the question of potentiality or impotentiality say about these hypersensitive modernist bodies? If, as Agamben writes, ethical tradition has considered the actualization of potentiality as stemming from an act of will or from moral necessity (to want to do or to must

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do) and, at the same time, impotentiality or non-actualization suggests necessity or external constraint, Bartleby’s formula, neither positive nor negative, dissolves these relationships (Agamben, 1999, 254–55). Attention, then, is insistently fastened to a literary body that can but does not. Action, which draws focus beyond the material body and toward the external space of the causal effect of the specific action, is now foreclosed without being negated. Instead, we remain fixed firmly in the space of embodiment before a body that is always able but simply prefers not to. While, Agamben argues, this is the irreducible ‘formula of potentiality’ (Agamben, 1999, 255), it also becomes in part the paradoxical formula of human embodiment. This, I will argue when discussing Svevo, is the very method behind his protagonists’ ostensible ineptitude and, moreover, suggests an ideological refusal of a capitalist rationalization or colonization of reality. This philosophical body of determined inaction also forges a new regime of perception as, in the absence of action, perceived objects and bodies are no longer subject to a practical or narrative rationalization. This is, in essence, the argument presented by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze in his analysis of the transition from classical to modernist cinema.55 The ‘organic regime’ of classical cinema presents a body that extends its motor abilities outward in directed action. In effect, the protagonist responds to the ‘challenge’ presented by a given milieu, in order to act upon and modify these surroundings, and ultimately create ‘a restored or modified situation’.56 What is at work in this narrative logic is Henri Bergson’s automatic recognition according to which the main purpose of the sensory-motor schema is that of converting stimulus into response, images into ‘practical deeds’.57 Modernist cinema, by contrast, is defined by a sundering of the union of stimulus and response. This generates what Deleuze terms a ‘crystalline regime’ in which the protagonist becomes a viewer who ‘shifts [...] runs and becomes animated in vain’, as the ‘situation he is in outstrips his motor capacities on all sides, and makes him see and hear what is no longer subject to the rules of a response or an action’.58 At the heart of modernist cinema, then, is a body that cannot or does not instrumentalize the objects or bodies that it perceives by placing them in the service of organic or ideological causality. This narrative transformation certainly resonates with the perceived sensory and epistemological crisis of the subject of technological modernity. However, it also opens a space for an alternative regime or mode of perception that, in evading all extension or conversion into action, returns to the perceiving body and, indeed, to the material presence of the object perceived. Here, beyond the logic of instrumentalization, phenomena are perceived as ‘optical-acoustic images’, or sounds without an apparent source and images that are not or cannot be contextualized.59 In developing this aspect of the crystalline regime, Deleuze relies on Alain Robbe-Grillet who, in Pour un nouveau roman (1963), describes the bewilderment of instrumental reason in the face of ‘pure description’. Here, a narrative regime in which an unoccupied chair exists exclusively in terms of its practical or narrative function, and thus signifies only the absence of the physical presence that should or will occupy it, is replaced with a regime dominated by the contemplation of the chair as pure form.60 Literary modernism proposes a similar perceptual regime. Indeed, what Ann

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Banfield identifies as Virginia Woolf ’s world of ‘things barely made out’ and ‘distant, disembodied sounds’ more than anticipates the ‘optical-acoustic’ image of modernist cinema’s perceptual regime.61 While, I repeat, this transformation is certainly a dimension of the perceived epistemological crisis of the action-oriented human sensorium in the wake of technological innovation that surpassed the scope and accuracy of the organic perceptual apparatus, it is important to underline the fact that, in renegotiating sensory experience, modernism moves beyond a diagnosis of human inadequacy in order to explore and claim these alternative models of perception. Indeed, Armstrong sees modernism respond to technological exactitude with a ‘radical empiricism’ of vision identifiable in Joyce’s Ulysses as Leopold Bloom contemplates his genitals surfacing in the bath water. This, he writes, is ‘ourselves seen past our noses’ (Armstrong, 2005, 100). The epistemological dimension of the question becomes explicit in a further episode from Ulysses. Having helped a ‘blind stripling’ on Dawson Street, Bloom walks behind the ‘eyeless feet’ and marvels at the ‘queer idea of Dublin’ that the young man must have.62 He imagines that the boy must have an intensified sense of smell and wonders if, in passing his hands from the black hair of a woman to her white skin, he would be able to feel the change in colour ( Joyce, 181–82). In this episode, Armstrong identifies a suggestion of the Molyneux problem, which asks if someone blind from birth, and therefore used to navigating the world by touch, would recognize familiar objects by sight alone if vision were restored. Blindness, Armstrong insists, comes to ‘signal the modern itself ’ (Armstrong, 2005, 101), a claim he supports with reference to Danius’s argument for Joyce’s stress on ‘seeing and hearing for their own sake, liberated from the needs of representation’ and characterized by a registration of ‘all sensation as atomized quanta, denaturalized and beyond the possibility of integration’ (Armstrong, 2005, 104). This refusal to integrate stimuli within a schema of episte­ mo­logical or gnoseological certainty is a defining feature of a Tozzian literary universe dominated by the hypersensitive and even phobic encounter with reality. Yet this sensory overload points, in Tozzi’s novels, to an alternate social organi­zation that, in refusing the paternal model of violent and instrumentalizing domination of the world and its bodies, opens to schizophrenic oversignification. In Gadda’s novels perception and the related question of epistemology acquire ethical overtones and, I will argue, prompt the author to represent unfathomable bodies and objects separated from all practical function. Indeed, Woolf ’s world of ‘things barely made out’ becomes, for Gadda, a world of objects clearly perceived but never defined in terms of a single and exhaustive meaning. Gadda’s project of representation involves an insistent return to the ethical repercussions of the application of the canons of objective or scientific knowledge to the subjective or distinct human body. Indeed, it is precisely this concern that underpins his obsessive interrogation of the borders of the largely feminine body. This preoccupation with the subjective reality of the embodied human before the weighty edifice of objective knowledge also informs Proust’s encounter with technological modernity. For Danius, Proust becomes the ‘theorist of technological change’ as he ‘orchestrates a whole world of innovations [...] from the telephone to the automobile’ (Danius, 11). More importantly, Danius highlights the author’s

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attention to the dynamics of vision and his contrast between a human eye ‘marked by affection and tenderness’ and a camera eye that is ‘cold, mechanical and undistinguishing’ (Danius, 15). This opposition between a human perceptual regime and the coldness of the objective counterpart also informs Proust’s extended meditation on time. Indeed, the subjective and embodied experience of time and memory challenges the impersonal or standardized time that reigns over the urban metropolis. Standardized time is repeatedly interrupted in Proust’s literary universe when sensory experience sparks intense memories for the embodied subject. This is most famously the case when the adult narrator tastes a piece of madeleine dipped in tea and is returned to childhood and to the bedroom of his Aunt Léonie in Combray. Henri Bergson’s importance here is undeniable, as he posits a dynamic concept of time that stands in marked contrast to both the standardized time of modernity and the Kantian notion of an a priori sense of temporality. This subjective temporality or ‘duration’ generates an indivisible f low or becoming of the self, a concept that Bergson illustrates with reference to the action traced by a stretched out piece of elastic.63 This indivisible mobility of duration is both unity and multiplicity and is, therefore, entirely incompatible with the quantitative units of spatialized time employed by mathematical analysis and, indeed, by the chronophotography of Étienne-Jules Marey.64 Instead, only intuition, an ‘intellectual sympathy by means of which one places oneself within an object’ is capable of grasping the f lows of the subjective duration of the self (Bergson, 1912, 7, emphasis in original). While Proust draws on the Bergsonian concept of ‘pure memory’ to explore ‘memory as a bodily process mediated by the human sensorium’ (Danius, 106), Deleuze draws on the model of ‘duration’, which he describes as follows: ‘the past co-exists with the present that it has been; the past is preserved in itself, as past in general (nonchronological time); at each moment time splits itself into present and past, present that passes and past which is preserved’ (Deleuze, 1989, 82). While the ‘organic regime’ of classical cinema offers an indirect representation of time, which is felt only as a by-product of action, the new perceptual experience of the ‘crystalline regime’ remains within the body and produces time as layered depth. Here, a perception that does not extend into action returns to the object perceived with new memory and new description creating, thereby, a dynamic in which ‘successive planes and independent circuits’ cancel each other, contradict each other, join up and fork in order to ‘constitute the layers of one and the same physical reality’ (Deleuze, 1989, 46). In both the Proustian and the Deleuzian space of modernist temporality, it is the insistence of the material body that opens new perceptual experience. This is even more explicitly the case in the modernist re-appropriation of the depleted human organism identified by Beard amongst others. Indeed, this ailing organism comes to constitute an alternate and, indeed, privileged site of a body of knowledge beyond the edifice of objective or scientific discourse. This is most evidently the case in Virginia Woolf ’s essay ‘On Being Ill’.65 Here, Woolf laments the fact that literary tradition does not offer novels ‘devoted to inf luenza; epic poems to typhoid; odes to pneumonia; lyrics to toothache’.66 She bemoans the fact that literature seems

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determined to focus on the mind as though the body were ‘a sheet of plain glass through which the soul looks straight and clear’ (Woolf, 4). Experience is quite the contrary, she insists by underscoring the centrality of the body in the encounter with the world: ‘all day, all night, the body intervenes blunts or sharpens, colours or discolours, turns to wax in the warmth of June, hardens to tallow in the murk of February’ (Woolf, 4). Woolf, however, goes beyond positing an unbreakable bond between two substances of mind and body as she describes the cognitive validity of the experience of an infirm human embodiment. This is explicitly painted as an alternate cognitive space, as Woolf asks how it is that illness is not a dominant literary theme when one considers the ‘undiscovered countries’ that are revealed ‘when the lights of health go down’, or ‘the wastes and deserts of the soul’ that appear during a ‘slight attack of inf luenza’ (Woolf, 4). With The Magic Mountain (1924), Thomas Mann engages extensively with the infirm human body and intimates that, in sickness, the subject is afforded insights into embodiment itself. Referencing the plight of the poor hunchbacked Leopardi, Lodovico Settembrini laments the fate of the invalid who is ‘only a body, and that is the most inhuman of debasements — in most cases, he is no better than a cadaver’.67 Hans Castorp is enthralled by the experience of seeing his own x-ray and, when permitted to view his own hand through the machine, he perceives the necessity of his own death: ‘the f lesh in which he walked disintegrated, annihilated, dissolved in vacant mist, and there within it was the finely turned skeleton of his own hand [...] he gazed at this familiar part of his own body, and for the first time in his life he understood that he would die’ (Mann, 260). What Mann addresses is one of the central paradoxes of human embodiment, a condition defined by an apparent gulf between the ‘interior’ and non-material self and an ‘external’ material body that is uncanny in its alien familiarity, and is felt, somehow, as absence. Only in sickness and in pain is our materiality revealed to us in the form of what Harvie Ferguson terms the ‘body-as-shadow’, a condition in which the body is ‘universalized and corporealized; purified of difference, it is reduced to being nothing but the body “itself ” ’ (Ferguson, 2000, 65). Moreover, while the ‘body-as-image is particular; it is always some specific body defined in terms of its distinguishing marks’, the body-as-shadow is ‘simply body “as such”: depersonalized, immediate sensuousness’ (Ferguson, 2000, 65). In effect, illness and pain become a point from which to tackle the very materiality of embodiment. Svevo’s theorization of human infirmity does just this, as it posits illness as a means to experience the necessary disquiet of our own material embodiment. This he contrasts with a portrait of healthy and self-oblivious animal embodiment. Svevo’s vision of animal health resonates with Rilke’s portrait of the animal relation to a state of material self-plenitude designated as ‘the open’: ‘All eyes, the creatures of the World look out/into the open. But our human eyes, /as if turned right around and glaring in, /encircle them; prohibiting their passing’.68 This material self-presence enjoyed by the animal also seems to inform Kaf ka’s aforementioned ‘A Hunger Artist’. At the close of the story, the artist’s ascetic body is contrasted with that of the panther who, placed in the cage of the now-deceased protagonist, diverts the circus-goers with his vigour: ‘his noble body, full to almost bursting

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with all he needed, also seemed to carry freedom with it; this freedom seemed to reside somewhere in his jaws, and the joy of life burned so fiercely in his throat that it was not easy for the onlookers to bear it’ (Kaf ka, 172). The animal knows of no reality beyond its bodily relation with the world, beyond its own consumption and vigour. Yet, for Svevo, this is no real privilege as the human’s disquiet embodiment is the only form of existence that permits access to a regime of potentiality accessed paradoxically through impotentiality. All of these bodily discourses, from hypersensitivity to perception and action, from infirmity to animality, converge around modernism’s deeply complex position with respect to a feminine body that becomes the site of a truly alternative cognitive and ethical space. Critical tradition constructed modernism as an almost exclusively male literary phenomenon, despite the innovative contributions of female modernists such as Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein and H.D. to name but three. Indeed, canonical texts of modernist criticism such as Hugh Kenner’s The Pound Era (1971) have concentrated on the ‘men of 1914’ and granted peripheral space to the literary contributions of women.69 Though the male experience of warfare was certainly a constitutive dimension of ‘high’ modernism, the equally central bodily experience of urban modernity should surely guarantee the inclusion of women in the modernist canon.70 Bonnie Kime Scott identifies this traditional critical bias when she writes that modernism ‘as we were taught it at midcentury was perhaps halfway to the truth. It was unconsciously gendered masculine. The inscriptions of mothers and women, and more broadly of sexuality and gender, were not adequately decoded, if detected at all’.71 What, then, sustained this long-standing critical bias? The bulk of the responsibility must lie with the misogynistic currents within modernism that, aff licted with an ‘anxiety of contamination’, sought differentiation from the urban disorder and mass culture that, as indicated above, were identified as feminine (Huyssen, vii).72 This prompted the theorization of an aesthetic that, declaratively masculine or virile, was to stand in marked opposition to the sentimental and plebeian taste and, indeed, literary style, of an intellectually inferior femininity. The ‘Manifesto of Futurism’ is a case in point. Marinetti proposes a destructive aesthetic constructed on a militaristic love of danger and a defining contempt for woman together with a declared intent to destroy feminism.73 Percy Wyndham Lewis, founder of the British avant-garde Vorticist movement, expressed a comparable anti-feminism as he sought to differentiate his modern artistic era from that which preceded it. In Blast, the Vorticist journal that he edited, Wyndham Lewis ‘blasted’ the absence of virility in a Victorian era dominated by a ‘hirsute/RHETORIC of EUNUCH and STYLIST –/SENTIMENTAL HYGIENICS’.74 This sentimentalism remained, for many, at the heart of women’s literature and, specifically, the novels written by the ‘New Woman’ of First Wave Feminism and condemned by a range of male modernists.75 This critical posture is evident in Henry James’s use of the figure of f looding, a figure that Devoken identifies with an ‘empowered femininity’, in his condemnation of the over-production of novels (Dekoven, 177).76 In this characterization of women’s literature as f lood, we return to configurations of the amorphous crowd of (female) bodies that threatens to engulf the discrete

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body of the authentic (male) artist. Indeed, masculinist literary modernism utilizes these and other images as it deploys the age-old dichotomy, reworked by Weininger and others, of a passive female body of unshaped matter defined against a masculine body that exemplifies form and agency. This masculine body wills itself to transformative action and finds, perhaps, its most famous philosophical representative in Nietzsche, whose celebratory affirmation of the active body reads as follows: ‘body am I entirely, and nothing else and soul is only a word for something about the body [...] “I,” you say, and are proud of the word. But greater is that in which you do not wish to have faith — your body and its great reason: that does not say “I,” but does “I” ’77 Italian Futurism echoes this triumphalist affirmation of a body, now explicitly gendered male.78 Moreover, Marinetti’s thought reveals an identification with the augmented subject-body of modernity rather than the now feminized, fragmented object-body. In fact, Futurism constitutes the most obvious example of a modernist embrace of, and idealized fusion with, technological modernity conceived as prosthetic enhancement or ‘multiplication’ of a masculine body.79 Questions of the form and integrity of masculine bodies also inform Wyndham Lewis’s repudiation of the ‘jellyfish attributes’ that threaten the discrete nature of the male subject.80 This amorphousness is, for Lewis, the feminine principle that, in contrast to a male God, was a ‘lower form of life’ that existed before all things: ‘Everything was female to begin with. A jellyish diffuseness spread itself and gaped on the bed and in the bas-fonds of everything’.81 So, did literary modernism simply repeat the misogynistic tirades unleashed by Weininger and Nordau, or is there perhaps some element of masculinist modernism in which the female body and femininity is deployed in a re-negotiation of an alternative mode of embodiment? Dekoven describes a dialectical dynamic in modernism by means of which its misogyny is accompanied by ‘fascination and strong identification with the empowered feminine’, a circumstance that accounts for modernism’s ‘irresolvable ambivalence’ toward femininity (Dekoven, 174). She draws important attention to the ‘conf lation of erupting, newly empowered femininity’ with ‘the “darker” races and “lower” classes’ (Dekoven, 181). This is a configuration that foregrounds the intensely carnal vitality of a feminine body that is either maternal or sexualized, or, frequently, both. The ‘Manifesto of Futurism’ presents such a figure when, having overturned his vehicle, Marinetti finds himself in a ditch: ‘Oh! Maternal ditch, nearly full of muddy water! Fair factory drain! I gulped down your bracing slime, which reminded me of the sacred black breast of my Sudanese nurse’ (Marinetti, 50). Here, in a figure of parturition, Marinetti, reborn from a carnal-technological hybrid, drinks down a filthy mix of mud and eff luent that culminates in a sexualized image of African maternity. Joseph Conrad’s visions of Africa more evidently suggest a dark and maternal fascination. In fact, describing Conrad’s production as ‘profoundly masculine’, Dekoven writes that the ‘empowered maternal feminine’ lies at the heart of his construction of modernism.82 Dekoven’s description of the modernist attraction to a feminine body conf lated with modernity’s racial and criminal Others intimates the ethical potential of modernist misogyny. Indeed, while there are undeniable instances of convergence

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with the terminology and tone employed in the social and theoretical discourses of gender crisis, it seems that, in the hands of many of the male literary modernists, the bodies of modernity’s Others prompt ref lection on the ethical dimension of the entire project of European modernity. As this misogyny is deployed to redeem masculinity by differentiating it from a gendered, racial and criminal Other, it reveals the offended status of that same Other identified as fragmented, dangerous, degenerate, and objectified carnality. This is suggested in, for instance, Joseph Conrad’s final condemnation of the sins of European colonialism in Heart of Darkness. Gadda too seems to intuit this possibility and, in fact, constructs his misogynistic edifice around this paradox. Replete with images of a malodorous and deformed feminine and criminal ‘lower class’, his writing describes a femininity that, both repulsive and alluring, is defined by an eroticized carnality. It is, however, this same carnality that ultimately turns Gadda’s apparent condemnation of femininity toward an ethically informed interrogation of modernity and its programmatic objectification of feminized bodies. In other words, the passive carnality that condemns woman to misogynistic contempt is now equated with an embodied humanity, male and female, debased by the entire project of rational modernity. It is this offended and carnal embodiment that transforms the feminine perspective, the dark bodily continent of the project of modernity, into the final alternative mode of embodiment addressed in the chapters that follow. This sampling of bodies is intended to illustrate the character and complexity of modernism’s sustained focus on the embodied dimension of human experience. The body that emerges is, in the end, indistinguishable from a self that, with jellyfishlike tendrils, is enmeshed in the furthest reaches of his or her f lesh. Here, thought, feeling, perception and ethics are always and necessarily in and of the body. As such, modernist expression offers a space for thinking human embodiment beyond the instrumentalized and docile body of social and economic modernity. This, however, is not an escape from that modernity. It is, rather, the space in which that modern body of objective knowledge is re-negotiated and reclaimed, for good or for bad, as the primary site of a subjective human experience shared by all. However, it is not or not always a triumphant space of a pure physicality of plenitude. Modernism cannot and does not solve the paradox of modern human embodiment. Rather, to cite Danius once more, it seeks to engage the problem of representing ‘authentic experience in an age in which the category of experience itself has become a problem’ (Danius, 3). Indeed, modernism engages that perceived corporeal crisis of modernity and creates its own swarms of augmented and fragmented bodies that are simultaneously subject and object of the modernization they experience. This is precisely the condition of Svevo, Tozzi and Gadda’s writing. And, notwithstanding Italian critical resistance to the vagueness of the modernist label, the novels of these three Italian authors are deeply embedded in a cultural milieu preoccupied with the body of technological modernity. These concerns will be addressed in the chapters that follow.

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Notes to Chapter 1 1. Freud, Civilization and its Discontents, trans. by James Strachey (New York: Norton, 1961), pp. 38–39. 2. It was also the century of the professionalization of science, which emerged as a discipline governed by laws of observation, experimentation and theorization. William Whewell is credited with coining the term ‘scientist’ when, at an 1833 meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, he suggested classifying practitioners of science as scientists just as those who practise art are termed artists; Leslie Stevenson and Henry Byerly, The Many Faces of Science: An Introduction to Scientists, Values and Society (Boulder: Westview Press, 2000), p. 11. 3. This concept of the stable human body derives in large part from the thought of René Descartes, whose distinction between material substance (res extensa) and thinking substance (res cogitans) spawned visions of a clock-like body in motion. In this solid body, corporeal functions ‘follow from the mere arrangement of the machine’s organs every bit as naturally as the movements of a clock or other automaton follow from the arrangement of its counter-weights and wheels’; The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 1, ed. by John Cottingham and Robert Stoothoff (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 108. 4. In the first decade of the 1800s, English chemist, John Dalton (1766–1844) systematized a quantitative atomic theory of matter. Physicists and chemists such as Michael Faraday (1791–1867), James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879), Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894), and Heinrich Hertz (1857–1894) furthered understanding of the electrochemical nature of matter by connecting the fields of electricity and magnetism. 5. The concept of evolution appears in the work of Georges Buffon (1707–1788) who theorized a biological ‘degeneration’ of mammals; Peter J. Bowler, Evolution: the History of an Idea (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989), p. 75. Evolution returns in the work of naturalists such as Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802) and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829). While Erasmus Darwin posited a deistic evolutionary process of progressive self-improvement, Lamarck theorized the inheritance of acquired traits. 6. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (Ontario: Broadview Press, 2003), p. 397. 7. Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) famously established that microbes operated in processes of infection and fermentation, an insight that led him to develop the process of sterilization of liquids by heat known as pasteurization. 8. Inspired by Pasteur’s work on microbes, English surgeon Joseph Lister (1827–1912) developed antiseptic surgical practices that were broadly implemented over the course of the next two decades. John Galbraith Simmons, Doctors and Discoveries: Lives that Created Today’s Medicine (Boston: Houghton Miff lin, 2002), p. 94. 9. The First Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain in the second half of the eighteenth century with the mechanization of the textile industries and gradually spread through Europe and America. The Second Industrial Revolution or Technological Revolution refers to the increased technologization of the industrial framework and, as in the case of the First Industrial Revolution, its impact was felt in different countries at different rates and to varying extents. The Second Industrial Revolution took place for the most part between 1870 and 1914. 10. Auguste Comte and Positivism: the Essential Writings, ed. by Gertrud Lenzer (New Jersey: Publishers, 1998), pp. 61–62. In his subsequent Course of Positive Philosophy (1830–1842), Comte applied the term ‘sociology’ to his discipline of ‘social physics’. 11. Though the positivist method is often equated with inductionism, Comte makes it clear that there is a theoretical base to his methodology: ‘No real observation of any kind of phenomena is possible, except insofar as it is first directed, and finally interpreted, by some theory’ (Comte, 241). 12. Obviously, the various historical deployments of the organic metaphor involve a far more nuanced allocation of function than I indicate. My intention is not to review the historical evolution of the metaphor but, rather, to highlight its suggestion of hierarchical and demarcated coherence.

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13. Scientific revisions of the composition and organization of the human organism have prompted a variety of reconfigurations of the organic social metaphor. I would mention only Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito’s discussion of the ‘immunitary paradigm’. In The Pinocchio Effect, Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg highlights Esposito’s identification of a practice that, revised in light of the knowledge that immunization is ‘provided by an attenuated form of infection able to protect the body from a more virulent form of the disease’, does not maintain the threat of contagion beyond the borders of the social body. Instead, the ‘evil’ is incorporated by means of a process of an ‘excluding inclusion or of an exclusion by inclusion’, and is thus ‘displaced, deviated, deferred but not eliminated’; Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg, The Pinocchio Effect: On Making Italians 1860–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), p. 11. 14. This relationship is made explicit in the title of J. Edward Chamberlin and Sander Gilman’s volume, Degeneration: The Dark Side of Progress (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985). 15. Robert A. Nye, ‘Sociology and Degeneration: The Irony of Progress’, in Gilman and Chamberlin, p. 49. 16. Lombroso’s project is recorded in L’uomo delinquente: in rapporto all’antropologia, alla giurisprudenza, ed alle discipline carcerarie [Criminal Man: in Relation to Anthropology, Jurisprudence and the Prison Disciplines]. L’uomo delinquente was first published in 1876 and subsequent editions published between 1876 and 1897 increased in size and scope. Mary Gibson and Nicole Hahn Rafter track these changes and additions in their translation of selections from Lombroso’s text. Cesare Lombroso, Criminal Man, ed. by Mary Gibson and Nicole Hahn Rafter (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), pp. 1–4. 17. David Horn underlines the f luidity of the origin stories of positivist criminology, writing that Lombroso points to the significance of the time he spent as doctor in the Italian army where he was intrigued by the tattoos of the soldiers. Lombroso also references his experimental measuring of the skulls of the insane and, finally, he relates his encounter with the body of Giuseppe Villella. Horn, The Criminal Body: Lombroso and the Anatomy of Deviance (New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 29–30. 18. Lombroso’s criminal typology is not deterministic in its entirety, as he does leave room for a criminal type who embraces crime in the face of socio-economic circumstances and for whom moral guidance and education can serve as a deterrent. 19. Villa, Il deviante e i suoi segni: Lombroso e la nascita dell’antropologia criminale (Milan: Angeli, 1985), p. 8. 20. This facet of Renaissance life is, of course, addressed in Stephen Greenblatt’s by now canonical text Renaissance Self-Fashioning: from More to Shakespeare (1980). Moreover, the focus on the individual in this programme of self-fashioning is in complete accord with Jacob Burckhardt’s description of the Renaissance as a period in which ‘man became a spiritual individual, and recognized himself as such’; Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1999), p. 81. 21. Harvie Ferguson, Modernity and Subjectivity: Body, Soul, Spirit, (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2000), p. 33. 22. Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners, vol. 1 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), p. 249. 23. Norbert Elias, The Norbert Elias Reader, ed. by Johan Goudsblom and Stephen Mennell (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), p. 79. 24. Michel Foucault, A History of Sexuality, vol. 1, trans. by Robert Hurley (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), p. 143. 25. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. by Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), p. 170. 26. Karl Marx, ‘Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844’, in The Marx Engels Reader, 2nd edn, ed. by Robert C. Tucker (New York: Norton, 1978), p. 115. 27. Karl Marx, Capital: a Critique of Political Economy (London: Penguin Classics, 1992), pp. 548–49. 28. Taylor developed his theories in the 1880s and 1890s and published his findings in two texts, Shop Management (1905) and The Principles of Scientific Management (1911). 29. F. W. Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1911), p. 59. 30. Alan McKinlay and Phil Taylor develop this parallel, writing that ‘[f ]or both Bentham and

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Taylor, controlling recalcitrant bodies was the key to reshaping obdurate minds’. ‘Through the Looking Glass: Foucault and the Politics of Production’, in Foucault, Management and Production Theory, ed. by Alan McKinlay and Ken Starkey (London: Sage, 1998), pp. 173–90 (p. 180). 31. This accelerated world is precisely the one famously described by Marx and Engels as follows: ‘All fixed, fast frozen relations [...] are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air’, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (London: Penguin Classics, 2002), p. 223. 32. Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, trans. by Kurt H. Wolff (New York: Free Press, 1950), pp. 409–25 (p. 410, emphasis in original). 33. Max Nordau, Degeneration (New York: Appleton, 1895), p. 35. 34. Walter Benjamin, ‘On Some Motifs in Baudelaire’, in Illuminations (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), p. 175. 35. Though Beard began his work on neurasthenia in 1869, his most important publications on the condition appeared in the 1880s and are as follows: A Practical Treatise on Nervous Exhaustion (Neurasthenia): Its Symptoms, Nature, Sequences, Treatment (New York: Wood, 1880), American Nervousness: Its Causes and Consequences (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1881). 36. Cited in Tim Armstrong, Modernism: A Cultural History (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005), p. 92. 37. Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstrab references the German translation of his work and the consequent diffusion in Germany and Holland as well as the dissemination of Beard’s ideas in France through the work of Jean-Martin Charcot and his circle, in Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstrab and Roy Porter, Cultures of Neurasthenia from Beard to the First World War (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001), p. 1. 38. Harvie Ferguson, Phenomenological Society: Experience and Insight in Modern Society (London: Sage, 2006), p. 192. 39. Referenced in The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 5.1 (1878), p. 181. 40. Katherine Mullin, ‘Modernisms and Feminisms’, in The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Literary Theory, ed. by Ellen Rooney (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 136–52 (p. 136). Marianne Dekoven uses similar language to identify a ‘New Woman’ that was ‘independent, educated, (relatively) sexually liberated, oriented more toward productive life in the public sphere than reproductive life in the home’ (Dekoven, ‘Modernism and Gender’, in The Cambridge Companion to Modernism, p. 174). 41. Gerald Izenberg describes the perceived crisis of masculinity as stemming from the following: ‘late nineteenth-century economic developments that purportedly altered, and weakened, middle-class male economic roles; political and social challenge to the exclusivity of other male bastions of power, such as politics; attacks by critics on the decline of virility amid the softness of modern urban and commercial society; “symptomatic” culture phenomena such as the appearance of modern sexology that ostensibly point to anxiety about traditional masculinity’, Izenberg, Modernism and Masculinity: Mann, Wedekind, Kandinsky through World War I (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 7–8. 42. For Simmel, this urban objectification of life is, to a significant extent, the result of an economy based on the exact calculation of value, an attitude of precision evident in the establishment of a ‘stable and impersonal schedule’ to which all individuals must conform with the aid of the ubiquitous pocket watch (Simmel, pp. 412–13). 43. Benjamin, ‘The Paris of the Second Empire’, in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, 1938–1940 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), p. 33. 44. Elizabeth Wilson, The Sphinx in the City: Urban Life, the Control of Disorder, and Women (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), p. 7. 45. Le Bon, The Crowd (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1995), p. 124. 46. Weininger, Sex and Character (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1906), p. 73. Eric Santner describes Weininger’s text as the ‘locus classicus’ of this prevailing ‘obsession with Jewish effeminacy’; Santner, My Own Private Germany, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 108. Sander Gilman explores this widespread late nineteenth-century association of circumcision with disease and with effeminacy and writes that the circumcised penis of the Jew was believed to be ‘impaired, damaged, or incomplete, and therefore threatening to the wholeness and health of the male Aryan’, Sander Gilman, Freud, Race and Gender (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 61. Freud too, in a much-cited footnote to the case of Little Hans, identifies the

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source of anti-Semitism with the castration complex. The knowledge that the Jew is missing part of his penis, Freud writes, is common even in the nursery and accounts for the impulse to despise Jews just as the whole or healthy penis allows for a sense of superiority over women. Two Case Histories: ‘Little Hans’ and ‘The Rat Man’. The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Standard Edition (New York: Vintage, 2001), vol. 10, p. 36. 47. The feminization of both the crowd and mass culture also reveals an artistic anxiety and, in addressing the undeniable misogyny that characterizes much of modernist production, Huyssen describes the male artist’s ‘nightmare of being devoured by mass culture through co-option, commodification’ (Huyssen, p. 53). This question of modernism’s misogynistic contamination anxiety and its relation to a perceived gendered and racial ‘Other’ will receive more attention in the next section of this chapter. 48. Elizabeth Wilson suggests as much when she writes that the feminized crowd retained its ‘association with criminals and minorities’ (Wilson, p. 7). Moreover, this association of woman with modernity’s degenerate Others is evident in a variety of discourses, including that of Lombroso. In their introduction to Criminal Man, Gibson and Rafter note that over the course of the five editions of Criminal Man, ‘Lombroso pays increasing attention to groups that were beginning to elicit anxiety in late-nineteenth-century Europe and America: women; southern Italians; Africans, and other “inferior races”; youth; and the lower classes, symbolized by rural bandits and urban revolutionaries’ (Lombroso, p. 15). 49. Raymond Williams repeatedly associates modernist literary expression with the city. The Country and the City (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973). 50. Marinetti, ‘The Manifesto of Futurism’, in Futurism: An Anthology, ed. by Lawrence Rainey, Christine Poggi, and Laura Wittman (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), pp. 51–52. 51. Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities, vol. 2, trans. by Sophie Wilkins and Burton Pike (New York: Knopf, 1995), p. 785. 52. Beckett, Murphy (New York: Grove Press, 1957), p. 3. 53. Kaf ka, ‘A Hunger Artist’, in The Metamorphosis and Other Stories, trans. by Donna Freed (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1996), p. 171. 54. Giorgio Agamben references Philippe Jaworski’s observation that ‘Bartleby’s formula is neither affirmative nor negative and that Bartleby neither accepts nor refuses, stepping forward and stepping backward at the same time’, Agamben, Potentialities (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1999), p. 255. For Gilles Deleuze, Bartleby’s formula is ‘devastating because it eliminates the preferable just as mercilessly as any nonpreferred’, Essays Critical and Clinical (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), p. 71. 55. Gilles Deleuze’s thought is a repeated point of reference in my text, most markedly in my discussion of Svevo. Deleuze’s relevance to my exploration of an Italian modernism stems from his sustained focus on the two principal philosophers of modernism, namely Nietzsche and Bergson, and from the fact that his repeated insistence on a body of immanence is deeply informed by modernist thought. Paul Patton, in fact, identifies a modernist position in Deleuze’s acceptance of ‘Nietzsche’s view that thought is a matter of creation’, Patton, Deleuze: A Critical Reader (Oxford and Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996), p. 1. 56. Deleuze, Cinema 1: The Movement Image, trans. by Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986), pp. 141–42. This is the archetypal narrative model that Deleuze identifies as SAS (situation-action-modified situation). In this category, we might place the emblematic Western where a cowboy arrives in a corrupt town dominated by an evil tyrant, fights and defeats the tyrant and, as a result, modifies the initial situation. While the SAS film is referred to as the ‘large form’, Deleuze also identifies a ‘small form’ (or ASA) that moves from an action that discloses a situation and on to a further action (Deleuze, 1986, pp. 160–77). 57. Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory, trans. by N.M. Paul and W.S. Palmer (New York: Zone Books, 1991), p. 44. 58. Deleuze, Cinema 2: The Time Image (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), p. 3. 59. Amongst his examples, Deleuze includes scenes from Rossellini’s Europa ’51 in which a ‘bourgeoise woman [...], following the death of her child, crosses various spaces and experiences the tenement, the slum and the factory (“I thought I was seeing convicts”)’ (Deleuze, 1989, 2).

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60. Alain Robbe-Grillet, For a New Novel. Trans. Richard Howard (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1989), p. 20. 61. Ann Banfield, The Phantom Table: Woolf, Fry, Russell and the Epistemology of Modernism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 130. 62. Joyce, Ulysses (New York: Random House, 1961), p. 181. 63. Bergson, An Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. by T.E. Hulme (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1912), pp. 13–14. 64. Danius addresses the relationship between Marey’s scientific or analytical chronophotography and Bergson’s concepts of duration and f lux: ‘Bergson, for one, rejected the truth claims of Marey’s scientific enterprise. Stressing that the nature of movement is synthesis and f lux, and that the camera merely registers frozen moments of time, Bergson argued that chronophotography adds nothing to the understanding of movement’ (Danius, p. 102). 65. Woolf ’s essay was originally published in 1926 in T. S. Eliot’s literary journal, New Criterion. 66. Virginia Woolf, On Being Ill (Ashfield, MA: Paris Press, 2002), p. 4. 67. Mann, The Magic Mountain (New York: Random House, 1995), p. 117. 68. Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies, trans. by Stephen Cohn (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1998), pp. 64–67. 69. Kenner, The Pound Era (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), p. 550. The phrase ‘men of 1914’ was coined by Wyndham Lewis and appears several times in his autobiography, Blasting and Bombardiering (1937). 70. Despite the mutual encounter with urban space, Katherine Mullin is careful to underline the fact that the female experience of the city differed from that of men, as their movement through the metropolis was circumscribed by considerations of propriety and safety (Mullin, p. 141). 71. Bonnie Kime Scott, The Gender of Modernism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), p. 2. The feminist rereading of modernism continues as a vast project encompassing the work of such critics as Shari Benstock, Women of the Left Bank, Paris 1900–1940 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986); Gillian E. Hanscombe and Virginia L. Smyers, Writing for their Lives: The Modernist Women 1910–1940 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988). 72. Huyssen describes a ‘powerful masculinist and misogynist current [...], a current which time and again openly states its contempt for women and for the masses’ and, though, entirely receptive to feminist readings of modernism, he suggests that ‘the wholesale theorization of modernist writing as feminine’ inspired in large part by French feminist theories of ‘écriture feminine’, ignores this misogynistic tendency (Huyssen, p. 49). 73. The relevant points of Marinetti’s Manifesto read as follows: ‘We intend to glorify war — the only hygiene of the world — militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of anarchists, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and contempt for women’, and again, ‘We intend to destroy museums, libraries, academies of every sort, and to fight against moralism, feminism, and every utilitarian or opportunistic cowardice’, Marinetti, Futurism: An Anthology, p. 51. 74. Wyndham Lewis, ‘Blast’, Blast, 1 (1914), p. 18. 75. Dekoven points out the irony of this male critical position by highlighting the fact that these female novelists were equally invested in overthrowing Victorian models, in particular the ‘Victorian ideal of closeted, domesticated, desexualized, disenfranchised femininity’ (Dekoven, p. 177). In fact, Dekoven references Woolf ’s claim that the New Woman was intent on ‘murdering the Victorian “Angel in the House” ’ (Dekoven, p. 174). 76. James writes: ‘The f lood at present swells and swells, threatening the whole field of letters, as would often seem, with submersion’; James, ‘The Future of the Novel’, in The Art of Criticism: Henry James on the Theory and the Practice of Fiction, ed. by Susan Griffin and William Veeder (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), pp. 242–51 (p. 242). 77. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in The Portable Nietzsche (London: Penguin Books, 1976), p. 146, emphasis in original. 78. The futurist attack on conventional syntax also echoes Nietzsche’s condemnation of a language system that obscures the force of the body: ‘A quantum of force is just such a quantum of drive, will, action, in fact it is nothing but this driving, willing and acting, and only the seduction of language (and the fundamental errors of reason petrified within it) which construes and misconstrues all actions as conditional upon an agency, a ‘subject’ can make it appear otherwise’;

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Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 28. 79. This reference to a ‘multiplied man’ comes from Marinetti’s 1910 text ‘L’uomo moltiplicato e il regno della macchina’. Here Marinetti also theorizes a man who has transcended romantic or sentimental attachments to women and who engages in sex in order to achieve release and to reproduce. Cinzia Sartini Blum describes this ‘multiplied man’ as one who must ‘surrender to the empowering qualities of the machine — energy, precision, discipline’ and must expel or project onto the other the ‘weakening human qualities — sensibility, sensuality, skepticism, pessimism’, Blum, The Other Modernism: F. T. Marinetti’s Futurist Fiction of Power (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), pp. 44–45. 80. Armstrong describes the ‘jellyfish attributes’ as the ‘enemy of art, leading to a melting of self into others, rather than a concrete realization of the self in art’ (Armstrong, 2005, pp. 93–94). 81. Wyndham Lewis, Tarr (New York: Knopf, 1918), p. 371. Bonnie Kime Scott compares Lewis’s jellyfish metaphor to an octopus metaphor that Pound employs in order to describe ‘feminine chaos’ in Canto XXIX. Refiguring Modernism: Women of 1928 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), p. 105. 82. Dekoven highlights in particular The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’ (1897), describing James Wait’s rescue from the sea in terms of parturition (Dekoven, p. 180). In Heart of Darkness (1899), moreover, it is the continent of Africa that becomes ‘the locus of empowerment of the maternal feminine’ (Dekoven, p. 181).

Chapter 2

v

Corporeal Arrhythmia Svevo’s Stylistics of Limping and Potentiality

Italo Svevo’s writing reveals a programmatic focus on corporeal arrhythmia, an arrhythmia that, time and again, comes to constitute the voice of material embodi­ ment itself. As such, Svevo’s modernist engagement with the body involves a sustained attention to the insistently material dimension of human embodiment. Moreover, this focus on arrhythmic bodies is intimately bound up with the author’s interrogation of the philosophical and cultural implications of a regime of corporeal action deemed to be the privilege of supposedly stable or healthy bodies. This interrogation implicates of course the author’s critically well-trodden meditations on infirmity. Indeed, Svevo consistently contrasts bodies capable of rhythmic or healthy action with bodies characterized by an irregularity or asymmetry that hinders the possibility of active or potent intervention in the external world. Yet, in a reversal characteristic of Svevo’s thought, it is these arrhythmic bodies that ultimately offer the prospect of a life lived in and with a material body defined by its potentiality, a potentiality felt in a temporal rupture that defers action. This circumstance binds the erratic Svevian body to other modernist bodies of potentiality such as, for instance, that of Melville’s inscrutable Bartleby. Moreover, these erratic bodies are also vital to a Svevian programmatic reconfiguration of culture that inserts these arrhythmic bodies into the stability of the Tuscan canon. Finally, this limping or arrhythmic embodiment also informs Svevo’s infamous ‘scrivere male’ [bad writing], a self-conscious stylistic ideology intended to subvert the authority of a canon abstracted from the hesitant potentiality of the material bodies of Triestine modernism. Each of Svevo’s three novels presents a male protagonist who faces a reality with which his awkward body remains strangely and, sometimes, humorously at odds. Una vita introduces Alfonso Nitti who, profoundly ill at ease in a body that is adolescent in its hypersensitivity, works unhappily as a scribe at the bank of the Maller family in Trieste.1 Invited to the home of the owner of the bank, he meets the supremely elegant Macario as well as his boss’s daughter, Annetta, with whom he falls in love. Having forced himself on Annetta, Alfonso f lees to his rural village where he learns that his mother is gravely ill. On her death, he returns to the city and, having tried unsuccessfully to mitigate the hatred with which he is viewed by the Maller family, he takes his own life, convinced that material embodiment compels us to engage in

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a struggle for domination. Senilità presents Emilio Brentani, a 35-year-old man who has published a single novel and lives with his sister Amalia and his senile dreams of love.2 Emilio’s oniric senility is contrasted with the carnal vigour of his sculptor friend Stefano Balli and with that of Angiolina, a young woman with whom he falls in love. Secretly in love with Balli, Amalia dies a gruelling death triggered by an addiction to ether. Shaken by this death, Emilio abandons Angiolina in order to return to his life of dreaming. La coscienza di Zeno is presented as a diary written at the prompting of Zeno’s psychoanalyst and published by that same doctor who seeks revenge following his patient’s decision to abandon his treatment.3 Zeno writes of his struggle to renounce nicotine, his troubled relationship with his father, his marriage to Augusta, his affair with Carla, and his largely unsuccessful efforts in the business world, sharing all the while his obsessive ref lections on the nature of sickness and health, ref lections intimately bound up with the erratic workings of his own body. Bodies in Motion These brief synopses of the novels highlight the corporeal dimension of the prota­ gonists’ troubled relationship with their world. Indeed, the defining unease at the base of their existence derives in large measure from their own graceless f lesh. Svevo takes care to highlight this dimension in detailed descriptions of his protagonists’ movements. Their bodies seem to be marked by an erratic unpre­d ictability, prompting movement that f luctuates in terms of speed and directionality. In effect, all physical progress toward a destination or objective is hindered by a body that cannot move smoothly through space. Turning initially to Una vita, we find that Alfonso pursues women fitfully around the city. On catching sight of a woman who inadvertently reveals her elegant footwear, he sets off in erratic pursuit. He follows her, overtakes her, and then waits ‘come un cagnolino’ [like a puppy].4 Having decided to approach the woman, he is overcome with doubt and obliged to accelerate. He overtakes her once again and pauses. At this point, he decides to end his pursuit, but, almost immediately changing his mind, he is forced into a ‘corsa sfrenata’ [headlong rush] in order to catch up with her (Romanzi, 79). When he finally approaches her, breathless and unable to speak, he simply steps aside (Romanzi, 80). On a subsequent occasion, Alfonso takes a walk in the open air and decides to follow a platoon of soldiers who are performing exercises (Romanzi, 93). Their ‘passo pesante e misurato’ [heavy and regular pace] comes to irritate him and he separates himself from them at a run (Romanzi, 93). Moving toward a river that follows a ‘via capricciosa’ [capricious route] through the fields, he begins to run ‘con impazienza febbrile’ [with feverish impatience] and discovers that he can no longer acquire the ‘passo calmo dell’uomo forte’ [the calm pace of the strong man (Romanzi, 94)]. Emilio is also described as he walks with an erratic pace, accelerating and decelerating fitfully. In pursuit of a woman he believes to be Angiolina, he moves from a ‘passo rapido’ [rapid pace] to a run which he slows in order to speed up again and then, almost immediately, he stops. He continues walking and, in order to

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avoid a puddle, he walks, with disastrous results, up onto the margin of the avenue: ‘si trasse in parte, sulla ghiaia, ma, sul suolo poco livellato, fece un passo falso e per salvarsi dalla caduta si contuse le mani sulla grezza muraglia’ [he stepped aside, onto the gravel, but, on the uneven terrain, he stumbled and, in order protect himself, he injured his hands on the rough surface of the wall (Romanzi, 492)]. Mistakenly believing he has again seen his beloved, he begins, with violent intent, to pursue her at an unsteady run, and works himself into such a frenzy that he furiously bites his own hand: ‘allo sciagurato parve che tutta la violenza cui era stato in procinto di abbandonarsi, fosse ora diretta contro sé stesso, gli chiudesse il respiro e gli togliesse ogni possibilità di pensare e di frenarsi. Si morse una mano come un forsennato’ [the wretch felt that all that violence to which he was about to abandon himself was now directed against himself, that it took his breath and that it deprived him entirely of the ability to think and to restrain himself. He bit his own hand like a madman (Romanzi, 492)]. Similarly, Zeno finds himself in erratic pursuit of Carla who, now engaged to her music teacher, Lali, wishes to terminate her affair. He runs after her madly, jumping like a dog: ‘Io le corsi dietro follemente, con certi salti simili a quelli di un cane cui venga conteso un saporito pezzo di carne’ [I ran after her madly, jumping like a dog challenged over a tasty piece of meat (Romanzi, 929–30)]. Carla walks away from him with a ‘passo breve e celere’ [in short and rapid steps] and, when he pursues her to the door of her home, his own erratic gait is echoed in the syncopated notes of Lali’s piano playing (Romanzi, 931). When Zeno leaves Carla’s home for the last time, he expresses a desire to walk with a ‘passo ritmico’ [rhythmic pace] that would allow him to impose order on himself (Romanzi, 935–36). He achieves the order that he desires, but, despite his temporary regularity, he finds himself in a street far from the centre where he rushes toward a woman who calls to him (Romanzi, 936). How, then, might we consider this persistent focus on irregular bodily rhythms on the part of Svevo? In effect, though the irregularity is common to all prota­ gonists, their experience of the condition changes over the course of the three novels, encompassing, in its evolution, a focus on the corporeal dimension of urban industrialization, on sentimental hypersensitivity and on infirmity. Turning initially to Una vita, we find that Alfonso’s body contrasts with the bodies inhabiting the urban space and, by extension, the space of capitalist industry.5 Indeed, the novel opens on this metropolitan dimension in the form of a letter written by Alfonso to his mother wherein he bemoans the ‘aria densa, affumicata’ [dense and smoky air] of the city (Romanzi, 12). In Trieste, Alfonso is surrounded by colleagues marked by an accuracy that encompasses their dress and their professionalism. Luigi Miceni is one such individual. He dresses with ‘accuratezza’ or precision (Romanzi, 15), an attitude matched in the compulsive order he maintains at his desk: ‘[f ]ece combaciare i margini di un pacchetto di carte esattamente con le estremità del tavolo. Ci diede ancora una guardatina e trovò che l’ordine era perfetto’ [he lined up the edges of a bundle of papers with the edges of his desk. He gave it all another look and found that everything was in perfect order (Romanzi, 14)]. This precise order is echoed in a gait described in terms of its rigidity (Romanzi, 54). Sanneo, the head of correspondence, also manifests remarkable professional abilities.

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Moving continuously and writing at lightning speed, he is capable of an ‘attività prodigiosa’ [prodigious activity (Romanzi, 15)]. He is indefatigable in his efforts to ‘regolare e registrare’ [regulate and record (Romanzi, 16)]. Notably, Miceni and Sanneo’s efficiency does not stem from physical strength. Indeed, while Sanneo’s activity is the result of a nervous agitation of his weak organism, Miceni possesses a puny frame topped by a tiny head (Romanzi, 15). What these two men do possess, however, is the ability to adapt their bodies to the regularized activities imposed by industrialized capitalism.6 This bodily metamorphosis is performed in the person of Giacomo, who enters the employ of the bank at the age of fourteen having come to the city from rural Friuli. When we first meet Giacomo, his abundant rosy f lesh and short stature give him the appearance of a ten-year-old (Romanzi, 19). As he grows, he loses his colouring and his now thin face becomes longer and acquires the shape of ‘certe ossa regolari ma grosse e solide’ [certain regular but large and solid bones (Romanzi, 352)]. This reference to the regularity of Giacomo’s bones intimates that success in metropolitan commerce derives directly from the regulated instrumentalization of the human organism. Indeed, Svevo’s vision of rationalized bodies more than echoes Marx’s diagnosis of an industrial mechanization of the body. Alfonso stands awkwardly beyond this sphere of corporeal rationalization as he cannot or does not adapt his body to the goal of professional efficiency. He is unable to impose order and, though his efforts to organize his work space are evident in the bundling of parcels, his filing system remains, it should be underlined, in a state of asymmetry: ‘le caselle erano in disordine; l’una era riempita di troppo e disordinatamente, l’altra invece vuota’ [the pigeonholes were in disorder; one was filled with a disordered excess while the other was empty (Romanzi, 15)]. Sanneo’s incessant activity also contrasts with Alfonso’s inability to write mechanically, a fact that stems from his tendency to become distracted by the meaning of the words he copies (Romanzi, 20). Alfonso lives tormented by the insistent voice of his own materiality. In the sedentary environment of the city, he suffers from a ‘malessere generale’ [general unease] that he believes is simply a manifestation of his body’s need to ‘stancarsi, di esaurirsi’ [tire itself, to exhaust itself (Romanzi, 75)].7 Accordingly, at the close of a working day spent putting pen to paper, he takes long walks during which he imagines that within his body ‘si movesse una materia abbondante attraverso a vasi molli incapaci di resistere o di regolare’ [an abundant material moved through soft vessels incapable of resisting or regulating (Romanzi, 75)]. His romantic hypersensitivity also singles him out from his companions and, more importantly, places his own sensual corporeality at the heart of his existence. It is, in fact, this same hypersensitive desire that prompts his aforementioned erratic dash around the city. He manifests an adolescent delicacy and his desire is aroused by as little as the sight of a skirt, or even the thought of that skirt (Romanzi, 78). Moreover, he contrasts this heightened sensuality, felt only in the ‘esaltazione del sentimento’ [exaltation of sentiment], with what he deems to be the morally lax ‘facilità dell’amore’ [amorous easiness] that defines the blasé attitudes of the citydwellers (Romanzi, 78). Though Emilio Brentani shares Alfonso’s romantic delicacy, little is said of his professional life beyond the dual nature of his focus. He maintains an ‘impieguccio’

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[little job] in an insurance company and also nurtures literary ambitions on which he fails to act for reasons of inertia (Romanzi, 415–16). Svevo’s attention in Senilità does not extend to the industrial rationalization of the body but, rather, centres on the contrast between the hypersensitive Emilio and the exploitative carnality of Angiolina and Stefano Balli. Angiolina, a ‘figlia del popolo’ [daughter of the people (Romanzi, 561)], glows with carnal vitality and is a ‘bionda dagli occhi azzurri grandi, alta e forte, ma snella e f lessuosa, il volto illuminato dalla vita’ [blonde with large, blue eyes, tall and strong, but slender and supple with a face illuminated by life (Romanzi, 416)].8 Unlike the sensitive Emilio, she moves smoothly through her world. She walks ‘con la calma del suo forte organismo’ [with the calmness of her strong organism] and with ‘movenze sicure come quelle di un felino’ [motions as confident as those of a feline (Romanzi, 419)]. Indeed, she walks easily even on the slippery mud-covered pavement (Romanzi, 419).9 Moreover, she is a highly sexualized being and enjoys the practical benefits earned by f lirting overtly with other men. Like Angiolina, Balli is defined by a carnal vitality. He is a tall and strong man who, despite his forty years, has youthful blue eyes in a bronze face that, aside from a few grey hairs, does not reveal his age (Romanzi, 422). His artistic credo is deeply informed by his physicality and, despite a lack of critical success, he continues to pursue an ‘ideale di spontaneità, una ruvidezza voluta, una semplicità’ [ideal of spontaneity, a deliberate roughness, a simplicity (Romanzi, 422)]. Moreover, his romantic interactions with women overtly exclude the possibility of sincere love and are little more than a means of bolstering his vanity (Romanzi, 422). Together Angiolina and Balli suggest a corporeal instrumentalization that, while not an instance of industrial rationalization, reveals a strategy by means of which their bodies are put in the service of ends or purposes beyond or outside their material embodiment. Emilio’s body fails to encompass the exploitative carnality of Balli and Angiolina. Instead, his knowledge of the world is ‘succhiato dai libri’ [drawn from books (Romanzi, 421)] and Balli, the less cultured but more socially able of the pair, wields over him ‘una specie di autorità paterna’ [a type of paternal authority (Romanzi, 421–22)]. Indeed, Balli’s inf luence impacts Emilio’s body ‘persino nel modo di camminare, parlare, gestire’ [even in the way of walking, talking, gesturing (Romanzi, 423)]. Nonetheless, though he plays at being a cynical man of the world as he prepares Angiolina for a marriage of convenience to Volpini, the unconfessed truth is that Emilio erratically pursues in her a delicate dream of amorous sweetness: ‘egli faceva all’amore a quel modo e [...] non avrebbe saputo contenersi altrimenti perché gli pareva che la dolcezza fosse la condizione essenziale per poter godere’ [he made love in that manner and [...] he would not have known how to behave differently because he felt that sweetness was the necessary condition for enjoyment (Romanzi, 470)].10 Accordingly, he ignores all evidence of Angiolina’s infidelities and sees her in the shape of his romantic ideal. He insists that she declare her love in French, a phrase rendered as ‘sce tèm bocú’ (Romanzi, 430). His ‘sentimentalità da letterato’ [literary sentimentality] also prevails on him to gallicize her name and she therefore becomes Ange (Romanzi, 430).11 Described in terms suggestive of Dante’s Beatrice, she is ‘raggiante di gioventù e bellezza’ [radiant with youth and beauty]

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and will illuminate him with her pure profile and her ‘bella salute’ [beautiful health (Romanzi, 417)]. Their romantic meetings are equally literary. The Leopardian ‘notte stellata, chiara ma senza luna’ [starry night, clear but moonless (Romanzi, 418)] becomes the Dantean evening spent in a ‘luce lunare’ [lunar light] where ‘il color taceva, dormiva’ [colour was silent, was sleeping] and Ange, a ‘bianca, casta luce’ [white and chaste light], is waiting to be kissed (Romanzi, 431).12 Zeno shares the amorous hypersensitivity of both Alfonso and Emilio and is aff licted, for the bulk of his life, with professional difficulties similar to those experienced by Alfonso. In La coscienza di Zeno, these concerns are fused in order to surface in the form of Zeno’s defining hypochondria. Convinced that the erratic nature of his desire, his professional activity and his entire organism stems from a lack of health, Zeno reveals a conceptual category central to Svevo’s thought, namely infirmity.13 Zeno is obsessed with the workings of his own body, a body definitively affected by an arrhythmia that is both external and internal. On learning from his friend Tullio that no fewer than fifty-four muscles are involved in taking a step, Zeno’s thoughts turn to his own legs as he searches therein for the muscular ‘macchina mostruosa’ [monstrous machine (Romanzi, 758)]. The attention he subsequently pays to his legs interrupts the functioning of this mechanism and he leaves with a limp that accompanies him for several days thereafter: ‘[u]scii da quel caffè zoppicando e per alcuni giorni zoppicai sempre. Il camminare era per me divenuto un lavoro pesante, e anche lievemente doloroso’ [I left that café limping and for several days I limped. Walking had become for me a chore that was weighty and also slightly painful (Romanzi, 758)]. It is this limp that introduces the persistent arrhythmia into Zeno’s organism and continues to define his movement even up to the time of his writing: ‘ancora oggidì, che ne scrivo, se qualcuno mi guarda quando mi movo, i cinquantaquattro movimenti s’imbarazzano ed io sono in procinto di cadere’ [even today as I write, if someone watches me as I move, the fifty-four movements are hampered and I risk falling (Romanzi, 758–59)]. This arrhythmia also marks Zeno’s internal mechanisms, namely his gastrointestinal system. Indeed, Zeno is informed that the cause of his indigestion and insomnia might be a less than energetic peristalsis (Romanzi, 660). While digestion relies on the rhythmic muscular contractions of peristalsis, Zeno suffers from a sluggish peristalsis that means that his insides are rhythmically out of step with the supposed norm. Indeed, the corporeal irregularity that was symptomatic in Una vita and Senilità is, by the time of La coscienza di Zeno, transformed into an explicit arrhythmia in and of the body. Arrhythmias of Material Embodiment Despite the fact that Zeno repeatedly returns to the terminology of sickness and health, Svevo is not engaged in a naturalist penetration of bodily mechanism. Indeed, I would suggest that it is not the infirm body as such that interests Svevo but, rather, the possibility of a life lived consciously in the presence of material embodiment. Infirmity permits a sustained engagement with a material body that resembles Ferguson’s corporealized ‘body-as-shadow’, insistently felt in pain,

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sickness and, brief ly, in death (Ferguson, 2000, 65). This, I would suggest, is more than evident in Svevo’s idiosyncratic representation of sick bodies throughout the three novels. In Una vita, the description of the agony of Alfonso’s mother is anchored in a sustained attention to a body reduced to the biological dimensions of its swollen f lesh and laboured breathing. She is dangerously ill with heart disease, or as the notary explains, ‘un difettuccio al cuore’ [a little defect of the heart (Romanzi, 261)]. Her symptoms include a swelling of the face: ‘[e]ra gonfia, una guancia molto più che l’altra’ [she was swollen, one cheek more so than the other (Romanzi, 265)] and a breathing pattern that is ‘frequente e insufficiente’ [rapid and insufficient (Romanzi, 297)]. Bedsores are the source of much of her pain and her body is ‘piagato in più luoghi dal giacere continuato’ [covered in sores in many places because of the continued bed rest (Romanzi, 294)]. Though she blames inanimate objects for her continued discomfort, she is ultimately forced to accept that ‘il male risiedeva nel suo organismo e non negli oggetti che la offendevano’ [the trouble lay in her organism and not in the objects that tormented her (Romanzi, 295)]. What Alfonso witnesses as he sits by his mother’s bedside is the erosion of a body: ‘si trattava proprio di un organismo che andava in isfacelo’ [it was really a question of the ruin of an organism (Romanzi, 266)]. Senilità offers a detailed exploration of Amalia Brentani’s final agony, an exploration marked, once again, by its attention to the materiality of the body. When Emilio finds his delirious sister she is naked (Romanzi, 588). In underscoring the unadulterated materiality of the body, this nudity anticipates the description that follows. Amalia’s ravaged face is transformed into a landscape of aridity and inf lammation. Emilio notes her inf lamed cheeks and sees that her dry and violet coloured lips resemble an old wound that refuses to heal (Romanzi, 588). She is soon plagued by a painful cough that indicates the underlying pneumonia aggravated by her addiction to ether. As death approaches, Amalia’s breathing becomes ever more erratic. Her breathing falls into a pattern of sorts that cycles from frightening pauses, to the regular breathing of a healthy person, on to an accelerated and troubled breathing and, finally, back again to ever longer pauses (Romanzi, 626–27). When death finally comes, it is accompanied by violent contractions of the mouth and her wheezing becomes the lamentation of matter itself that: ‘già abbandonata, disorganizzandosi, emette i suoni appresi nel lungo dolore consciente’ [already abandoned and in disintegration, emitted sounds learned during the long and conscious pain (Romanzi, 630)]. La coscienza di Zeno too lingers over accounts of physical degeneration. Zeno watches over his dying father and notes his troubled breathing which, as death draws nearer, undergoes a change in rhythm (Romanzi, 694). The dying man’s breathing alternates between ‘alcune respirazioni lente che avrebbero potuto sembrare di uomo sano’ [some long breaths that might have seemed those of a healthy man] and ‘altre frettolose che si fermavano in una sosta lunga, spaventosa’ [other hurried breaths that ceased in a long and frightening pause] that seem to portend his death (Romanzi, 694)]. Signor Cosini’s breathing, which ‘non fu sempre uguale, ma sempre rumorosa’ [was not always regular, but was always noisy] resembles ‘un periodo musicale di una tristezza infinita, così privo di colore’ [a musical phrase devoid of colour and of an infinite sadness (Romanzi, 694)]. As he nears death, he

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becomes agitated and moves restlessly back and forth from a horizontal position in bed to a standing position, and then to the armchair in order to access the fresh air coming in from the window, which is repeatedly opened and closed at his request (Romanzi, 704). Zeno’s friend, Copler, also suffers an alteration in his breathing as he lies dying. His noisy breathing is comprised of two distinct sounds: his inhalation is hesitant, his exhalation is hurried and the intake of breath is separated from the act of exhaling by a pause (Romanzi, 881). Further reference to the infirm body can be found in Zeno’s attention to his wife’s sister, Ada. The toll Basedow’s disease takes on Ada’s beautiful face is evident. Zeno notices that her eyes are now at odds with the rest of her wan face: ‘quell’occhio [...] potei constatare subito ch’era mutato, ingrandito [...] Stonava quell’occhio grande nella faccina immiserita e scolorita’ [those eyes [...] I immediately noticed that they were changed, enlarged [...] Those large eyes clashed with her wretched and faded little face (Romanzi, 984)]. On her return from the sanatorium, Ada’s eyes have returned to their usual size, but the damage is irreparable as the precise lines of her face have been destroyed (Romanzi, 994). Moreover, her return to her normal weight has conferred an imbalance on her face as though the reacquired f lesh could not return to its former position. Her cheeks now resemble swellings (Romanzi, 994). What is evident in this portrait of infirm bodies is the attention that Svevo pays to the rhythms of ill-health.14 Sickness introduces a distinct irregularity and, in each of the cases mentioned above, Svevo underscores an organic imbalance. Signora Carolina’s cardiac defect is, in fact, a rhythmic irregularity; her heart ‘non batte regolarmente’ [does not have a regular beat (Romanzi, 261)]. This irregularity is echoed in the imbalance in her face created by the fact that one side is more swollen than the other (Romanzi, 265). Ada’s ravaged face is similarly marked by an imbalance. Describing the jarring clash between her enlarged eyes and her thin face with the verb ‘stonare’ [to clash or be out of tune] (Romanzi, 984), Svevo employs a term that, in its resonance with a musical realm, evokes a tonal discrepancy of bodily dissonance. Signor Cosini’s restless and erratic movements about his bedroom also introduce this corporeal irregularity. The correlation between infirmity and rhythmic irregularity becomes explicit in the descriptions of the breathing patterns of the dying. What Svevo underscores in each case is the variation evident in the breathing. While Amalia’s breathing passes through a distressing series of cycles (Romanzi, 626–27), both Signor Cosini’s and Copler’s breathing alternates between two distinct phases separated by a pause (Romanzi, 694, 881).15 This erratic breathing comes to represent the voice of pure materiality. It is nothing more than the insistence of a depersonalized f lesh that will not be overlooked or silenced. Moreover, the protagonists enter into a dialogue of sorts with this erratic breathing and, by extension, with corporeal materiality itself. Emilio, in fact, imitates the irregular breathing of his dying sister, and thus holds his own breath when Amalia stops breathing (Romanzi, 627). At his ailing father’s side, Zeno too duplicates the erratic panting he hears (Romanzi, 694). It is their responsiveness to the material fact of embodiment that marks Svevo’s protagonists with their own corporeal irregularity. Moreover, this is what definitively differentiates them from the supposedly healthy antagonists who move through space with a regularity and ease that lightens and

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even purges the weight of the body. In fact, this differentiation is programmatic, as each protagonist is constructed in explicit opposition to an apparently healthy antagonist. Alfonso is contrasted with the vigorous Macario who, it is repeatedly underlined, moves in society with ease or ‘disinvoltura’ (Romanzi, 42).16 In Senilità, Emilio is characterized, as indicated above, in opposition to the carnal Balli and Angiolina.17 Zeno meets his antagonist in Guido Speier, a good-looking young man with a lively twinkle in his expressive eyes and a mouth filled with perfect white teeth (Romanzi, 762).18 Health and Predatory Action These oppositions of regularity and arrhythmia constitute an integral part of Svevo’s famous reversal of conventional hierarchies of sickness and health.19 A crucial factor in this reversal is Zeno’s proximity to Augusta, who is ‘la salute personificata’ [health personified (Romanzi, 814)]. As such she lives solely in and for the present and views it as ‘una verità tangibile in cui si poteva segregarsi e starci caldi’ [a tangible truth in which one could seek refuge and warmth (Romanzi, 815)]. Yet, as Zeno analyses his wife’s vitality, her health becomes a condition which might need to be cured (Romanzi, 816). In fact, well-being is ultimately revealed to be the result of artificially imposed order. Augusta’s realm is that of hearth and home and, as domestic queen, she drives all signs of chaos from her door because ‘se anche la terra girava non occorreva mica avere il mal di mare! Tutt’altro! La terra girava, ma tutte le altre cose restavano al loro posto’ [even though the earth was turning there was no need to have sea-sickness! On the contrary! The earth turned, but everything else stayed in its place (Romanzi, 815)]. She has constructed an empire of rigid values, ranging from her wedding ring to the clothes that have a distinct meaning and must be worn appropriately for appropriate occasions and at appropriate times of the day (Romanzi, 816). Mealtime and sleep must conform to a religiously observed schedule because ‘[e]sistevano, quelle ore, e si trovavano sempre al loro posto’ [those hours existed and were always to be found in their place (Romanzi, 816)]. In its rigidity, Augusta’s health is constructed, as Saccone has pointed out, ‘sotto il segno della repressione, dell’universale alienazione’ [under the sign of repression, of universal alienation (Saccone, 1973, 162)]. Her ordered universe reveals the ‘segni inquietanti della ripetizione, dell’automatismo, della necessità: congelamento, cristallizzazione, tempo che ristagna, stasi, ovvero cancrena’ [the disquieting signs of repetition, of automatism, of necessity: congealment, crystallization, stagnant time, stasis, or gangrene (Saccone, 1973, 162)]. This repression, I would underline, is first and foremost a repression of the bodily self. In fact, Augusta’s total comfort in the present is founded on a state of self-oblivion that forgets the material body that, in its health, is as if dematerialized. Zeno realizes that she and all those who enjoy health remain utterly ignorant of their condition because ‘[l]a salute non analizza se stessa e neppur si guarda nello specchio. Solo noi malati sappiamo qualche cosa di noi stessi’ [health does not analyse itself, nor does it look at itself in the mirror. Only we sick ones know something about ourselves (Romanzi, 821)]. In Una vita the same point is made and is more explicitly associated with the workings of the body

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when Alfonso alludes to the self-oblivion spawned by the healthy f low of blood: ‘era cosa dolce questa vita quando il f luire del sangue, il macchinismo su cui essa riposava, per la sua regolarità non si sentiva e si aveva la calma e la certezza di vivere, il sentimento di durare eternamente’ [life was sweet when the circulation of blood, the mechanism on which life depended, was so regular that it was not felt and one enjoyed the calm certainty of living, the feeling of being eternal (Romanzi, 307)]. Svevo’s theorization of health is programmatically elaborated in an essay entitled, ‘La corruzione dell’anima’ [The Corruption of the Soul].20 Svevo writes that God endowed all creatures with a soul so that they might continue the creative process initiated by genesis. However, the soul constituted a heavy burden. Nonetheless, the animals adapted to their environment by growing ‘potenti organi d’offesa, zanne, artigli e corna’ [powerful organs of defence such as fangs, claws or horns] or by learning to f ly or move speedily over ground ‘per assaltare o per difendersi’ [to attack or to defend themselves (Svevo, 1968, 641–42)].21 Because, Svevo writes, the organ that is perfectly adapted to life can no longer ‘lasciarsi dirigere dall’anima’ [allow itself to be guided by the soul], these beasts ultimately cast off the soul and the ‘malcontento’ or discontent that it generated (Svevo, 1968, 642). Thus, the beast arrives at an evolutionary end, and remains ‘identico a se stesso definitivamente cristallizzato’ [self-identical and definitively crystallized (Svevo, 1968, 641)]. In this portrait of animal adaptation Svevo underscores a prioritization of targeted action that, extending beyond the borders of the body, transforms or exploits the external world in the service of the needs of the animal. In growing fangs, claws and the like, the animal becomes capable of dominating his world. Moreover, the animal moves rapidly over ground with the specified function of attack or self-defence. This is a regime of bodily action that, in instrumentalizing the body’s abilities, moves outward beyond the uncomfortable weight of materiality to move insubstantially through the chains of causality initiated by action. As such, it suppresses or silences materiality by privileging the rationalized consequences of action over the bodily abilities themselves. This rationalizing model of directed bodily action is that which defines many of Svevo’s apparently healthy antagonists. Indeed, Macario, antagonist to Alfonso Nitti, becomes the epitome of a social implementation of animalistic action.22 His elegant body, always poised to seize on his prey when necessary, is paralleled with that of the animal when he ref lects on the seagulls whose ‘volo calmo e regolare’ [calm and regular f light] epitomizes a model of predatory action that belongs to the order of nature (Romanzi, 110). Macario establishes a type of permanent and ‘natural’ hierarchy when he insists that he who is born without the ability to pounce on his prey ‘non lo imparerà giammai e inutilmente starà a guardare come fanno gli altri, non li saprà imitare’ [will never learn it and he will uselessly watch others, he will never be able to imitate them (Romanzi, 110)]. Predatory action also defines Stefano Balli’s artistic activity. His aforementioned ideal of spontaneity and roughness barely masks an attempt to cleanse his own artistic ego of the inf luence of others. He strives to attain a ‘perspicuità di idea da cui credeva dovesse risultare il suo “io” artistico depurato da tutto ciò ch’era idea o forma altrui’ [conceptual perspicuity from which he felt his own artistic ‘I’ should emerge purified of all

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those ideas and forms that came from others (Romanzi, 422)]. In effect, his credo ref lects less an innovative spirit than a determined refusal to belong to an artistic collectivity. The predatory force of his art becomes explicit when he sculpts Angiolina. In forcing her to submit to the frozen form of sculpture, his activity becomes a literal domination of her body. Giuliana Minghelli, in fact, describes a ‘living Angiolina’ who ‘under the weight of the idea, kneels down, encased in dead matter like an obedient thing’ (Minghelli, 106, emphasis in original). Drawing on the image of a sculpted head that appears as a ‘teschio coperto accuratamente di terra acciocché non gridi’ [skull covered by earth to prevent it shouting (Romanzi, 572)], Minghelli identifies a silently screaming statue that ‘finds a voice in the dying Amalia’ who, in death, is also ‘sublimated into an aesthetic experience’ (Minghelli, 108). This parallel with Amalia is deeply significant. In identifying the body of Angiolina with the raw and literally naked materiality of the dying Amalia, Svevo suggests a bodily objectification of these women now contrasted with a male corporeal activity that, as Saccone highlights, is nothing other than a ‘quest for power’ (Saccone, 1977, 170).23 Svevian Bodies of Temporal Rupture and Waiting Svevo contrasts his model of predatory animal action with a human existence defined by a discontented soul. As such, man is wretched and imperfect, but his soul compels him to look to the future: ‘l’oggi doloroso s’illuminava della dimane incerta, imprecisabile ma luminosa di speranza’ [the painful present is illuminated by the uncertain tomorrow that is indefinite but luminous with hope (Svevo, 1968, 642)]. This painful discontent is, for Svevo, a higher form of life unknown to the animal.24 Despite this, man himself does not always grasp the merit of his discontent and seeks mistakenly to ameliorate his plight. In ‘L’uomo e la teoria darwiniana’ [Man and Darwinian Theory], we read the evolutionary fable of a humanity who, terrified by the savagery of the world, voluntarily enters the service of the mammoth whose ‘grossa pancia [...] faceva da scudo’ [large belly [...] served as a shield] for the human (Svevo, 1968, 639). This relationship produced a degree of security for man and an occasional backscratch for the mammoth, and so the pair dwelled together.25 Yet this situation had a stultifying effect on man who, in the shade of the mammoth, began constructing his ‘ordigni e questi erano tutti adatti al suo povero organismo che perciò si cristallizzò senza che da lui morisse l’anima’ [tools and these were adapted to his weak organism that, therefore, became crystallized without losing its soul (Svevo, 1968, 639)]. In short, man spawns a technological evolution outside his own organism and he pursues it ‘instancabile sempre torvo e malcontento’ [tireless, always surly and dissatisfied (Svevo, 1968, 639)].26 Svevo’s characterization of mankind’s pursuit of tools is most certainly also a critique of the devices of technological modernity. Moreover, he dismisses the value of this prosthetic evolution and describes it as an adaptation that, though ensuring success in a social struggle, is actually nothing other than an ‘arresto dello sviluppo’ [stopping of development (Svevo, 1968, 638)]. In place of this prosthetic adaptation Svevo proposes a mode of embodied being that grasps the full worth of the restlessness of human discontent. This alternative

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model of existence is grounded in the fundamental mutability embodied in the man who remains a sketch or ‘abbozzo’ and, in permanent conf lict with himself, conserves the ‘possibilità di evolversi da una parte o dall’altra’ [capacity to evolve in one direction or another (Svevo, 1968, 638)].27 Svevo identifies himself with this unfinished man and associates this identity with a temporality of waiting: ‘nella mia solitudine me ne glorio altamente e sto aspettando sapendo di non essere altro che un abbozzo’ [in my solitude I take pride in this and I wait, knowing myself to be nothing other than a sketch (Svevo, 1968, 638)]. This attitude of waiting introduces a crucial temporal rupture or suspension into reality.28 This rupture, moreover, is the place of human embodiment precisely because it contrasts, on the one hand, with an evolution in which the perfected animal organism forgets the weight of its material self in targeted action and, on the other, with a human technological evolution that instrumentalizes the limbs and takes place outside of the body. In both of these cases, the body is definitively suppressed or removed entirely from the equation. Only in the space of the inadequate, infirm and unevolved human organism that waits can embodiment be thoughtfully experienced. This embodied waiting or temporal rupture is traditionally the place of potentiality. Indeed, Agamben writes in Potentialities that the Sceptics viewed suspension as a means to experience potentiality because the ‘luminous spiral of the possible’ takes shape in the gap between Being and non-Being (Agamben, 1999, 257). Thus, in this moment of rupture the ‘presence of an absence’ (Agamben, 1999, 179) is felt as a corporeal ability not actualized but insistently present in potential. Svevo’s theorization of a human mutability founded on suspension is then to be paralleled with Agamben’s positioning of human freedom in the ‘abyss of impotentiality’ (Agamben, 1999, 182–83). We can therefore return to the bodies of Svevo’s protagonists and attempt to understand the mechanism of their arrhythmia in terms of this temporal rupture of waiting, a waiting that, I repeat, is always embodied. In representing Alfonso’s futile struggle for social success, Una vita challenges literary models in which the hero is valorized on the basis of his ability to perform transformative action or, to put it another way, to actualize his potential to manipulate and dominate his reality.29 Instead, Alfonso inhabits a domain of corporeal hypersensitivity in which intention or desire does not extend into active or predatory appropriation. Accordingly, his intact purity dreams of a feminine ideal that is a ‘dolce compagna dell’uomo nata piuttosto per essere adorata che abbracciata’ [sweet companion of man born to be adored rather than embraced (Romanzi, 78)]. In a similar manner, his ethical ideal is not of social or economic success but, rather, one of intellectual pursuit.30 He is, in fact, pleased when Macario tells him that, lacking the ability to seize mercilessly on his prey, his wings are made only for ‘voli poetici’ [poetic f lights (Romanzi, 111)]. He takes pride in his apparent immunity to the mundane struggles for money and honour that feature in the lives of those that he deems active (Romanzi, 232). Instead, he recalls the pleasure felt on hearing Macario’s diagnosis of his inability to move beyond poetic f lights: ‘gli aveva detto che lo riteneva incapace di lottare e di afferrare la preda, ed egli di questo rimprovero s’era gloriato come di una lode’ [he had said that he saw him as being incapable of fighting and seizing the prey,

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and he had been as proud of this rebuke as if it had been praise (Romanzi, 232)]. However, having forced himself on Annetta, Alfonso becomes like those he had previously scorned: ‘senza resistenza egli aveva avuto i loro stessi desiderî, adottato le loro armi’ [without resistance he had felt their same desires and employed their weapons (Romanzi, 233)]. Alfonso defends his romantic and literary ideals with a suicide that echoes and simultaneously distorts Schopenhauer’s renunciation of the Wille zum Leben or Will to Life, a parallel explored by many critics.31 Schopenhauer describes an attitude in which the will ‘no longer asserts its own nature ref lected in the phenomenon, but denies it’.32 Man thus ‘ceases to will anything, guards against attaching his will to anything, and seeks to consolidate in himself the greatest indifference to everything’ (Schopenhauer, 239). However, though Alfonso’s refusal to engage in the social struggle echoes Schopenhauer, it must be stated that his is not the selfdenial advanced by the philosopher but is, instead, a narcissistic self-affirmation: ‘la sua superiorità era stata dimostrata precisamente dalla sua rinunzia’ [his superiority had been made evident precisely by his renunciation (Romanzi, 247)].33 Moreover, Schopenhauer in no way advocates self-annihilation as a means of self-denial; such a negation of the individual is actually an affirmation of the will because suicide ‘far from being a denial of the will, is a phenomenon of the will’s strong affirmation; for the essence of negation lies in shunning not life’s sufferings, but its pleasures’ (Schopenhauer, 250–51). In short, suicide articulates a frustration with the conditions of a particular life. Nonetheless, Alfonso’s suicide remains a radical affirmation of sorts. Moreover, his sustained ‘inettitudine’ or ineptitude ref lects a wilful choice that resonates with a philosophy of waiting.34 Alfonso refuses to exploit his regretted coercion of Annetta and chooses instead to return to his village, where he is anchored to the material body of his dying mother and, subsequently, his own body of potentiality. This return to the space of self-conscious material embodiment underpins his unequivocal condemnation of a reality dominated, on the one hand, by Darwinian models of predatory action and, on the other, a capitalist rationalization of bodies. Despite this rejection of the embodiment of social and industrial modernity, he does not yet imagine, as Zeno will, a mode of being that might embrace the essential tension of human embodiment. His own restless human body is, he believes, irrevocably tainted by the regular rhythms of an organism compelled to appropriate or dominate. Accordingly, he silences his f lesh: ‘[b]isognava distruggere quell’organismo che non conosceva la pace; vivo avrebbe continuato a trascinarlo nella lotta perché era fatto a quello scopo’ [he had to destroy that organism that could not know peace. If it lived it would continue to drag him into the struggle because it was made for that objective (Romanzi, 402)]. Emilio Brentani’s literary dreams of love partake more overtly of the dynamic of waiting. He is, in fact, described in the opening pages of the novel in terms of his anticipatory attitude. He lives for the ‘futuro sempre in aspettativa’ [future always in expectation (Romanzi, 416)] and imagines himself as a brilliant machine that is ‘in costruzione, non ancora in attività’ [under construction, not yet in activity (Romanzi, 416)]. Moreover, he experiences his existence as peace or, more significantly, as pause (Romanzi, 417). As such, his mode of being is one of oniric

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potentiality, the very heart of his senility.35 This oniric senility is what bolsters his literary creation of Ange: ‘era sua invenzione, se l’era creata lui con uno sforzo voluto; essa non aveva collaborato a questa creazione’ [was his invention, he had created her with a deliberate effort. She had not collaborated in this creation (Romanzi, 450)]. Like Alfonso, his eventual and aggressive sexual possession of the loved woman generates tension and ultimately threatens his space of dreaming. While the ‘maschio in lui’ [man in him] is satisfied, Emilio realizes that he has possessed not the woman of his romantic dreams but a woman he hates (Romanzi, 546). Though Balli approves of his masculine action and tells him that he has now been ‘guarito’ or cured, the danger of Emilio’s action is evident in his claim that he will dream no more (Romanzi, 547). Despite this resolution, Emilio ultimately returns to his infirm dreaming. Indeed, the novel concludes as Emilio finally ends his relationship with the real Angiolina, a sexually exploitative woman who would never have reached the great heights of his amorous ideal. This renunciation is not an acknowledgement that Emilio’s dream must remain just that. Rather, it becomes an affirmation of his dream of sweetness. Indeed, in his senility, Emilio fuses the beauty of Ange with the character of Amalia to create a ‘simbolo alto magnifico’ [lofty and magnificent symbol] that concretizes ‘il sogno ch’egli una volta aveva fatto accanto ad Angiolina e che la figlia del popolo non aveva compreso’ [the dream that he had once dreamed beside Angiolina and which the daughter of the people had not understood (Romanzi, 637)]. Here, in this space of senility, Emilio imagines a space beyond action and he dwells in anticipatory waiting, a waiting that, in its openness to potentiality, proves to be far more vitally malleable than the sexualized carnality of Angiolina or the deceptive spontaneity of Balli.36 As the oldest of the three Svevian protagonists, Zeno successfully negotiates a material embodiment that allows him to embrace openly the principle of restless malleability only whispered by Alfonso and Emilio.37 Zeno’s age places him in a space of freedom that Claudio Magris describes as the ‘libertà dall’obbligo di attestare a se stessi e agli altri il proprio valore, la propria capacità e vitalità’ [freedom from the obligation to attest to oneself and to others one’s own worth, one’s own capacities and vitality].38 The old man is entitled to ‘portare apertamente la propria sconfitta e di trincerarsi dietro l’emarginazione vitale’ [wear openly his own defeat and to entrench himself behind his vital marginalization (Magris, 1984, 198)]. It is, thus, old age that allows Zeno to inhabit fully and consciously the space of temporal rupture or embodied potentiality as he becomes the epitome of the human sketch or man who waits. This necessitates a programmatic reconfiguration that, opening subjectivity to a dynamic of process, also implicates the mechanisms of Zeno’s desire and his infamous struggle with nicotine. Zeno acquires his nicotine vice at a young age and repeatedly pushes himself to the brink of nausea by smoking the cigarettes and half cigars left around by his father. At the age of twenty he falls ill and is instructed by the doctor to abstain completely from smoking. Abstinence proves impossible as the doctor insists that it be ‘absolute’, a word that horrifies Zeno: ‘Ricordo questa parola assoluta! Mi ferì e la febbre la colorì: un vuoto grande e niente per resistere all’enorme pressione che subito si produce intorno ad un vuoto’ [I remember this word absolute! It hurt me

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and my fever added to this: a large void and nothing to help me resist the enormous pressure immediately produced around a void (Romanzi, 655–56)]. Needless to say, he is compelled to light another ‘last cigarette’. In fact, Zeno smokes, over and over again, his infamous last cigarette and he decorates his possessions with the date of this momentous occasion.39 Indeed, Zeno’s endlessly repeated last cigarette, the repeated decision to renounce his vice and the search for the numerically perfect date on which to stop smoking, introduce a further arrhythmia into the novel in the form of the incessant disjunction of the stop and the restart. On the verge of renouncing nicotine, Zeno smokes cigarettes that are more intense because they taste (repeatedly) of victory over oneself and of health (Romanzi, 658). Yet carrying out the resolution to renounce smoking would be disastrous, since other cigarettes, the less intense ones, must also be smoked because ‘accendendole si protesta la propria libertà e il futuro di forza e di salute permane, ma va un po’ più lontano’ [in lighting them one professes one’s liberty and the future of strength and health remains but moves a little further away (Romanzi, 658)]. What is described in this convincing logic is the abrupt reversal of values at the heart of the Svevian universe: the taste of victory over nicotine is equated with victoriously actualized action, but freedom is to be found in the smoking section. Assigning a ‘contenuto filosofico alla malattia dell’ultima sigaretta’ [philosophical content to the sickness of the last cigarette], Zeno explains that, in order to preserve the ‘bellissimo atteggiamento’ [beautiful attitude] implied in the renunciation, the ‘mai più’ or never again, the resolution must be constantly renewed: ‘dove va l’atteggiamento se si tiene la promessa? L’atteggiamento non è possibile di averlo che quando si deve rinnovare il proposito’ [where does that attitude go if the promise is maintained? One can only maintain the attitude when the resolution is renewed (Romanzi, 659)]. What Zeno describes is an imperative to remain in the embodied space of potentiality. He refuses to act or to carry through with his resolution precisely because he fears a consequent dispersal of his corporeal ability. Freedom, therefore, resides with a smoker who playfully and consciously actualizes his impotentiality and, without invoking discourses of inability, anchors all intention or will to the body. This is also the space of dreaming, which, in its spatial configuration, recalls my earlier discussion of action and suggests a parallel with the contrasting regimes of bodily action. The smoker, Svevo writes, is a ‘sognatore’ or dreamer who, like all of Svevo’s protagonists, moves in an open space that is without hierarchical or symmetrical organization as the dream itself ‘porta lontano e non in linea retta’ [carries us far and not in a straight line (Svevo, 1968, 621)]. The non-dreamer moves, in contrast, through a space that is more ‘ristretto e simmetrico’ [restricted and symmetrical (Svevo, 1968, 621)]. While the symmetrical space of the non-dreamer is also the space of directed action, the non-linear movement of the dreaming smoker opposes the rationalized directionality of an action that moves outward towards a defined objective. In short, we are irrevocably drawn back to a body of pure potentiality. The spatial configuration associated with the smoking dreamer anticipates Deleuze and Guattari’s extended theorization of de-hierarchized bodies in perpetual movement.40 This is the ‘body without organs’ that, ‘opposed less to organs as such than to the organization of the organs’,41 mirrors the unpredictable

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movements that characterize the game of Go. Deleuze and Guattari contrast the ‘open space’ of Go with the ‘closed space’ and ‘institutionalized, regulated, coded war, with a front, a rear’ that define chess, which is, after all, a ‘game of State’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, 352–53). While Chess involves movement from one point to another, Go, a ‘war without battle lines’, embodies perpetual movement that is ‘without aim or destination, without departure or arrival’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, 353). This absolute and aimless movement resonates powerfully with the protagonists’ erratic movements with which I opened this chapter. This, I repeat, is a movement in which material embodiment asserts itself as insistently conscious experience and, as such, negates the ideological or ethical value of targeted bodily action that suppresses the voice of the organism. The material body, then, is what speaks in Zeno’s construction of a subjectivity moulded and remoulded by the current of embodied experience. This is quite explicitly a subjectivity of process rather than telos and, as such, it stands in opposition to the self-same subject housed in a body valorized in light of its action. It is precisely this open process that Zeno opposes to the coherence of the subject of psychoanalysis, a discipline he describes as a ‘sciocca illusione, un trucco buono per commovere qualche vecchia donna isterica’ [a silly delusion, a good trick for affecting hysterical old ladies (Romanzi, 1080)]. He ridicules Doctor S.’s diagnosis of the famous Freudian Oedipal complex, despite the fact that he is perhaps pleased that this condition elevates him to the highest nobility (Romanzi, 1080). Yet, he ultimately rejects this stabilizing diagnosis on the grounds of the doctor’s preposterously reductive efforts to ‘aggruppare tutti i fenomeni di questo mondo intorno alla sua grande, nuova teoria’ [gather all the phenomena of this world around his great, new theory (Romanzi, 1080)]. Once again, Svevo’s critique anticipates Deleuze and Guattari’s thought and, in particular, their denunciation of the Oedipal triangle of the ‘holy family’ of psychoanalysis.42 Revisiting the case of the Wolf-man, Deleuze and Guattari echo Zeno as they identify in Freud’s desire to assimilate all phenomena to the narrative of Oedipus a ‘reductive glee’ that fails to entertain the multiplicity of an unconscious conceived in terms of the wolf-pack (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, 28). For Deleuze and Guattari, the unconscious is a desiring-machine that establishes connective syntheses in order to create a non-hierarchical rhizomatic network based not on the arborescent model of branches spreading in a linear fashion from the roots but, rather, on the model of a burrow that connects indiscriminately (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, 7). No longer the fixed central point of a circle, this schizoid subject dwells ‘on the periphery, with no fixed identity, forever decentered, defined by the states through which it passes’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1983, 20). A new mode of individuation emerges as the subject becomes an embodied event ‘inseparable from an hour, a season, an atmosphere, an air, a life’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, 262). Similarly, Zeno describes the expected trajectory of the life of a young bourgeois man by paralleling this life to the changeability of a wave that ‘dacché si forma, muta ad ogni istante, finché non muore’ [from the time it forms, it changes at every moment until it dies (Romanzi, 711)]. Beside this narrative development, Zeno writes that his own life produced ‘una nota sola senz’alcun

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variazione, abbastanza alta e che taluni m’invidiano, ma orribilmente tediosa’ [a single note without variation, fairly high and envied by some, but awfully tedious (Romanzi, 711)]. However, this single note is one of an incessant unpredictability with respect to the conventional bourgeois narrative that posits a linear development driven forward by action. Zeno’s unpredictability even allows Augusta to exclaim: ‘[c]on te non ci si può mai annoiare. Sei ogni giorno un uomo nuovo’ [with you it is impossible to get bored. You are a new man every day (Romanzi, 936)]. Like Deleuze and Guattari’s schizoid subject ‘defined by the states through which it passes’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1983, 20), Zeno’s subjectivity resembles a chain of embodied moments or of last cigarettes that reiterate the potentiality of the body. As he sits on the banks of the river Isonzo, Zeno meditates on the variable water: ‘[s]i sta fermi e l’acqua corrente fornisce lo svago che occorre perché non è uguale a se stessa nel colore e nel disegno neppure per un attimo’ [one is still and the running water provides the necessary diversion because it is never self same in colour or in design, not even for a moment (Romanzi, 1097)]. It is in the wake of these watery meditations that Zeno fully embraces his open identity: ‘seppi sorridere alla mia vita ed anche alla mia malattia. [...] E rivedendo la mia vita e anche la mia malattia le amai, le intesi!’ [I understood how to smile at my life and at my sickness [...] And reviewing my life and my sickness, I loved them and I understood them! (Romanzi, 1097)]. This, in fact, is the moment in which Zeno is finally cured. As he embraces the magnitude of his claim that illness is a mental conviction with which he was born (Romanzi, 659), he can paradoxically acknowledge his own abundance of health: ‘Io sono sano, assolutamente. [...] Io soffro bensì di certi dolori, ma mancano d’importanza nella mia grande salute’ [I am healthy, absolutely [...] I do suffer from certain aches but they are insignificant in the face of my great health (Romanzi, 1114)]. This health is, of course, not literal but is, rather, a life lived in embodied temporal rupture where action is constantly deferred. He writes that he has returned to his sweet habits and the ambiguity of the sentence also suggests that he has been successful in his efforts to give up smoking: ‘Sono riuscito finalmente di ritornare alle mie dolci abitudini, e a cessar di fumare’ [I have finally succeeded in returning to my sweet habits, and to giving up smoking (Romanzi, 1096)]. However, Svevo’s unconventional use of the preposition ‘di’ after the verb ‘riuscire’ reveals that, in actual fact, Zeno has not given up smoking, but has successfully returned to giving up smoking.43 Only by repeating his resolution can he live a potentiality that is always the space of embodiment. Zeno’s embodied being is also manifest in a desire that, in turning on the principle of suspension, draws us, once again, toward questions of potentiality and of bodily action. Magris identifies this mechanism of suspension and, locating old age in a pure present, he describes a vibrant open space that operates a ‘corrosione anarchica di ogni organizzazione’ [an anarchic corrosion of all organization] which culminates not in actualization but in possibility (Magris, 1984, 202). Staying with Magris, we read his diagnosis of a ‘continua tensione sempre aperta’ [continuous and always open tension] maintained by a refusal of synthesis (Magris, 1984, 202–03).44 Indeed, to declare that Zeno is not certain as to what he desires is to state the obvious. From his professional choices to his pursuit of a wife, he

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wavers between possibilities. Unsure whether he should pursue a career in law or chemistry, Zeno vacillates between the two schools. In his quest for marital love, he proposes to three women in one evening. Although his preference was for the first of these three women, he actually marries the third and comes to love her deeply. However, despite this marital bliss, he takes a lover, Carla. Desire is central to the character of Zeno, although the object of his desire seems to be irrelevant. Indeed, Saccone discerns a fear of aphanisis or being without desire (Saccone, 1973, 109).45 In fact, Zeno fears that psychoanalysis will have ‘cured’ him of his sexual desire: ‘forse dacché avevo abbandonata la cura, io non avevo ricercata la compagnia di altre donne. Che fossi stato guarito come il dottor S. pretende?’ [maybe since I had abandoned the treatment, I had not sought out the company of other women. What if I was cured as Doctor S. claims? (Romanzi, 1098)]. This thought terrifies the protagonist because, old as he is, if cured, all his contact with the female world would come to an end (Romanzi, 1098)]. Zeno is happy to discover that he is still capable of desire when he encounters Teresa and, in pursuit of desire itself, he plays at seducing the young girl. Having given her an amount of money, he turns his affections to her donkey who responds with a loud bray: ‘[r]itornai all’asinello e gli diedi un bacio sulla testa. La mia affettuosità provocò la sua. Allungò il muso ed emise il suo grande grido d’amore che io ascoltai sempre con rispetto’ [I returned to the donkey and gave him a kiss on the head. My affection prompted his. He extended his muzzle and emitted his great cry of love to which I listened with respect (Romanzi, 1100)]. Zeno is delighted to learn that his desire is alive and well: ‘Grazie al cielo non ero guarito ancora! Avevo cessata la cura in tempo’ [Thank heaven I was not yet cured! I had stopped the treatment in time (Romanzi, 1100)]. More important again is the repeated deferral of satisfaction that characterizes Zeno’s dynamic of desire.46 Throughout his life, his desire had been intemperate. As he explains to the doctor who administers the electric shock treatment, he desires all women with a hunger that makes life miserable: ‘Una non mi bastava e molte neppure. Le desideravo tutte!’ [One woman was never enough for me and not even many women. I wanted them all! (Romanzi, 661)]. However, though his desire encompasses all women, it does so in a manner that fragments the desired woman as Zeno is attracted by the individual parts of the female body. He likes feet, necks and slight bosoms (Romanzi, 662). This fragmentation of the object of desire leads Zeno to characterize his desire as unhealthy, a condition he associates with the poisonous nicotine that continues to course through his veins. Healthy love, Zeno insists, is that which embraces the entire woman including her character and intelligence (Romanzi, 662). What emerges clearly here is the question of satisfaction or pleasure, the logical consequence of acting on one’s desire. The healthy person achieves satisfaction because his or her craving has a clearly defined and whole object which he or she appropriates. Unhealthy desire, on the other hand, becomes an exercise in deferral. In severing itself from satisfaction, Zeno’s desire comes to resemble what Deleuze and Guattari theorize as the masochist’s efforts to ‘untie the pseudobond between desire and pleasure’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, 155). Freed from the interruption introduced by satisfaction, desire becomes an open process and, as such, permanently disrupts a more orthodox psychoanalytical concept of

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a desire structured on lack. Indeed, while psychoanalysis might tell us that we desire what we lack, Zeno affirms desire as a space accentuated or heightened by deferral. Magris identifies a suspension between wife and lover, health and sickness, between smoking and detoxification, between the concrete or existing fact and the undefined imaginary by means of which Zeno and Svevo’s other older protagonists refuse to choose so that they do not lose the opposing elements. For Magris, this philosophy of indecisive deferral constitutes a resistance to the ‘appiattimento delle molteplici potenzialità vitali nell’universo razionalizzato’ [levelling of multiple vital potentialities in the rationalized universe (Magris, 1984, 203)]. This deferral or suspension is, I repeat, the space of corporeal potentiality. If, as I have suggested, satisfaction derives from an action that extends outward into an appropriation of the desired object, then suspension again posits the corporeal ability as potential. Desire persists. As such, the sensual body remains firmly in focus and is underscored as the site of human experience. Embodied Music This is the wisdom that allows Zeno to embrace an embodied life and, moreover, to propose a model of culture that contrasts the immanence of an embodied modernist aesthetic with the abstract or transcendent stability of the canon. Zeno’s embodied culture is most evident in his violin playing, where the presence of the material body is highlighted by means of the category of infirmity.47 Zeno directly associates the categories of health and music by declaring that success in both areas is impossible for him. Though he knows that he is possessed of a lofty musical sensibility, it is that same sensibility that compels him to acknowledge that he will never succeed in playing his violin ‘in modo da dar piacere a chi m’ascolta’ [in a way that will please those who listen to me (Romanzi, 769)]. Nonetheless, despite his impediments, he persists because his musical pursuits echo his quest for health: ‘Io potrei sonare bene se non fossi malato, e corro dietro alla salute anche quando studio l’equilibrio sulle quattro corde’ [I would be able to play well if I were not sick, and I pursue health even when I study equilibrium on the four strings (Romanzi, 769)]. In linking the shortcomings of Zeno’s musicianship to the question of organic equilibrium, Svevo foregrounds a discussion of regular metre as his protagonist’s arrhythmic gait limps once again into view. Playing the violin isolates the problem at the core of Zeno’s physical problems, namely a paralysis that haunts his music in the form of an erratic tempo (Romanzi, 769). Zeno explains that, while even the average person can transition with ‘esattezza ritmica’ [rhythmic accuracy] from one rhythmical pattern to another, he remains stuck on the first rhythm which then deforms the subsequent metrical pattern (Romanzi, 769–70). For this reason, he is obliged to stamp the rhythm with his feet and with his head as he plays the violin. The impact on his performance is disastrous: ‘[p]er mettere al posto giusto le note, io devo battermi il tempo coi piedi e con la testa, ma addio disinvoltura, addio serenità, addio musica’ [in order to render the notes correctly, I have to beat time with my feet and with my head, but goodbye nonchalance, goodbye serenity and goodbye music (Romanzi, 770)]. He imagines the perfect union of rhythm and music produced by an organism

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in equilibrium and knows that when he can play in this manner, he will be cured (Romanzi, 770). Zeno’s rival in love, Guido Speier, can of course produce this perfect union of music and rhythmic regularity. On listening to Guido’s rendition of Bach’s Chaconne, Zeno consoles himself with the thought that all one needs in order to play at Guido’s level of disciplined excellence is an ‘organismo ritmico, una mano sicura e una capacità di imitazione’ [rhythmic organism, a steady hand and a capacity for imitation (Romanzi, 784)]. In Zeno’s jealous mind, his rival embodies the great Bach in person (Romanzi, 783) and his music is magnificent: ‘né prima né poi, arrivai a sentire a quel modo la bellezza di quella musica nata su quelle quattro corde come un angelo di Michelangelo in un blocco di marmo’ [neither before nor since have I heard in that way the beauty of that music born on the four strings like one of Michelangelo’s angels from a block of marble (Romanzi, 783)]. This reference to sculpture surely recalls the predatory action of Stefano Balli as he forces Angiolina’s body into the frozen form of clay. Indeed, though envious of Guido’s abilities, Zeno also denounces the deceptive nature of his brother-in-law’s music: ‘[i]l violino è una sirena e si può far piangere con esso anche senz’avere il cuore di un eroe!’ [the violin is a siren and one can induce tears with it without possessing the heart of a hero! (Romanzi, 783)]. It is this claim that leads Sergio Finzi to argue that Svevo deliberately establishes two separate musical realms, one built around Guido’s ‘musica intonata’ [in-tune music] and the other constructed on Zeno’s ‘musica stonata’ [out-of-tune music].48 Guido’s musicality acquires a markedly negative valence as it comes to exemplify an illusory escapism, which Finzi describes as an unreality for him who plays and a deception for him who listens (Finzi, Aut Aut 52, 269). Zeno’s music, on the other hand, possesses none of these seductive qualities and introduces, instead, the ‘ritmo pieno e inarrestabile della realtà’ [full and unstoppable rhythm of reality (Finzi, Aut Aut 52, 266)]. Finzi elaborates his point with reference to Svevo’s representation of Emilio and Amalia’s evening at the opera where they attend a performance of Wagner’s Valkyrie. He describes Wagner’s art as one in which the particulars form an aesthetically transcendent sphere that contrasts with a Svevian art characterized by the ‘predominio dei particolari e la mancanza di una trascendenza formale universalistica’ [predominance of the particular and the lack of a formal universal transcendence (Finzi, Aut Aut 52, 267)]. While, for Finzi, this constitutes the author’s intentional injection of the measure of the present into his work, we might contrast this transcendent musical experience with an immanent aesthetic rooted firmly in the experience of the body. As such, I would suggest that Svevo proposes a reconsideration of an aesthetic and cultural dimension and, to repeat Danius, takes his place in a modernism conceived as a ‘gravitation toward a conception of aesthetic experience based in a notion of the immanence of the body’ (Danius, 194). In light of this suggestion, Zeno becomes far more than just a bad violinist. He is more specifically a musician who pushes music beyond a transcendent or abstract canon by inserting the arrhythmic body within canonical form. In challenging the formality of art music, Zeno establishes a more than superficial connection with momentous developments in the musical world contemporary to his author. The twentieth century proved fiercely innovative for the theory and

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practice of art music. Traditionally, western art music revolved around the stability of the tonic or ‘home’ key, its tonal centre. Modulation to prescribed related keys was permitted and, over the centuries, the range of accepted modulations was progressively expanded to include many possibilities which might not have existed as realistic possibilities for earlier composers. Yet, despite these often significant advances, music remained connected to its tonal centre. On the whole, twentiethcentury art music forced the frontiers of tonality, proposing musical practices that release musical compositions from a central anchoring point. The increasingly sustained modulation evident in the work of nineteenth-century composers such as Richard Wagner and Gustav Mahler marked a conspicuous movement away from a tonal stability which, in the first decades of the twentieth century, would culminate in the atonality of Arnold Schoenberg’s twelve-tone scale, total serialism as manifested in some of the works of Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen and, ultimately, aleatory music as proposed by such composers as John Cage. While Zeno practised his erratic violin, western art music was being transformed. In Paris, Claude Debussy experimented with the tone and texture of music through harmonic sequence and the whole tone scale, while the nationalistic music of Eastern Europe spawned composers such as Béla Bartók who delved into the rhythms and melodies of folk music. In Vienna, Schoenberg was moving through an arc that went from atonality through anarchic dodecaphony to serial dodecaphony. The phase of development leading up to the 1921 publication of his Twelve Note System of Composition escapes the systematic order of serial dodecaphony and thus has been described as his ‘phase of unlimited anarchy and liberty’.49 It is a parallel musical anarchy that informs Zeno’s musicianship, engaged as he is in a process that challenges the formal and rhythmic regularity of the musical canon. His limping organism introduces a suggestion of the syncopation characteristic of jazz and the unpredictability of his rhythm that, rendered all the more obvious by his attempts to beat a steady rhythm with his foot, foreshadows the chaotic elements of chance welcomed by composers of aleatory music. This is certainly not to say that traditional western art music was nothing more than a prisonhouse of antiquated forms, but simply that Zeno posits a new embodied musicality that extends to new arrangements and rhythms. His arrhythmia insinuates a non-measured time that erodes the established duration of any given note by distorting the time values in a piece of music. Returning to Deleuze and Guattari, we find that their philosophy of immanent bodies in movement encompasses a musical dimension. Citing Pierre Boulez’s distinction between tempo and non-tempo in music, or what Boulez termed ‘pulsed’ and ‘non-pulsed’ times, they locate pulsed time in a ‘formal and functional music based on values’ and describe non-pulsed time as a ‘f loating music [...] with nothing but speeds or differences in dynamic’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, 262). Pulsed time is the time of ‘Chronos’ or ‘the time of measure that situates things and persons, develops a form’, while non-pulsed time falls under ‘Aeon’, or the ‘time of the pure event or of becoming, which articulates relative speeds and slownesses independently of the chronometric or chronological values’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, 262–63). Zeno’s unwittingly non-pulsed time of the arrhythmic body, then,

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challenges the formal aspects of traditional Western art music. This is certainly not to say that every bad musician contests the metrical form of music, but that, within the context of Svevo’s novel, we can suggest that Zeno’s arrhythmic tempo mirrors the idea of the transversal which Deleuze and Guattari borrow from Boulez.50 This transversal, in non-pulsed time, is a ‘deterritorialized rhythmic block that has abandoned points, coordinates, and measure, like a drunken boat that melds with the line or draws a plane of consistency’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, 296). Thus Zeno’s artistic ineptitude constitutes a position external to the abstract organization of traditional musical form. The erratic nature of his tempo, which introduces an element of unpredictability or chance, moves his music in the direction of an experiment in aleatory music as it becomes contingent not on the extension of will or desire but, rather, on the variable workings of his arrhythmic materiality, namely, his aforementioned slight paralysis (Romanzi, 769). In this arrhythmic musical realm Zeno’s lover, Carla Gerco, assumes a significant position. Though undergoing vocal training, Carla’s musicality is erratic and Zeno is surprised to discover that her musical speaking voice deteriorates in song: ‘quando cantava, perdeva ogni musicalità. Lo sforzo l’alterava’ [when she sang, her voice lost all musicality. The effort transformed it (Romanzi, 838)]. Moreover, she proves unable to adopt an appropriate volume for her surroundings and Zeno is forced to admit that his ear suffers when she sings in an enclosed space (Romanzi, 838). However, when she speaks, she has a musical voice that caresses the syllables she utters: ‘si compiaceva di stendere le sillabe come se avesse voluto carezzare il suono che le riusciva di metterci’ [she delighted in drawing out the syllables as if she wanted to caress the sound that she lent them (Romanzi, 837)]. Even by Triestine standards, Carla’s language exhibits ‘qualcosa di straniero’ [something foreign] and has a strongly sensual quality: ‘[o]gni suo suono mi pareva d’amore’ [every sound she produced seemed to suggest love (Romanzi, 837)]. It is, Zeno informs us, the discipline of singing art music that mutilates Carla voice, a voice that is ‘tanto musicale quando la nota non le era imposta’ [so very musical when the note is not forced on it (Romanzi, 870)]. Only on hearing her performance of a halfspoken Triestine song does Zeno acknowledge that her musical talent is undeniable (Romanzi, 899). This non-canonical musicality is connected with the realm of the infirm and, by extension, with embodiment by means of a comparison between Carla and Ada’s speaking voices. The musicality of Carla’s speaking voice is placed in opposition to that of Ada when Zeno explains that Carla had ‘proprio tutt’altra pronuncia di quella di Ada’ [an entirely different pronunciation to that of Ada (Romanzi, 837)]. At the height of her health, Ada’s voice is ‘seria, aliena da ogni musicalità, un po’ più bassa di quella che si sarebbe aspettata dalla sua gentile personcina’ [solemn, remote from all musicality, a little bit deeper that one might expect given her delicate figure (Romanzi, 726)]. She speaks in a dry manner: ‘[d]iceva semplicemente, con poco colore, senz’alcun intenzione di far meravigliare o ridere’ [she spoke simply, with little colour and without any intention of provoking astonishment or laughter (Romanzi, 726)]. Only later does Zeno realize that Ada’s voice has become softer, a softness that he initially and mistakenly attributes to motherhood (Romanzi, 981).

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Zeno makes a suggestive connection between sickness and vocal softness when he describes Ada’s voice as ‘dolce o malsicura (ciò che si equivale, io credo)’ [sweet or unsteady (which is the same thing, I believe) (Romanzi, 983)]. He finally recognizes that Ada’s voice has been transformed when he sees her enlarged eyes (Romanzi, 984), a symptom of her as yet undiagnosed Basedow’s. Ada’s voice has softened precisely because she has been permitted access to the realm of embodied arrhythmia now manifest in the imbalance of her face. The connection between embodied infirmity and an alternative music is underscored by the fact that this transformation occurs at precisely the same point in the text when Ada expresses her hatred of Guido’s once-loved violin playing: ‘[c]’era una cosa che Ada specialmente odiava: Il violino di Guido. Essa sopportava i vagiti dei bambini, ma soffriva orrendamente per il suono del violino’ [there was one thing that Ada hated above all else: Guido’s violin playing. She tolerated the wailing of the children but she suffered horrendously on hearing the sound of the violin (Romanzi, 982)]. Zeno’s embodied musical realm encompasses his own arrhythmic Bach, Carla’s half-spoken Triestine song, and the sweet-voiced Ada who now prefers the sound of wailing babies to her husband’s metrically perfect violin-playing. In its implicit censure of a metrically accurate rendition of Bach, an unquestionably canonical composer whose baroque music is remarkable for its mathematical precision and contrapuntal complexity, this alternative realm also issues a challenge to the validity of a supposedly monolithic Italian cultural and linguistic canon. One of the most explicit indicators of this association is the textbook bought by Zeno in the hope that its author, Garcia, would teach Carla to ‘rendere le note solide come il metallo e dolci come l’aria’ [produce notes as solid as metal and as sweet as air (Romanzi, 846)]. Echoing Dante’s infernal coupling of Paolo and Francesca, Zeno refers to the text as the ‘Galeotto’ that brought Carla and himself together (Romanzi, 848). However, despite its role in bringing them together, the text poses serious difficulties of comprehension and fails to provide a bridge between Triestine and Tuscan. Zeno reads it in Italian and explains the content to Carla in the same language and, when this method is unsuccessful, he translates what he reads into Triestine. This, unfortunately, has no effect either, as Carla feels nothing moving within her throat (Romanzi, 848). Art music, it seems, is the property of a standard Italian and proves untranslatable. In short, it has no impact on Carla’s material body, and her throat, the bodily source of her music, is entirely unresponsive. Familiarity with Italian language and culture is a persistent concern in Svevo’s novels and one that draws us once again towards questions of embodiment. In Una vita, Alfonso’s fear of the vigorous Macario’s ease with language stems also from the protagonist’s discomfort with the Italian language.51 His knowledge of Italian is less than perfect but in the process of teaching Lucia, the daughter of his landlady, he hopes his own knowledge of the language will improve: ‘propose a Lucia di darle delle lezioni di lingua italiana. Non doveva essere disaggradevole d’imparare insegnando’ [he proposed to Lucia that he teach her Italian. It would not have been disagreeable to learn while teaching (Romanzi, 82)]. In La coscienza di Zeno, Zeno finds himself in similar difficulty with Guido Speier’s cultural grace and his ‘disinvoltura’ or nonchalance. Zeno’s rival for the affections of Ada is not

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only a fine physical specimen, but he also speaks Tuscan ‘con grande naturalezza’ [with great naturalness (Romanzi, 762)]. Zeno and Ada are, instead, condemned to their ‘dialettaccio’ [ugly dialect] (Romanzi, 762). In Senilità, Tuscan appears as a type of affectation. As he attempts to belittle Angiolina before Balli and thereby conceal his love for her, Emilio derides her supposedly irritating use of Tuscan: ‘ella toscaneggiava con affettazione e ne risultava un accento piuttosto inglese che toscano’ [she affected a Tuscan accent but what came out was more English than Tuscan (Romanzi, 442)]. The contrast between Tuscan and Triestine appears once again in the description of Balli’s playful impertinence with Angiolina. He tends to insult her, a practice she accepts with a smile. Balli had initially spoken to her in this manner in Tuscan, ‘aspirando e addolcendo’ [aspirating and softening] the insults to such an extent that they seemed like caresses (Romanzi, 480). Over time, however, he switches to ‘buon triestino’ [good Triestine] and, though the teasing becomes coarse, Angiolina fails to take offence (Romanzi, 480). Guido and Macario are repeatedly distinguished from Zeno and Alfonso respectively by the ease with which they relate to their surroundings. It is this nonchalance, this ability to forget their bodies in the moment of speaking to, moving amongst, and interacting with those that surround them that transforms these individuals into the markers of a stable standard. They are converted into the abstract norm that never knows itself precisely because it never occupies the position of the outsider, continually compelled to measure himself against the standard.52 It is for this very reason that Deleuze and Guattari claim that belonging to the category of the major is tantamount to belonging to an empty set, because the ‘majority, insofar as it is analytically included in the abstract standard, is never anybody, it is always Nobody’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, 105). It is in light of this emptiness that we might understand Svevo’s description of Angiolina’s healthy gait which, it is revealed, is not just regular but actually without rhythm: ‘[p]er riconoscerla gli sarebbe bastato oramai di vederne procedere l’ombra con quel movimento senza ritmo perché senza scosse, il procedere di un corpo portato da una mano sicura’ [to recognize her he now only had to see the progress of her shadow with that movement that was without rhythm because it was without jerks, the progress of a body carried forward by a steady hand (Romanzi, 425)]. Svevo contrasts this majoritarian standard with the complexity of a Triestine culture that, felt in the throat or the body entire, is distinguished by its cultural, linguistic, and ethnic mishmash. Part of the Hapsburg Empire until long after Italian political unification, Trieste became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1918. However, what continued to characterize the port-city was its ‘identità di frontiera’ [border identity], as Magris and Angelo Ara underline in the subtitle to their study of the city.53 This marginal or border identity means that the city and surrounding environs encompass a variety of ethnic groups including Italian, Slavic and Germanic. Though the dominant dialect of the city is Venetian in origin, Italian, Slovene and German also played a role in the cultural mix. Sometimes described as a cultural crucible, Trieste seems to be anything but, as Roberto Bazlen claims when he writes that the fusion associated with the concept of the crucible never took place. Instead, Trieste remained without constant or fixed characteristics.54 Ara

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and Magris suggest a similar difficulty in defining the nature of Trieste. Beginning their study with reference to Scipio Slataper’s Il mio Carso, they focus on the author’s desire for a clearly defined identity expressed in his address to his readers beginning each time with the words ‘vorrei dirvi’ [I would like to tell you (Ara and Magris, 3)]. Slataper is entirely aware that this desire cannot and indeed should not be satisfied as the very real diversity of Trieste defies every formulation and the city remains rich in indissoluble contrasts (Ara and Magris, 3–4). Attempts to stabilize this shifting Triestine character lead only toward a reductive mythologization (Ara and Magris, 5). Italo Svevo, the pseudonym selected by Aron Ettore Schmitz, means literally ‘Italian Swabian’ and, by underlining this cultural and ethnic mishmash, the name exemplifies both the conditions of Trieste itself and the particularities of Svevo’s own background.55 Born in 1861 into a family of German-Jewish origin on his father’s side and Italian-Jewish origin on the side of his mother, Svevo’s cultural identity is, to say the least, complex.56 It is this irreducible cultural complexity that Svevo contrasts with the abstracted and supposedly monolithic Italian standard. However, it is important to clarify that Svevo does not propose a simplistic and oppositional relationship between these two registers. Instead, he inserts the one identity within the other, the marginal within the canonical, in order to destabilize and open the latter by means of his introduction of a limping embodiment. This is the cultural potential of Svevo’s definitively embodied ‘uomo in abbozzo’. Rejecting the majoritarian stability founded on the abstraction and suppression of the material body, he chooses to exist bodily as ‘seeds, crystals of becoming whose value is to trigger uncontrollable movements and deterritorializations of the mean or majority’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, 106).57 This too is the function of Svevo’s much criticized style, a style in which the limping body remains awkwardly at the forefront. Stuttering in Style The peculiarity of Svevo’s literary style accounts, in large measure, for the circuitous route he was obliged to travel to achieve critical acclaim within Italy. Indeed, it was frequently on the grounds of his purportedly bad writing that this Triestine giraffe was refused entry to the canons of Italian literature. Reviewing La coscienza di Zeno in 1923, Silvio Benco describes a style that is ‘dura e strana’ [hard and strange] and he blames Svevo’s ‘condizioni d’inferiorità rispetto alla lingua’ [status of inferiority with respect to language] on the fact that he was educated abroad and seems, therefore, ‘un po’ spaesato’ [a little out of place] in the midst of Italian authors.58 Writing in 1926, Giulio Caprin suggests that Svevo’s style represented an essentially haphazard ‘adoperare il vocabolario e la grammatica di una certa lingua’ [use of a dictionary and a grammar book of a certain language].59 In the same year, Giuseppe Ravegnani highlighted the author’s ‘stile disorientato’ [disoriented style], his ‘squilibrio’ [disequilibrium], his ‘inutili ripetizioni’ [useless repetitions] and his ‘mancanza di misura’ [lack of measure].60 Four years later, Natalino Sapegno describes a literary language that ‘soltanto a frammenti s’eleva ad un tono d’arte’ [only in fragments elevates itself to the level of art] and is ‘immediata e violenta,

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priva di distacco e di discrezione’ [immediate and violent, devoid of detachment and discretion].61 Even those who sought to defend the Triestine novelist from derision were forced to acknowledge the idiosyncrasy of his style. In 1925 Eugenio Montale embraced what he considered a ‘linguaggio antiletterario, ma fervido, essenziale, che rapisce e trasporta con sé ogni detrito’ [anti-literary language, that is fervent, essential and that snatches and carries away all debris (Montale, 1976, 77)]. In 1926 Giuseppe Prezzolini identifies the presence of Triestine dialect and even German in Svevo’s style and thus, he writes, ‘Svevo infatti non sa scrivere. Ma ha qualche cosa da dire’ [Svevo in fact does not know how to write. But he has something to say (Ghidetti, 1993, 23)]. Giacomo Debenedetti, four years later, somewhat ambiguously underscored the merits of a language that was ‘bruttissima senza dubbio’ [undoubtedly very ugly] but which gradually won the reader over until he or she came to love it despite ‘tutti gli arbitrii e le cacafonie esterne e interne’ [all the external and internal abuse and cacophony (Debenedetti, 1945, 70)]. For Debenedetti, this is a style that offers the ‘piacere di assistere al funzionamento di un utensile efficace, per quanto inelegante’ [pleasure of witnessing the functioning of an efficient tool that is nonetheless inelegant (Debenedetti, 1945, 70)]. During the years of the war Gianfranco Contini defended the ‘vitalità irrazionale’ [irrational vitality] of Svevo’s style from the well-intentioned revisions of critic Giacomo Devoto.62 Over a decade later, Arcangelo Leone De Castris identified in Svevo’s eccentric language a conscious ‘rifiuto del lezioso’ [refusal of affectation] in which each and every choice is a ‘consapevole scelta, assolutamente priva di quell’automatismo cui ogni scrittore cede qualcosa’ [conscious choice, entirely devoid of that automatism to which every author surrenders something].63 In the 1980s, Claudio Magris brought a postmodern Svevo to light, proclaiming him the ‘pioniere della frantumazione di ogni ordine e di ogni unità’ [pioneer of the shattering of every order and unity] whose language was ‘aspra e irregolare nella sua irripetibile originalità’ [rough and irregular in its unrepeatable originality (Magris, 1984, 196)]. Giuseppe Genco considered this stylistic irregularity as a ‘musica che ha come delle improvvise dissonanze’ [music affected by sudden dissonances (Genco, 1998, 210)]. Though critics might have differed with respect to the value of Svevo’s literary production, this brief cross-section reveals a general critical agreement that the author’s style is unliterary or even antiliterary and, more importantly for the purposes of this chapter, irregular or arrhythmic. What specific features account for the irregularity of what some see as Svevo’s stylistic shortcomings? Or, to put it in less judgmental tones, how would one characterize the actual lexical features and syntactic f low of his literary expression? What exactly is it that creates the feeling, to return to Giuseppe Genco for a moment, of walking on a ‘strada disseminata di buche e incagli vari’? [street scattered with various holes and obstacles (Genco, 210)].64 Critics, linguists and philologists have noted German, French and dialectal elements in Svevo’s texts.65 Some have recorded linguistic markers of various sources, from ultra-literary Tuscanisms to the nominal constructs characteristic of the French naturalists. In his study of Svevo’s writing, Flavio Catenazzi aims to provide a comprehensive description of the author’s prose from the aforementioned variety of linguistic components, through the erratic spelling, to the patterns of

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syntactic organization.66 In this last category, Catenazzi identifies the accumulation and amplification effect of the Svevian clause, obtained by the broad use of chains of synonyms, the creation of a climax effect, and figures of verbal incontinence such as repetition, with words and phrases doubled or tripled (Catenazzi, 80–82). Catenazzi also singles out repetitions of key words, which, he contends, is one of the most notable of Svevian structural mechanisms (Catenazzi, 88). Together the accumulation and amplification effect of Svevo’s sentence, the lexical hotchpotch, and an authorial attitude which Giacomo Devoto described as manifesting a lack of systematic sincerity, produce a crucial irregularity that comes to dominate the writer’s linguistic network.67 This web of unpredictability gives rise to a style that becomes radically anti-systematic as it advances through the text by fits and starts, variable in its every erratic movement. It is precisely this variability that forges a stylistic regime in which each step limps away from the smooth and regular equilibrium of the canonical systems of standardized Tuscan, toward a horizon where style embodies the open arrhythmia embraced by Zeno. Svevo’s limping language of fits and starts benefits from a further comparison with the thought of Gilles Deleuze and, in particular, with what he terms, in Essays Critical and Clinical, an authorial ‘stuttering’ of language. Deleuze begins his discussion by distinguishing between the manner of delivery attributed to a given character’s speech and the actual enactment of such a pattern in the direct speech itself. For instance, while Balzac made characters stutter in direct speech, an author such as Sacher-Masoch merely indicates the distinctive manner in which a statement is delivered (Deleuze, 1997, 107). Deleuze outlines a third possibility which is that of a stuttering author. This authorial stutter is achieved when the writer creates an ‘affective and intensive language’ in which the stutter is ‘no longer an affectation of the one who speaks’ (Deleuze, 1997, 107). The effect of a stutter depends largely on how language itself is viewed. A non-stuttering author would consider language as a ‘homogenous system in equilibrium [...] defined by constant terms and relations’ (Deleuze, 1997, 108). A stuttering author, on the other hand, sees language as a system that is in ‘perpetual disequilibrium or bifurcation’ (Deleuze, 1997, 108). Deleuze does not, then, identify or demarcate a distinct category of languages that stutter. He maintains, rather, that the difference between what he terms ‘major’ and ‘minor’ language lies in the treatment of the linguistic variables to be found in every language. In a ‘major’ treatment of language, ‘constants and constant relations’ are drawn from the variable linguistic elements, while a ‘minor’ treatment of language places the variables in ‘continuous variation’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, 103).68 Major language, like the game of chess, is a ‘language of power’ that is ‘homogenized, centralized, standardized’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, 101, 103). Minor treatments of language, on the other hand, thwart any possibility of stability by adopting procedures that place the linguistic variables in constant variation. Only if the writer embraces this minor treatment will language begin ‘to vibrate and stutter’ (Deleuze, 1997, 108). The great writers, Deleuze insists, ‘invent a minor use of the major language within which they express themselves entirely’ (Deleuze, 1997, 109). And it is by means of this minorization that they succeed in making the major language ‘take f light [...] ceaselessly placing it in a state of disequilibrium,

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making it bifurcate and vary in each of its terms, following an incessant modulation’ (Deleuze, 1997, 109). Inspired by Proust’s discussion of literary language, Deleuze insists that the writer become a ‘foreigner’ within his own language. The great writer, he elaborates, ‘carves out a nonpreexistent foreign language within his own language. He makes the language itself scream, stutter, stammer, or murmur’ (Deleuze, 1997, 110). Deleuze’s consideration of literary style allows the reader to cultivate a more thoughtful interpretation of Svevo’s ‘bad’ style. Ultimately, the Triestine author’s ‘bad writing’ should no longer be rationalized or justified on the grounds of its amusing originality within the context of Italian literature, but must, instead, be considered seriously as an Italian version of what Deleuze identifies in the awkward or uneasy styles of great modernist writers such as Kaf ka and Beckett. Svevo’s choice of an erratic Tuscan, his capricious selections from various linguistic and literary traditions, the German and French elements mingled with the already uneasy alliance of ultra-literary Tuscanisms and dialectal expressions push the frontiers of literary Italian and, in so doing, forge an amorphous reserve of linguistic sources, an idiom which seems identifiably Italian but simultaneously foreign.69 This awkward strangeness is, I would suggest, the stylistic equivalent of Zeno’s embodied music. Svevo’s Italian becomes foreign precisely because the arrhythmic movements of a limping Triestine of embodied potentiality have been inserted into the stable structures of Tuscan. Svevo’s insertion of an embodied discourse also occurs at the level of narrative organization. From Una vita to La coscienza di Zeno, the novels exhibit a progressive reduction of elements characteristic of a more traditional narrative model. Genco describes a trajectory that sees a shift from the narrative discourse of description of the external world to the exploration of the inner world (Genco, 175). Una vita and Senilità, both narrated in the third person, still present naturalist elements such as the attention to social organization, to work environments, as well as the realism and objectivity of description. However, despite early critical discussion of a naturalist Svevo, the author’s treatment of these elements merely underlines the crisis of this ideological model and its inadequacy to his literary needs.70 In thematizing the ‘impossibility of writing and living a Bildungsroman’ (Minghelli, 74), Una vita unmasks the crisis of literary models indebted to the coherence and certainty of positivism and pushes definitively toward a modernist beyond.71 In Senilità, the naturalist elements identified by Genco are further reduced.72 It is, finally, with La coscienza di Zeno that Svevo arrives at what Giulio Savelli describes as a fragmentary narrative (Savelli, 64). This fragmentation leads Jan Paul Malocsay to describe La coscienza di Zeno as a ‘succession of “pure moments” fixed in a f low of time’.73 Similarly, Zeno’s memoirs become, for Luti, an anomalous whole deliberately constructed by a process of assemblage and an almost spontaneous proliferation (Luti, 163). Svevo’s advance toward this final proliferation of pure moments brings to full fruition a new narrative temporality.74 This new regime resonates in obvious ways with Deleuze’s description of cinematic modernism as discussed in the preceding chapter. In Svevo’s texts, the classical subordination of time to movement is eclipsed

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by an absence or refusal of action. Though certainly evident in the attitudes of both Alfonso and Emilio, Zeno is most self-consciously the character who ‘shifts, [...] runs and becomes animated in vain’ (Deleuze, 1989, 3). Moreover, it is Zeno who dwells most evidently in the Deleuzian crystalline regime informed by Bergson’s subjective time or duration. Here the temporal order that dominated the dynastic novels of authors such as Balzac is replaced with a temporality in which the instant negates the possibility of continuity (Robbe-Grillet, 1989, 155).75 Zeno underscores his peculiarly subjective relationship with time: ‘il tempo, per me, non è quella cosa impensabile che non s’arresta mai. Da me, solo da me, ritorna’ [for me, time is not that unthinkable thing that never stops. To me, only to me, it returns (Romanzi, 659)]. Thus, despite the thematic organization of the chapters, Zeno makes connections freely and with little or no regard for chronology. For Zeno and, indeed Svevo, writing becomes a search for moments, for affects, for unformalized sounds as Svevo makes clear in a diary entry from 1899: ‘Io credo [...] che non c’è miglior via per arrivare a scrivere sul serio che di scribacchiare giornalmente. Si deve tentar di portare a galla dall’imo del proprio essere, ogni giorno un suono, un accento, un residuo fossile o vegetale di qualche cosa’ [I believe [...] that there is no better route to writing seriously than to scribble daily. One must try every day to bring forth from the depths of the self a sound, an accent, a fossilized or vegetable vestige of something (Svevo, 1968, 816)]. As early as 1899, this diary entry, with its insistence on the value of scribbling a little each day, suggests an openness of form, a tendency toward non-cohesion and the insistence of bodily sensation. Indeed, Svevo suggests that writing in this manner, ‘sotto l’impressione di un dato momento, del calore del cielo, del suono della voce di un proprio simile’ [under the inf luence of a given moment, of the heat of the sky, of the sound of the voice of our fellow men (Svevo, 1968, 816)] is the route to maintaining authorial sincerity. What this writing of sounds and residual glimmers suggests is the corporeal presentness and organizational incoherence of sensation and impression, a presentness and physicality that haunt even Zeno’s journeys into his past. Finzi underlines this presentness as he contrasts Proust’s and Svevo’s approaches to recollection. Driven by an overriding principle of responsibility, Svevo’s engagement with the recollected past constitutes a total participation in life in all its dimensions of past, present and future (Finzi, Aut Aut 50, 126). While Svevo creates living characters, Proust’s writing, Finzi argues, offers an irreversible temporality in which his characters have already lived and have no further possibility of salvaging the meaning of their existence (Finzi, Aut Aut 50, 126). In the pages of his diary, Svevo himself contrasts the aestheticizing work of memory with the formal imperfections of the present: ‘[u]n avvenimento è sempre grezzo, disordinato, stonato. La persona piú cara sta morendo e nello stesso tempo si sente il grido scomposto che sale dalla strada. Ciò diverrà musica intonata, grave, dolorosa nel ricordo’ [an event is always rough, disordered, out of tune. A person most dear to us is dying and at the same moment an unseemly cry is heard from the street. This will become harmonious, solemn and sorrowful music in memory (Svevo, 1968, 839)]. Memory alters, aestheticizes and even corrects that which we perceive and experience, as Svevo clarifies with the following example: ‘[g]uardate solo a quello che vi accade guardando a soli 100 passi

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di distanza un fabbro che batte l’incudine. Vedete la percossa e solo parecchi istanti appresso ne sentite il suono [...] Il ricordo corregge. Tutto esso fa dolcemente fondere’ [look only at that which occurs when watching at a distance of only 100 paces a blacksmith who hammers the anvil. You see the impact and only several moments later do you hear the sound [...] Memory corrects. It fuses everything (Svevo, 1968, 839). In the first example, the return of the verb ‘stonare’, the frequently employed musical term that informs Zeno’s hypochondriacal outlook, securely anchors the aestheticizing impulse of memory to the inauthentic and illusory. As a consequence, the f lat or out-of-tune notes belong to the immediacy of reality. This, however, is not to suggest that what Zeno writes is a true ref lection of his experience. Quite the opposite! Svevo’s texts and, in particular, Zeno’s voice incorporate the contradictions of reality not with the intent of exhaustively portraying that reality, but with the intent of injecting a defining instability into order. Though some readers have suggested that Svevo remains within the realm of a conservative modernism by virtue of a belief in the authority and curative power of the written word,76 Magris’s vision of a pioneer who destroys all order and unity seems more convincing (Magris, 1984, 196). Zeno is not cured at the close of the novel. Rather, he has learned to embrace an immanent and arrhythmic embodiment that contests regimes of transformative action and, in so doing, disrupts all doctrines and chronologies of social progress. Moreover, his writing brings him no measure of clarity but becomes instead a means by which he deliberately undermines the stability of language. Having inserted both his own and his protagonists’ embodied voices within the major Italian canon, he injects a Triestine version of the liar paradox into a majoritarian Italian with Zeno’s claim that his confession in Tuscan is a lie: Il dottore presta una fede troppo grande anche a quelle mie benedette confessioni che non vuole restituirmi perché le riveda. Dio mio! Egli non studiò che la medicina e perciò ignora che cosa significhi scrivere in italiano per noi che parliamo e non sappiamo scrivere il dialetto. Con ogni nostra parola toscana noi mentiamo! Se egli sapesse come raccontiamo con predilezione tutte le cose per le quali abbiamo pronta la frase e come evitiamo quelle che ci obbligherebbero di ricorrere al vocabolario! È proprio così che scegliamo dalla nostra vita gli episodi da notarsi. Si capisce come la nostra vita avrebbe tutt’altro aspetto se fosse detta nel nostro dialetto (Romanzi, 1081). [the doctor has too much faith in my blessed confessions which he won’t return to me so that I can revise them. My God! He only studied medicine and for this reason he has no idea what writing in Italian means for those of us who speak but cannot write our dialect. With every Tuscan word we lie! If he knew how we prefer to speak of those things for which we have the phrase ready and how we avoid those which would force us to resort to the dictionary! This is how we choose which episodes of our lives to record. Clearly our lives would seem entirely different if told in our dialect]

If Zeno lies when communicating in Italian, then he is lying about lying. Or is he perhaps telling the truth, but in Italian? The paradox cannot be resolved, and its function seems to be that of inserting a virus-like instability into the regularity of the majoritarian linguistic system.

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This process of destabilization is reinforced by the repeated exclamations of renunciation, the ‘mai più’ [never again] that is common to the three novels. While Alfonso and Emilio achieve a measure of success in their renunciation, Zeno stands firm, so to speak, in his refusal to carry through his resolution to renounce nicotine. In so doing, or not doing as the case may be, Zeno refuses to actualize the semantic content of the resolution and thus transforms his ‘mai più’ into a formula that, to return to Agamben, ‘emancipates potentiality [...] from its subordination to Being’ (Agamben, 1999, 258). This draws Zeno’s repeated resolution toward Bartleby’s formulaic ‘I would prefer not to’, which, for Deleuze, refuses to distinguish between that which it rejects and the unvolunteered term (Deleuze, 1997, 71). In so doing, this formula ‘ “disconnects” words and things, words and actions, but also speech acts and words — it severs language from all reference’ (Deleuze, 1997, 74). In a similar manner, Zeno’s resolution becomes a formula that creates a ‘stutter’ within the formalized systems of majoritarian language. His ‘mai più’ becomes Deleuze and Guattari’s ‘cutting edge of deterritorialization’ in that it ‘causes language to tend toward the limit of its elements, forms or notions, toward a near side or a beyond of language’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, 99). As such, Svevo’s operation within standard Italian can be equated with Zeno’s efforts to push the boundaries of actualized experience, to reconceive material embodiment as a means to actualize the potential both to be and to not-be, to smoke and to renounce nicotine. In this light, the Triestine author’s infamous ‘scrivere male’ comes to incarnate the arrhythmic potentiality of a restless body that insists on the cultural and epistemological value of self-conscious human embodiment. Notes to Chapter 2 1. Una vita was published in 1892 by Vram at the expense of the author. The novel had previously been presented for publication with the title ‘Un inetto’ to the publishing house Treves, where it was refused. 2. Senilità first appeared in 1898 in instalments in the Indipendente. It was published in volume form in the same year by Vram at the expense of the author. 3. La coscienza di Zeno was published in 1923 by the Bologna-based publishing house, Cappelli. 4. Svevo, Romanzi, ed. by Pietro Sarzana (Milan: Mondadori, 1985), p. 79. Further references to this text will be parenthetical. 5. Though the city is not explicitly named in the novel, references to specific street names make it clear that the urban environment is indeed that of Trieste. 6. Giuseppe Genco describes the environment of the bank as the ‘microcosmo di una struttura capitalistica che col suo ritmo lavorativo disumanizzante soffoca ogni tentativo di affermazione individuale e di operatività creativa’ [microcosm of a capitalistic structure that through its dehumanizing work rhythms suffocates all attempts at individual self-affirmation and creative efficacy, Genco, Italo Svevo: tra psicoanalisi e letteratura (Naples: Alfredo Guida, 1998), p. 34]. 7. This restless materiality resonates, of course, with Raggi’s description of the compulsive movements of the clitrophobic body discussed in the preceding chapter. 8. Saccone describes her in terms of a ‘realtà degradata, ma misteriosamente e quasi mostruosamente vitale’ [degraded reality that is mysteriously and almost monstrously vital, Saccone, Il poeta travestito: otto scritti su Svevo (Pisa: Pacini, 1977), p. 174]. 9. The fact that she taps her umbrella on the ground with every step she takes further underscores the precise regularity of her steps (Romanzi, p.16). Further references to her gait include descriptions of her ‘passo deciso’ [decisive pace (p. 569)], her ‘passo calmo’ [calm pace (p. 581)], and her ‘noto passo’ [familiar pace (p. 542)].

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10. Svevo describes the co-existence of two Emilios: ‘nel Brentani s’erano andati formando addirittura due individui che vivevano tranquilli uno accanto all’altro’ [in Brentani two individuals had formed and they lived tranquilly side by side (Romanzi, p. 443)]. 11. Balli opts instead for ‘Giolona’, an inelegant combination of ‘vocali larghe, larghe’ [broad, broad vowels] that denote, in a more satisfactory manner, Angiolina’s ‘statura da granatiere’ [tall and imposing frame (Romanzi, p. 465)]. 12. The Leopardian original is, of course, the opening line of ‘La sera del dí di festa’ and reads as follows: ‘Dolce e chiara è la notte e senza vento’ [Sweet and clear is the night, and without wind]. The lunar light that silences colour recalls Inferno I, 60 ‘là dove il sol tace’ [there where the sun is silent]. 13. Svevo’s ref lections on sickness and health constitute one of the most thoroughly scrutinized elements of his work as a whole. Critical works on the subject include: Gian-Paolo Biasin, ‘Literary Disease: from Pathology to Ontology’, MLN, 82.1 (1967), 79–102, and Biasin, Literary Diseases (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1975); Gabriella Contini, Le lettere malate di Svevo (Naples: Guida, 1979); John Freccero, ‘Zeno’s Last Cigarette’, MLN, 77.1 (1962),3–23; Giuseppe Genco’s aforementioned Italo Svevo: tra psicoanalisi e letteratura; Bruno Maier, Italo Svevo (Milan: Mursia, 1973); Giuliana Minghelli, In the Shadow of the Mammoth: Italo Svevo and the Emergence of Modernism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002); Eduardo Saccone, Commento a Zeno (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1973) and Saccone’s aforementioned Il poeta travestito: otto scritti su Svevo (1977). 14. Though Freccero focuses on configurations of subjectivity, he also identifies Svevo’s focus on the rhythms of health: ‘Authentic life, true health, is no more aware of itself than is perfect vision, perfect movement, or perfect breathing. Life is a rhythm into which one must enter [...] Like music, its whole substance is rhythm — tempo — time itself, and not the string of beads that Zeno imagines’ (Freccero, p. 14). 15. Biasin also underlines the similarity between Amalia’s final ‘panting’ and Signor Cosini’s breathing (Biasin, 1967, p. 83). 16. Macario is also a fashionable man who dresses ‘con grande accuratezza’ [with great care] and who sports, according to Francesca, the ‘più bei mustacchi della città’ [the most beautiful moustache in the city (Romanzi, p. 42)]. 17. Emilio explicitly opposes his supposed infirmity to Angiolina: ‘Era lui l’individuo strano, l’ammalato, non Angiolina’ [he was the strange one, the sick one, not Angiolina (Romanzi, p. 493)]. Saccone underlines this point: ‘l’opposizione tra Emilio e gli altri, tra Emilio e Balli, Emilio e Angiolina [...] è posta in termini di malattia e sanità, eccezione e regola’ [the opposition between Emilio and the others, between Emilio and Balli, Emilio and Angiolina [...] is put in terms of sickness and health, exception and rule (Saccone, 1977, p. 165)]. 18. Guido also has a full head of brown curly hair that contrasts with Zeno’s baldness: ‘molta parte della mia testa era stata invasa dalla fronte’ [a large part of my head had been invaded by my forehead (Romanzi, pp. 762–63)]. 19. Saccone describes this dynamic as a ‘curioso e tuttavia non infrequente rovesciamento’ [curious but not infrequent reversal (Saccone, 1973, p. 162)]. 20. Svevo wrote this essay after 1907. Renato Barilli confers a central importance on this and a second essay entitled ‘L’uomo e la teoria darwiniana’ [Man and Darwinian Theory], describing them as the ‘concentrato più intenso della poetica di Svevo, e anche il suo contributo piú maturo di “pensiero” tout court’ [most intense concentrate of Svevo’s poetics, and also his most mature theoretical contribution; La linea Svevo-Pirandello (Milan: Mondadori, 2003), p. 39]. 21. Svevo also references migration patterns and other processes of adaptation to seasonal changes (Svevo, 1968, p. 642). 22. Genco describes Macario as the ‘figura dell’animale sociale dotato di “salute,” che consuma la sua capacità di vivere nel soddisfacimento dei bisogni materiali’ [figure of the social animal gifted with ‘health’, who lives his existential capacity by satisfying his material needs (Genco, 1998), p. 34)]. 23. The context of Saccone’s discussion of power is the inf luence that Balli exerts over Emilio. He writes that Balli draws Emilio into ‘una infinita, sempre più complicata e infernale, quest for power’ [an infinite, evermore complicated and infernal, quest for power (Saccone, 1977, pp. 169–70, emphasis in original)].

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24. In relinquishing soul, animals condemned themselves to a ‘vita piú bassa, non conoscendo che l’assimilazione e la riproduzione’ [lower form of life, knowing only assimilation and reproduction (Svevo, 1968, p. 641)]. Though they came to know joy, their ability to feel compassion, one of the virtues associated with discontent, was limited to those instances in which pain was felt within their own bodies (Svevo, 1968, p. 642). 25. In her analysis of Svevo’s representation of a relation with a feminine Other, Minghelli considers this relationship in terms of a symbiosis. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s theorization of a subjectivity of becoming evidenced in the encounter between the wasp and the orchid, she characterizes the mutually transformative relationship between man and mammoth as an ‘intersubjective space for the invention of self and other, for reciprocal contamination and penetration’ (Minghelli, p. 42). Needless to say, the title of her book, In the Shadow of the Mammoth: Italo Svevo and the Emergence of Modernism, incorporates an explicit reference to this essay. 26. This construction of tools or devices is also referenced in ‘La corruzione dell’anima’. Svevo writes that, tormented by discontent, man misunderstood his own worth and, in his desire to possess all he saw, he invented tools. Once his limbs had adapted to the use of these tools they no longer maintained the potential for further evolution (Svevo, 1968, p. 642). 27. This evolutionary potential stands in explicit opposition to the body of the animal: ‘[l]a zampa del leone è un ordigno magnifico ma non potrà mai più convertirsi in un’ala e anche la scimmia che sa passare di ramo in ramo sugli alberi non potrà piú accogliere le suggestioni dell’anima di camminare eretta in un equilibrio labile’ [the paw of the lion is a magnificent device but it will never be able to convert itself into a wing, and the monkey who can leap from branch to branch will never be able to respond to the suggestions of the soul and walk erect in a tenuous equilibrium (Svevo, 1968, p. 642)]. 28. Minghelli also makes this point: ‘the “uomo in abbozzo” sets himself apart by going one step further to intensify his life and put an even higher stake on the future: he suspends time. He does not just resist successful adaptation, he puts a brake on evolution by waiting in the belief that the deferred life is a more intense life, that delayed time is a richer time’ (Minghelli, p. 29, emphasis in original). 29. Minghelli describes Alfonso as a ‘poor imitator of worn out romantic models’ (Minghelli, pp. 77–78). Citing Giancarlo Mazzacurati, Minghelli describes the novel’s opening letter as a ‘palimpsest of romantic and realist models’ that functions as a mise en abyme of Alfonso’s desire to ‘atteggiarsi ad eroe “positivo” ’ [pose as ‘positive’ hero (Mazzacurati, Forma e ideo­ logia (Naples: Liguori, 1974), p. 224, cited in Minghelli, p. 76]. Saccone describes Una vita as a ‘smascheramento e una denuncia dell’illusione, del romanticismo schopenhaueriano’ [unmask­ ing and a denunciation of illusion, of Schopenhauerian romanticism (Saccone, 1977, p. 146)]. 30. Genco argues that Alfonso represents more than just an ‘individualità, un carattere originario, unico e irripetible, essenzialmente od ontologicamente “inetto” ’ [personality, an original character, unique and unrepeatable, essentially or ontologically ‘inept’]. He is rather a representative of a role and function: ‘il ruolo dell’intellettuale e la funzione della cultura’ [the role of the intellectual and the cultural function (Genco, p. 34)]. He also sees in Alfonso the typology of an intellectual ‘disadattato, alienato, che si scopre malato di “balbuzie” ’ [unfit, alienated, who discovers himself to be aff licted with stuttering (Genco, p. 36)]. 31. Renato Barilli considers Svevo’s engagement with Schopenhauer as a pre-Freudian means of hypothesizing the presence of the unconscious (Barilli, p. 37). André Bouissy underlines the impact of Schopenhauer’s thought on Svevo’s engagement with Darwin in ‘Les fondaments idéologiques de l’œuvre d’Italo Svevo’, Revue des études italiennes, 12.3 (1966), 209–45. Luca Curti, Svevo e Schopenhauer. Rilettura di Una vita (Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 1991) offers a sustained analysis of the inf luence of Schopenhauer’s thought on Svevo. 32. Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea (London: Everyman, 1995), p. 239. 33. A similar attitude is evident several pages earlier: ‘Comprendeva e compativa le debolezze altrui e tanto più superbo andava della propria superiorità’ [he understood and sympathized with the weaknesses of others and he was even more proud of his superiority (Romanzi, p. 232)]. 34. Citing Svevo’s claim that ‘[i]o non sono buono di conquistare nulla. Io non voglio conquistare nulla. Io voglio avere e tenere senza sforzo [...] Se non posso avere e tenere senza sforzo, io

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volentieri rinunzio, senza esitazione rinunzio’ [I am not able to conquer anything. I do not want to conquer anything. I want to have and keep without effort [...] If I cannot have and keep without effort, I gladly give up (Svevo, 1968, p. 776)], Minghelli identifies a similar ‘radical refusal of the logic of struggle’ in Alfonso (Minghelli, p. 84, translation is Minghelli’s). She writes that ‘the refusal to “conquer” is not a matter of intrinsic inability, “inettitudine” [...], but rather a choice that affirms difference’ (Minghelli, pp. 84–85). 35. For Saccone Emilio’s senility is to be found ‘nell’impossibilità di aderire completamente alla sua avventura; nella sua richiesta, nel suo desiderio di altro, nel suo riservarsi ad altro, nel suo malcontento’ [in the impossibility of adhering completely to his adventure; in his request and in his desire for something other, in his preserving himself for something other, in his discontent, ‘Antonomie e correzione’, Italo Svevo tra moderno e postmoderno, ed. by Marco Bucchieri and Elio Costa (Ravenna: Longo, 1995), p. 84]. 36. Contrasting Emilio with the fundamental stasis and immobility of Balli and Angiolina’s perspectives, Saccone describes this dreaming Emilio as a ‘mostro di dinamismo, di vita e di gioventù. Emilio è caoticamente e inguaribilmente speranzoso, incorreggibilmente sognatore’ [monster of dynamism, of life and of youth. Emilio is chaotically and incurably hopeful, an incorrigible dreamer (Saccone, 1977, p. 196)]. 37. Svevo underlines the family connection between his three protagonists, describing Emilio as the ‘fratello carnale’ [blood brother] of both Alfonso and Zeno (Svevo, 1968, p. 802). 38. Claudio Magris, L’anello di Clarisse (Turin: Einaudi, 1984), p. 198. 39. He mentions the 9th day of the 9th month of 1899, the 1st day of the 1st month of 1901, the 3rd day of the 6th month of 1912 at 24 o’clock. He insists that 1913 was an impossible year as it lacked a 13th month (Romanzi, pp. 658–59). 40. Given my frequent recourse to Deleuze and Guattari in this chapter, I feel it is worth repeating my claim in chapter 1 that their philosophy of bodily immanence is inextricably bound up with the modernist project as a whole. I would also recall Patton’s identification of a modernist stance in Deleuze’s acceptance of Nietzsche’s characterization of thought as a creative project (Patton, 1996, p. 1). 41. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), p. 30. 42. This is the subtitle of the second section of Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. by Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983). 43. This is reinforced by the fact that he also writes of his quest for the perfect date on which to renounce nicotine (Romanzi, p. 1096). Zeno’s continued smoking is also evident in the fact that, in the penultimate section of this same chapter, dated a month after his reference to a return to his sweet habits, the protagonist states that he had smoked little on the day that he was forced to go to Trieste (Romanzi, p. 1110). 44. This process of deferral also finds a resonance in the fact that Zeno shares a name with Zeno of Elea. The series of paradoxes attributed to the original Zeno revolve around the concept of a divisibility of space that makes the tortoise the necessary winner in the race against the faster Achilles who can never reach his destination. 45. Magris seconds this point: ‘[l]’eroe sveviano non ha paura di non essere amato, bensí di non amare; non teme che il suo desiderio resti inappagato ma che esso si spenga’ [the Svevian hero is not afraid of not being loved, but rather of not loving; he does not fear that his desire will not be satisfied but that it will be extinguished (Magris, 1984, p. 202)]. 46. Saccone describes a desire that must never be satisfied (Saccone, 1973, p. 108). 47. Amongst those who have addressed the connections between health and music in La coscienza di Zeno, I mention only Giulio Savelli: ‘guarire, suonare il violino seguendo il ritmo appropriato, non fumare più, sono tutti elementi appartenenti a uno stesso universo, positivamente connotato come “salute” ’ [being cured, playing the violin while following the appropriate rhythm, not smoking anymore, these are all elements belonging to the same universe, connoted positively as ‘health’ (Savelli, L’ambiguità necessaria, Milan: Francoangeli, 1998), pp. 73–74]; Gabriella Contini: ‘Il violino è per Zeno lo strumento di misurazione della propria ‘aritmia’, dell’inettitudine complessiva, della carente sensibilità e genialità [...] E inoltre termometro di un’infermità

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reale e organica, che nega scioltezza al corpo, lega il braccio, determina la sconfitta sul piano della lotta per la donna’ [the violin is for Zeno the instrument on which he measures his own ‘arrhythmia’, his comprehensive ineptitude, his deficient sensibility and brilliance [...] It is also the thermometer on which he reads a real and organic infirmity that denies physical agility, binds his arm, determines his defeat in the struggle to win the woman (Contini, 1979, p. 75]; and the previously cited Freccero, p. 14. 48. Sergio Finzi, ‘Il realismo critico di Italo Svevo’, Aut Aut, 50 (1959), 124–29; Finzi, ‘Il realismo critico di Italo Svevo’, Aut Aut, 52 (1959), 265–73. 49. The Larousse Encyclopedia of Music, ed. by Geoffrey Hindley (London: Hamlyn, 1971), p. 382. 50. Boulez describes the ‘punctual system’ of music as consisting of two lines, one horizontal and the other vertical, which serve for situating points. The horizontal line represents melody, while the vertical corresponds to harmony. The great musician introduces the transversal, making the punctual system ‘take f light’ by means of this deterritorializing diagonal (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, p. 296). 51. Genco describes Macario’s and, indeed, Annetta’s self-assured relationship to a linguistic regime that serves as ‘salvaguardia delle apparenze, oltre che come strumento di prevaricazione’ [safe­ guard of appearances, as well as instrument of prevarication (Genco, p. 37)]. 52. It is, of course, worth remarking on Zeno’s name at this point. The Greek origins of his first name render literally the question of the outsider’s view. Zeno as a non-Italian is always and for evermore aware of the characteristics and problems of the standard. 53. Angelo Ara and Claudio Magris, Trieste: un’identità di frontiera (Turin: Einaudi, 1982). 54. Roberto Bazlen, Note senza testo (Milan: Adelphi, 1970), p. 143. Minghelli cites this text in her description of a Trieste that she defines as a space of a mutual contamination between the various components of the city and she describes as ‘akin to Foucault’s “heterotopia” ’ (Minghelli, p. 10). Moreover, she associates this concept of contamination with modernism itself which she describes as a ‘programmatic unfolding of contaminations — between tradition and future, realist writing and experimental writing, male and female subjects’ (Minghelli, p. 5). 55. Svevo writes that in order to understand the significance of a pseudonym that ‘sembra volere affratellare la razza italiana e quella germanica’ [seems to unite in brotherhood the Italian and the Germanic races], one must first appreciate that Trieste functions as a type of ‘crogiolo assimilatore degli elementi eterogenei che il commercio e anche la dominazione straniera attirarono nella vecchia città latina’ [an assimilating crucible of heterogeneous elements that commerce and the foreign domination attracted to the old Latin city (Svevo, 1968, p. 799)]. 56. Svevo’s Jewish identity prompts a playful dialogue with Weininger’s Sex and Character (1903). While Weininger condemns the Jew on the grounds of his ‘internal multiplicity’ and lack of ‘finality’ (Weininger, 1906, pp. 323–24), Svevo uses Zeno to transform these qualities into the positive malleability of the ‘uomo in abbozzo’. Giuseppe Scandiani also addresses the parallels between Svevo’s representation of women and Weininger’s theories of femininity. Scandiani, ‘Svevo, Weininger e la donna’, Humanitas, 38.4 (1983), 551–58. 57. This is also the role of what Deleuze and Guattari term ‘minor literature’: Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature, (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1986). This literature is written in a major language by a member of an ethnic or linguistic minority who moves as a type of foreigner within the major (Deleuze and Guattari, 1986, p. 16). Moreover, minor literature points to a specific treatment of the canon that deterritorializes the major culture. Minghelli acknowledges that the ‘impure’ Triestine writing of authors such as Svevo, Saba and Slataper contain ‘all the disruptive and innovative force of what Deleuze and Guattari (1986) theorized as “minor literature” ’ (Minghelli, p. 13). Lynn Lara Westwater also addresses Svevo’s writing in terms of its resonance with minor literature in ‘Franz Kaf ka and Italo Svevo: “A Blur of Languages” ’, Romance Languages Annual, 8 (1996), 342–50. 58. Benco in Il piccolo della sera, 5 June 1923, repr. in Ghidetti, p. 11. 59. Giulio Caprin, ‘Una proposta di celebrità’, Il Corriere della Sera, 11 February 1926, repr. in Ghidetti, p. 25. 60. Giuseppe Ravegnani, I libri del Giorno, Milan, May 1926, repr. in Luciano Nanni, Leggere Svevo (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1974), p. 153.

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61. Natalino Sapegno, La Nuova Italia, 20 January 1930, repr. in Nanni, p. 178. 62. Gianfranco Contini, ‘L’analisi linguistica di Giacomo Devoto’ (1943), repr. in Contini, Varianti e altra linguistica (Turin: Einaudi, 1970), p. 667. 63. A. Leone De Castris, Italo Svevo (Pisa: Nistri-Lischi, 1959), p. 303. 64. For Genco, the effect of the uneven road of holes is created by a variety of elements that include: the simultaneous use of aulic and modern terms for the same referent; the presence of idiomatic expressions; the presence of dialectal expressions (Genco, p. 209). 65. Amongst those who have analysed the various linguistic ingredients of Svevo’s ‘Italian’, I would mention Giacomo Devoto, ‘Decenni per Svevo’, in Studi di stilistica (Florence: Le Monnier, 1950), pp. 175–93; Gianfranco Contini, ‘L’analisi linguistica di Giacomo Devoto’ (1943), repr. in Varianti e altra linguistica, pp. 661–71; Bruno Maier, ‘La lingua e lo stile’ in Italo Svevo, pp. 175–80; Flavio Catenazzi, L’Italiano di Svevo: Tra scrittura pubblica e scrittura privata (Florence: Olschki, 1994); Giovanni Palmieri, Schmitz, Svevo, Zeno: Storia di due ‘biblioteche’ (Milan: Bompiani, 1994). 66. Catenazzi identifies a variety of elements: dialectal and regional inf luences, pp. 111–24; aulicisms, pp. 124–28; Tuscanisms, pp. 145–50; and Gallicisms, pp. 163–70. Amongst his numerous examples of inconsistencies in spelling, Catenazzi notes the random use of giovine/giovane; giovinotto/ giovanotto; eguale/uguale; volontieri/volentieri; romore/rumore (Catenazzi, p. 28). 67. Devoto writes that Svevo, when obliged to correct his errors, does so without conviction and in an entirely inconsistent manner; Giacomo Devoto, Studi di stilistica, pp. 183–84. Devoto also points out that Svevo might just as easily use a phrase correctly as not and, in his revision of Senilità, he often corrects an error which will later be wholly ignored (Devoto, pp. 183–84). 68. Deleuze and Guattari attempt to clarify their distinction by writing that the constants do not exist in and of themselves, but are ‘drawn from the variables themselves’, because ‘universals in linguistics have no more existence in themselves than they do in economics and are always concluded from a universalization or a rendering-uniform involving variables’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, p. 103). 69. Debenedetti writes that Svevo’s style is a type of esperanto that resembles italian ‘perché messo insieme con parole italiane, non già con modi propriamente italiani. È una lingua italiana per analogia’ [because composed of Italian words, but not in a manner that is really Italian. It is an Italian language by analogy (Debenedetti, 1945, p. 71)]. 70. Barilli argues against claims for a naturalist Svevo and states that the author’s predilection for Schopenhauer should have sufficed to prevent critics from hypothesizing a naturalist phase (Barilli, p. 36). He acknowledges that, although Svevo looked with sympathy to Zola and naturalism, his epistemological suppositions could not be more different (Barilli, p. 33). In describing Una vita, Giorgio Luti identifies the co-existence of two poetic models: ‘il realismo inteso in senso positivo, ereditato dal naturalismo europeo, coinciderà col nuovo concetto di realtà immanente e momentanea della formazione e dello sviluppo sentimentale dell’individuo in un tempo sempre attualizzato’ [realism understood postively, inherited from European naturalism, coincides with a new concept of an immanent and temporary reality of formation and sentimental development of the individual in a time that is always actual, L’ora di Mefistofele (Florence: La nuova Italia, 1990), p. 163]. Like Genco, Caterina Verbaro acknowledges the greater narrative importance of the collectivity in Una vita. However, she also insists that the novel could be compared with a ‘romanzo di formazione’ [Bildungsroman] if it were not for the fact that the hero attains no success in modifying his own interior state and that the analysis of interiority constitutes a ‘significativa deviazione antinaturalistica’ [significant antinaturalist deviation, Verbaro, Italo Svevo (Catanzaro: Rubbettino, 1997), p. 46]. Minghelli describes Una vita as an ‘operation of subtraction’ in which ‘all the poetic and intellectual models — naturalism, Schopenhauerian existentialism, Darwinism — have been consumed before being represented’ (Minghelli, pp. 77–78). 71. Minghelli writes that, although the novel goes beyond naturalist models, it ‘fails to inaugurate a new style’ (Minghelli, p. 93). 72. Verbaro, for example, acknowledges a verista backdrop in the representation of Angiolina’s family, in the suggestion of the theories of heredity present in the girl’s relationship with her mother and, finally, in the positivistic lexicon employed to describe Amalia’s death (Verbaro, p.

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58). She also notes the stylistic presence of naturalistic topoi like third person narrative, the use of the passato remoto and the nominal constructions typical of French naturalist prose (Verbaro, p. 58). 73. Jan Paul Malocsay, ‘A Defeated Hero: Zeno Cosini’, in Essays on Italo Svevo, ed. by Thomas F. Staley (Tulsa: University of Tulsa, 1969), pp. 35–47 (p. 45). 74. Elizabeth Schächter emphasizes the temporality of La coscienza and identifies this dimension of Svevo’s third novel with a modernism in which ‘narrative space and time begin to lose their contours, and narrative as history is riddled with gaps. The narrative becomes more precarious: it is no longer linear, following a logical, sequential structure; it loses the illusion of the real, the ability to convey an experience fully and adequately’, Schächter, Origin and Identity: Essays on Svevo and Trieste (Leeds: Northern Universities Press, 2000), p. 118. 75. It should also be pointed out that Robbe-Grillet dedicates a chapter of For a New Novel to La coscienza di Zeno and he sees in Svevo’s final novel a type of stylistic precursor to the nouveau roman (Robbe-Grillet, 1989), pp. 89–94. 76. Norma Bouchard writes: ‘the skepticism about symbolic premises of stability and order that are voiced through the character of Zeno Cosini paradoxically coincides with Zeno’s cure following the psychoanalytical composition of the novel La coscienza di Zeno. The pharmacological authority of language at work here is confirmed intertextually by Svevo’s il vecchione, where an older version of Zeno comments that only narrative is capable of giving a measure of clarity and finality to lived experience’, Bouchard, Céline, Gadda, Beckett: Experimental Writings of the 1930s (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000), pp. 6–7.

Chapter 3

v

Blind Refusal Tozzi’s Stylistic Phenomenology of Hypersensitivity

While Tozzi has been described as an author whose style is shaped by an intro­ spective focus on the vicissitudes of the human psyche, this chapter foregrounds his representation of the body, arguing that embodiment, both in its ontological and historical dimensions, is the central concern of his novels. Like Svevo, Tozzi presents us with an assortment of ostensibly inept characters that exemplify an existence in which failure or refusal to perform bodily action becomes, once again, a crucial determinant of their social and ideological status. While the bodies of Svevo’s protagonists introduce a defining and often humorous corporeal arrhythmia that is at once ethical and cultural, Tozzi creates a dark literary universe in which he contrasts compulsive and often phobically hypersensitive bodies with the potent organisms of those capable of dominating and exploiting their world. This exploitation defines a specifically modern and capitalist configuration of social and economic relations identified with the figure of a terrifying and tyrannical father. As such, the hypersensitive bodies stricken with what appears to be the epistemological crisis emblematic of technological modernity are also figures of an ethical condemnation, as their apparent inability to navigate the paternal dimension becomes a refusal to do so. It is by means of this phenomenology of modernist hypersensitivity that Tozzi substitutes the paternal model of exploitation with a domain of pre-Oedipal bodies that experience sensation as assault and invasion. This is the dynamic that, I will suggest, informs a style that renders not the vicissitudes of the psyche but, rather, the schizophrenic intensity of a Tozzian embodiment. To claim that Tozzi’s universe is a menacing realm is an understatement. In each of his novels, Tozzi presents a protagonist who, often with great anguish, confronts a violent domestic and social space positioned in a natural world marked by brutality. Tozzi’s first novel, Adele, revolves around a female protagonist who is one of the author’s most overtly compulsive characters.1 This unfinished manuscript begins after Adele’s return to the antagonisms of her parents’ home, where she craves a mystic communion with the Virgin Mother and subsequently falls in love with the young Fabio. She eventually and quite abruptly takes her own life. Ricordi di un impiegato presents the diaristic ref lections of Leopoldo Gradi during a period in which he leaves his parental home to take up his first professional position in a train station in Pontedera.2 The diary reveals not only the paranoid apprehension that

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characterizes Leopoldo’s relationship with his acquaintances and colleagues, but also the domestic discord triggered by his love for Attilia whose death closes the work. Tozzi’s most acclaimed novel, Con gli occhi chiusi, relates events in the domestic and romantic life of Pietro Rosi as he grows from childhood to early adulthood.3 He suffers at the hands of a tyrannical father who owns an inn in Siena and maintains a farm in the Sienese countryside. Pietro’s romantic pursuit of a young peasant girl, Ghisola, brings further misery and the novel closes with his realization that she is pregnant by another man. Bestie involves a first-person narrator who, in a series of aphorisms, describes encountering a variety of animals.4 These animals, common, for the most part, to the Sienese countryside, include sparrows, lizards, cats, horses, swallows, and mosquitoes amongst others. As first-person narrative, Bestie is directly permeated with the narrator’s apprehension towards reality, and the result is a text in which apparently innocuous details constitute a menacing presence. Il podere opens with a death and ends with a murder.5 In between these dramatic events, we read of Remigio Selmi’s struggles to make a success of his newly inherited farm. Despite his desire to act in the best interests of his dependents, Remigio encounters an insurmountable series of economic, practical, personal and interpersonal obstacles. While Remigio focuses his attention on the payment of debts left by his father, the more serious problem he faces is that of an enraged farm employee, Berto, who ultimately murders him. Tre croci revolves around the final ruin of the three brothers Gambi (Giulio, Enrico, and Niccolò) who, having inherited a bookshop from their father, find themselves in serious financial straits.6 They repeatedly and fraudulently acquire money by forging bank drafts and spend all their ill-gotten gains on the food on which they gorge themselves. The novel ends with the deaths of the brothers. Tozzi’s final novel, Gli egoisti, recounts Dario Gavinai’s attempts to advance his musical career in Rome.7 At thirty years of age, he struggles to govern his turbulent inner life and to negotiate the threshold between youth and adulthood. This instability generates unpredictable behaviour towards friends and towards Albertina, the woman he apparently learns to love at the close of the novel. Convulsive Bodies of Emotion This brief overview allows me not only to provide a cursory outline of the novels that I will include in my analysis, but also to broach the question of the protagonists’ discordant relationship with the material world, a discord that manifests itself, first and foremost, in the subject’s relationship with his or her own body. Tozzi’s portrayal of these bodies is noteworthy primarily because of the sustained attention paid to involuntary actions. Bodies twitch, stutter and blush. His characters shudder and tremble at the most inopportune moments. Their somatic processes expose their emotions in social settings and thwart their efforts, as ambivalent as these may be, to navigate their world. Unable to govern their own bodies, the protagonists are tormented by a sense of unease in their own hypersensitive f lesh. This unease points firstly to an ontological shame that triggers a desire to f lee from the very f lesh to which the protagonists are tied and on which they depend for their existence.

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Turning to the question of a disobedient f lesh, the reader finds numerous instances in which the protagonists struggle with a convulsive body that resists mastery.8 On his way to Pontedera, Leopoldo ref lects that he is unable to articulate and is startled by his own laugh (Opere, 407). His laughter assumes an involuntary quality that not only humiliates him but also terrorizes him. He also makes a subsequent reference to his resolution to master his stuttering (Opere, 432). In Con gli occhi chiusi, Pietro struggles with a convulsive body. Before Ghisola, he laughs and stutters: ‘rise, terminando con un balbettìo’ [he laughed, concluding with a stutter (Opere, 33)]. He trembles when she takes his hand (Opere, 34) and, on seeing a photograph of her, he cannot master his quivering lips (Opere, 80). On testifying against his dead father’s lover Giulia, Remigio feels an uncontrollable trembling in his legs (Opere, 321). This prompts the laughter of those present, a fact that f lusters him (Opere, 322).9 Tre croci offers the repeated example of Niccolò’s unpredictable physical idiosyncrasies. His laughter is explosive and excessive, affecting even his stomach, and these painful outbursts assail him through the night (Opere, 176). His laughs are ‘sorde, ma spumose; risate piene d’impazienza; che ad ascoltarle bene, parevano brividi; lente e comode, larghe e insolenti’ [hollow but wet; laughs that were filled with impatience and that seemed like shudders, slow and easy, broad and insolent (Opere, 191)]. His laughter becomes a braying sound, or sounds like a trombone (Opere, 201–02). Enrico’s laughter emerges as a type of mouse-like shriek accompanied by projectile spitting (Opere, 205). Giulio becomes ‘convulso’ or agitated and can conceal nothing (Opere, 209). When the brothers’ fraud is made public, they are seized by a panic that is somatic. While Giulio faints, Niccolò paces ‘fremendo, bestemmiando e insultando chiunque gli veniva alla mente’ [shuddering, cursing and insulting whoever came to mind (Opere, 230)]. Tozzi also underscores the physical idiosyncrasies of Orazio Nicchioli, the brothers’ benefactor whose signature is forged on the bank drafts. The pauses in Nicchioli’s direct discourse manifest involuntary tics as, for instance, when he speaks of his child: ‘È... veramente... un prodigio! Bello... forte... Come devo dire?... Robusto... ben fatto... i piedini... le manine’ [he is....really....a marvel! Handsome...strong...how can I say it?...Robust...well formed...his little feet....his little hands (Opere, 181)]. Finally, Dario manifests his turmoil in the pallor of his face (Opere, 455, 473).10 These examples illustrate the uncontrollability of the Tozzian body, but they are also evidence of the indissoluble connection between the characters’ emotional lives and their bodies. In fact, Tozzi’s descriptions of the emotional turmoil of his characters suggest a programmatic intent to privilege not the emotion but rather its somatic manifestation. The reader is frequently confronted with an exclusively physical indication and can only infer a certain emotional state. Certainly, the fact that characters do not always understand the precise nature and origin of their emotions is a defining feature of Tozzi’s universe. However, what I would like to underline here is that, because the narrative voice frequently refuses to provide clarification, the palpitation or the tremor remain the sole indicator of the presence of emotion. In effect, the body itself discloses the presence of a not entirely specified psychical disturbance. Does a rapidly beating heart indicate a positive form of love, or does it suggest distress or dissatisfaction? Is a physical sensation of

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burning something that the protagonist enjoys? The reader can never be certain in the face of a programmatically ambivalent representation of somatic processes. The following examples illustrate this tendency. On seeing Fabio, Adele feels as though her body is burning, but no other indication of her emotional state is provided (Opere, 546).11 Leopoldo feels a physical ‘struggimento’ or torment on seeing Nemora (Opere, 435). Even his supervisor manifests his emotion physically as when, on learning that another man enjoys a level of intimacy with the landlady, his face ‘si congestiona gradatamente fino a doventare irriconoscibile’ [becomes gradually congested to the point of becoming unrecognizable (Opere, 419)]. He grasps his lower lip and, finally, unleashes a loud laugh. No other indication of his emotional disquiet is provided and, in effect, it is not entirely evident which emotion he feels. Tozzi offers frequent references to Pietro’s physical response to the thought or presence of Ghisola. Either the rhythm of his heartbeat alters (Opere, 21, 35, 117, 149), he turns pale (Opere, 21, 112), or he trembles (Opere, 34, 113). The emotions of the final confrontation, during which Pietro discovers that Ghisola is pregnant, are also rendered physically. His vision blurs and he suffers a loss of balance (Opere, 155–56). Finally, on seeing the bulge of her pregnancy, he falls as a result of a ‘vertigine violenta’ [violent dizzy spell (Opere, 158)]. The narrator of Bestie also manifests physical indicators of emotions that include trembling (Opere, 573), a more intensely felt heartbeat (Opere, 587), and shivering (Opere, 600). Il podere pays a similar attention to the workings of the body as when, on entering the room where his father died, Remigio experiences a shiver that affects his heart (Opere, 267). On speaking with his lawyer about financial matters, Remigio takes fright (here Tozzi is precise) and feels ‘come addentarsi fino al cuore’ [as though his heart were being bitten (Opere, 275)]. However, back at his farm, the ambivalence returns as he continues to experience heart palpitations that, Tozzi deliberately underlines, are similar to the somatic manifestation of the love he had felt as a boy (Opere, 297). Tre croci provides numerous examples of the physicality of emotion as, for example, with Niccolò’s convulsive trembling (Opere, 178) or the agitation that leads him to smash a seat, run home, and, ‘come se fosse ammattito da vero, tremando tutto’ [as though he were really mad, shaking all over], kiss his nieces (Opere, 213). Giulio too experiences his anxiety physically as a ‘fendente dal capo ai piedi’ [a cutting blow from head to foot] that forces him to cover his face with his hands (Opere, 229). Dario’s emotions are manifest in his pallor (Opere, 473), his agitated heartbeat (Opere, 486), and his trembling (Opere, 462). On a further occasion, he experiences palpitations of the heart when contemplating Rome. Why is not entirely clear, because he seems to be simultaneously overwhelmed by the vastness of the city and desirous of the company of the Roman crowds (Opere, 493). In refusing to separate the emotion from the body, Tozzi blurs cause with effect. This tendency becomes more explicit when Tozzi operates a reversal of the standard evolution of an emotion. In short, the emotion seems, on occasion, to result from the somatic upheaval itself. Adele’s initial tumult on staring at the water in the Fontebranda is described as an ‘esaltazione crescente’ [growing fervour (Opere, 509)]. Its impact, however, is registered predominantly in Adele’s heart which feels

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pain and is ‘estraneo a lei’ [outside herself (Opere, 509)]. It pounds to such an extent that she feels it no longer wants to remain in her chest and, in response, she feels an overwhelming desire to cry (Opere, 509). Her need to cry stems directly from the palpitations of her heart. Similarly, Pietro finds that he is unable to tolerate sounds and, when his hands become cold, this coldness triggers pain and fear, emotions that point to a psychical reality that derives from the body (Opere, 150). Domenico’s overwhelming dread that his wife, Anna, might be dead begins with a chill that comes in waves ‘dalla cima delle dita e si fermava nel mezzo del capo’ [from the tip of his fingers and stopped at the top of his head (Opere, 62)]. The truth dawns on him as his breathing becomes ‘affannoso’ [laboured] and only then does he begin to feel grief (Opere, 62). In Gli egoisti, Albertina ref lects on her distance from Dario and feels a ‘benessere prima quasi fisico’ [well being that was initially almost physical] which is followed by an emotional sense of well-being and tranquillity (Opere, 484). The narrator of Bestie describes his childhood determination to write a book different to all other books. This ambition begins with sensations of hunger on sunny mornings. His hunger prompts a ‘senso indefinito, quasi di sonnolenza e di piacere’ [an undefined sense, almost of sleepiness and pleasure] that leads him to contemplate his future literary activities (Opere, 611). Like the vine-leaf that simply ‘c’è’ or ‘is’, so, he writes, will his book be (Opere, 611). Perhaps this book, unlike all others, is different precisely in its attitude to the materiality of the body. Tozzi’s blurring or outright reversal of the expected developmental sequence of the emotions reveals his debt to William James’s theory of human emotions.12 James acknowledges that the customary sequencing of the stages of an emotion begins with the ‘mental perception’ that ‘excites the mental affection called the emotion’ which, in turn, ‘gives rise to the bodily expression’.13 However, he proposes a contrary theory which he summarizes as follows: ‘the bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact, and [...] our feeling of the same changes as they occur IS the emotion’ ( James, 1983, 1065, capitals in original). Acknowledging that common sense dictates that ‘we lose our fortune, are sorry and weep; we meet a bear, are frightened and run; we are insulted by a rival, are angry and strike’, James argues that the emotional state is not induced by the mental perception but that the ‘bodily manifestations must first be interposed’ between the two ( James, 1983, 1065). Thus, the order becomes: ‘we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble’ ( James, 1983, 1066). Defending his position, James explains that without the somatic processes, the perception itself would remain ‘purely cognitive in form, pale, colorless, destitute of emotional warmth’ ( James, 1983, 1066). Moreover, he insists that the body functions as a ‘sounding-board’ made to reverberate by external objects and changes in consciousness ( James, 1983, 1066). Further proof lies in the fact, James argues, that once behaviour is changed, mood quickly follows ( James, 1983, 1077–78). Turning to moral, intellectual and aesthetic feelings, James argues for the ‘sensational experience’ of the pleasures of perceiving combinations of lines, colours and sounds ( James, 1983, 1082). Aesthetic experience excites in us ‘a glow, a pang in the heart, a shudder, a fulness of the breathing, a f lutter of the heart, a shudder down the back, a moistening of the eyes, a stirring in the hypogastrium’, symptoms that also accompany moral perceptions of

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‘pathos, magnanimity, or courage’ ( James, 1983, 1084).14 At all turns, James insists on the primacy of the body as even the ostensible immaterialities of thought and aesthetic experience are anchored to the somatic processes that generate emotion. This Jamesian primacy of the f lesh is of modernist inspiration and, moreover, reverberates with Tozzi’s blurring of emotion and somatic process. However, while James’s view ref lects an optimistic empiricism, Tozzi’s primacy of the f lesh prompts a tension that erupts in shame. Shame and Material Embodiment The involuntary manifestation of emotion that is most prevalent throughout Tozzi’s novels is that of blushing. Once again, examples are abundant. Beginning with Adele, we find that the protagonist blushes when, overcome by her desire to taste cherries, she ‘diviene rossa’ [becomes red (Opere, 528)]. Later, she realizes that she is being observed by Fabio and she is seen to blush (Opere, 554).15 Leopoldo blushes three times. On the first occasion, he blushes when his mother threatens to tell his father about his relationship with Attilia. On seeing his blush, his mother tells him: ‘[t]i vergogni perfino di te stesso!’ [You are ashamed even of yourself (Opere, 405)]. He blushes when his work experience is questioned (Opere, 408) and, again, on seeing Nemora, the girl to whom he is attracted (Opere, 437).16 Con gli occhi chiusi includes a total of eighteen references to the act of blushing. Pietro blushes seven times. On three occasions his blushing is connected to his interaction with Ghisola (Opere, 34, 125, 149).17 On two occasions his blushing is prompted by his father who touches a young girl with his whip (Opere, 35) and discusses his son’s marriage prospects (Opere, 68). He repeatedly blushes when others fail to respect his emotions (Opere, 45) and, again, when thinking of the colourful f lowers in the garden (Opere, 59).18 The unnamed narrator of Bestie blushes only once, when he feels a painful disappointment when confronted by the eyes of a lizard (Opere, 602). Remigio blushes on seven occasions. Greeted by Berto, he feels a general benevolence towards the workers. However, because ‘si sentiva arrossire d’essere ormai il padrone’ [he felt himself blush on now being the owner] he does not return the greeting (Opere, 265). Three further occasions of blushing on the part of Remigio involve his interaction with the peasant workers on his farm (Opere, 266, 301, 307). The final three occasions involve dealings with his lawyer. While two of these instances reveal frustration on Remigio’s part (Opere, 274, 330), the third is a response to a question concerning money left to Giulia.19 Tre croci offers fewer examples of blushing and the notable instances revolve around Giulio’s discomfort (Opere, 179, 209). Tozzi underlines Giulio’s embarrassment before his friend Nisard, when Enrico arrives at the shop with his arms filled with fruit (Opere, 171).20 In Gli egoisti, Dario’s professional inadequacies cause him to blush before other musicians (Opere, 452) and he also blushes on confessing his love for Albertina to his laughing friend, Carraresi (Opere, 468). A more complex case occurs when, having tried to convince his friend Nello of his love for Albertina, Dario is met with disbelief. He feels he has been too sincere and imagines that his sincerity is as visible as hunger. He stands up as though to caress this visible sincerity, but seeks, instead, to conceal

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the action. He feels unease and, blushing, he reneges on his lunch appointment (Opere, 455–56). While some of the above examples ref lect a straightforward social embarrassment as, for example, when Ghisola must admit that she cannot read, the majority of the examples suggest a deeper unease with the condition of embodiment. Blushing is particularly significant in this respect. Adele blushes when confronted with her physical desire to consume the cherries. While Pietro blushes when confronted with his own sexuality and that of his father, he also blushes in the face of the sensual stimulation of the f lowers. Remigio’s blushes ref lect his frustrations at being unable to express himself, but they are also inseparable from his social status as the new padrone. Here, Remigio’s unease is projected outward onto the material farm that he now owns.21 Though Giulio blushes in embarrassment when caught in a family argument, he also, and more importantly, becomes embarrassed when his fruit-laden brother appears (Opere, 171). In effect, he squirms when confronted with evidence of his own materiality, namely, the excess with which he and his brothers indulge their physical need for nourishment. While Dario blushes at his own professional shortcomings, he also blushes when faced with evidence of the visibility of his inner life. Leopoldo blushes at his lack of professional experience, but equally, it would seem, when forced to admit to his relationship with Attilia. However, his mother unwittingly discloses the shame that is the true origin of his blushing and the blushing that aff licts all of Tozzi’s protagonists when she tells him that he is ashamed even of himself (Opere, 405). The insistent blushing of Tozzi’s characters resonates with Giorgio Agamben’s extended discussion of ontological shame, a topic that also informs James’s thought. In broaching shame, Agamben seizes on an incident described by French survivor of the Nazi camps, Robert Antelme, in L’Espèce humaine (1947). As Antelme recalls the death marches imposed on the prisoners as the war drew to a close, he remembers in particular a young Italian randomly selected for death: The SS continues. ‘Du komme hier!’ Another Italian steps out of the column, a student from Bologna. I know him. His face has turned pink. I look at him closely. I still have that pink before my eyes. He stands there at the side of the road. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands....He turned pink after the SS man said to him, ‘Du komme hier!’ He must have glanced about him before he f lushed; but yes, it was he who had been picked, and when he doubted it no longer, he turned pink. The SS who was looking for a man, any man, to kill, had found him. And having found him, he looked no further.22

Agamben identifies this blush with the ‘extreme intimacy’ experienced before our own murderer and the accompanying shame (Agamben, 2002, 104). Moving from Antelme to Emmanuel Levinas’s On Escape (1935), Agamben summarizes Levinas’s definition of shame as deriving not from the ‘consciousness of an imperfection or a lack in our being from which we take distance’, but rather from our inability to break away from ourselves (Agamben, 2002, 104–05). Indeed, Levinas describes the phenomenon of shame as a desire to hide something not so much from others, but rather from oneself, because shame is ‘primarily connected to our body’.23 It is ‘the fact of being riveted to oneself, the radical impossibility of f leeing oneself

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to hide from oneself, the unalterably binding presence of the I to itself ’ (Levinas, 64). He refers to Chaplin’s City Lights (1931), focusing on the scene where the tramp swallows the whistle that, inside him, continues to produce sound. This uncontrollable whistling reveals the ‘scandal of the brutal presence of his Being’ (Levinas, 65). Agamben develops his analysis with reference to Heidegger’s discussion of ‘aidos’ in Parmenides. For Heidegger, shame is not just a passing feeling for a man, but is rather ‘an emotive tonality that traverses and determines his whole Being’ (Agamben, 2002, 106). Shame becomes an ‘ontological sentiment’ that belongs at the place of the ‘encounter between man and Being’ (Agamben, 2002, 106). Agamben underscores this ontological dimension when he provides his own definition of shame as the ‘fundamental sentiment of being a subject’ (Agamben, 2002, 107). Returning to William James, we find a distinct resonance with this question of shame in his description of what he terms the ‘sick soul’, a condition that leads the subject to perceive brutality in the natural world. James’s meditations on evil in the natural world appear in The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902).24 He contrasts the ‘healthy-minded temperament’ marked by its ‘incapacity for prolonged suffering’ ( James, 1978, 138) with the ‘more morbid way of looking’ ( James, 1978, 141–42) that characterizes the sick soul’s relationship to the world. While ‘healthy-minded views’ minimize evil even to the point of denying it outright, the morbid soul maximizes its role, persuaded that the ‘evil aspects of our life are of its very essence’ ( James, 1978, 141). James describes two different types of the morbid mind. While the first type includes individuals ‘for whom evil means a mal-adjustment with things’ ( James, 1978, 144), the second grouping includes people for whom the natural world is a space in which ‘radical evil gets its innings and takes its solid turn’ ( James, 1978, 171). Though the extinct beasts found in museums may seem unreal, James insists that ‘there is no tooth in any one of those museum-skulls that did not daily through long years of the foretime hold fast to the body struggling in despair of some fated living victim’ ( James, 1978, 171). The ‘sick soul’ perceives the same horror in the domestic garden where the ‘infernal cat plays with the panting mouse, or holds the hot bird f luttering in her jaws’ ( James, 1978, 171).25 This perception of generalized evil prompts the ‘sick soul’ to identify an incurable ‘vice in his essential nature’ ( James, 1978, 144). Jill McNish argues that the sense of wrongness described by James mirrors aspects of the affect of shame.26 Citing Tompkins’s definition of shame as an ‘inner torment, a sickness of the soul’, McNish describes shame as an affect that ‘arises out of the existential experience of being a creature, out of nature, yet feeling somehow that one is spirit, and of God as well’ (McNish, 394–95). As opposed to guilt which presupposes an inappropriate action, shame is self-referential and involves the subject’s belief that he is ‘inherently, ontologically f lawed in the core of his being’ (McNish, 395). Accordingly, McNish views James’s descriptions of the sick soul’s feelings of ‘dread, horror, failure, discouragement and humiliation’ as the ‘shame affect writ large’ (McNish, 395). Levinas’s concept of shame differs to some extent from Martha Nussbaum’s theorization of the emotion. Levinas describes the response to an ontological shame in terms of an escape from f lesh that is nothing other than a f light from the self,

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as it ref lects a ‘need to get out of oneself, that is, to break that most radical and unalterably binding of chains, the fact that the I is oneself ’ (Levinas, 55). Nussbaum, on the other hand, proposes a vision of shame that, though connected with our very humanness, is social in origin. Therefore, the infant can try ‘to hide from the eyes of those who will see one’s deficiency, to cover it’ because the escape or selfconcealment has an external object that can, in fact, be evaded.27 While Levinas acknowledges the social component of shame (Levinas, 63, 67), he focuses on the question of shame within the ambit of the self. He therefore presents a theorization of shame that permits of no escape because, for obvious reasons, we cannot f lee from ourselves. Using the example of nausea, he explains that shame is prompted by the ‘very fact of having a body’ and that even in solitude, the subject is ‘still “scandalized” by himself ’ (Levinas, 67). Both forms of shame compete in Tozzi’s literary universe as the characters repulse bodies that belong at once to themselves and to others. Flight, in fact, is a recurrent topic, though it is frequently foiled. Leopoldo expresses a desire for f light (Opere, 421) and, later, regrets that he is unable to move without being seen (Opere, 427). Pietro wishes to forget himself and stares fixedly at his hands until he can no longer discern them (Opere, 55). Remigio seeks to hide himself: ‘[g]li pareva di potersi nascondere in mezzo al podere; e di non farsi mai più guardare da nessuno’ [he felt he could hide in the middle of the farm and not allow himself to be seen again by anyone (Opere, 377)]. Indeed, he maintains a type of ‘nascondiglio’ or hiding place on the farm (Opere, 389). Dario feels a ‘pudore verso se stesso’ and wants to disappear forever (Opere, 497). Disgust and the Borders of the Body This complex desire for a f light both from themselves and from others is also evident in a defence mechanism that takes the form of a generalized sense of disgust toward the physical realm. An anxiety that verges, at times, on the phobic characterizes the relationship between the protagonists and their reality. Tuscan landscapes that, in the hands of another author, might have offered idyllic scenes of bucolic bliss are, in Tozzi’s literary universe, peopled with the chronically ill and the repulsively misshapen. It is, in part, this attention to grotesque bodies that prompted some critics to identify naturalist tendencies in Tozzi’s work.28 However, Tozzi’s work is devoid of the positivist scientism that highlights heredity and environment and it prompts, even in his third-person narratives, a repulsion in the face of a pusfilled f lesh. Even in those cases where illness rather than deformity is presented, attention remains focused on the ignoble qualities of the condition as Tozzi treats us to stench, sweat, inf lammation and rot. The description, in Adele, of Artemisia, who suffers from measles and otitis, illustrates this portrait of an undignified infirmity. Her body is covered with her father’s overcoat and her cheeks are rosier than the ‘vecchia giacchetta scolorita’ [old faded jacket (Opere, 548)]. The reference to the aged clothes not only underlines the poverty in which she and her family live (Opere, 548), but also connects the over-worn clothing with the high colour of her face as her skin is equated with the old and stale material. The room, ‘bassa e asfissiante’ [low and asphyxiating

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(Opere, 548)], reinforces this association, but also suggests a coffin-like atmosphere. Artemisia seems frozen, corpse-like, and, horizontal, is tormented by the sweat and tears that f low into her ears (Opere, 549). This detail draws the reader inside Artemisia’s pain, but the sweat overwhelms any potential empathy as the f lesh is reduced to a repulsive factory of liquids and smells. In Il podere, descriptions of infirmity focus principally on grotesque deformation. Giulia’s family includes a baby who, aff licted with tuberculosis of the bones, is described as a ‘mucchio di cenci’ [bundle of rags (Opere, 345)] and another dirty child who suffers from a variety of ailments: ‘[i]l suo collo, addirittura livido e deforme, sembrava una gonfiezza di muscoli f losci e noccioluti. Anche le tempie erano incavate come le guance, e la testa rasata era sparsa di cicatrici bianche’ [his neck, entirely livid and deformed, seemed a swelling of f laccid and pitted muscles. Even his temples were hollow like his cheeks and his shaven head was covered with white scars (Opere, 345)]. Tozzi does not generate pity for these children, but rather he underlines the spectacular monstrosity of the family. Il podere also describes the gruelling demise of Giacomo Selmi. Remigio observes his father as the narrator offers the following: ‘le sue labbra si erano aff losciate e screpolate, deformando la bocca; gli occhi non erano più neri; ma, con le sclerotiche gialle e segose, le pupille parevano vizze’ [his lips had become saggy and chapped, and deformed the mouth. His eyes were no longer black. Instead, with his yellowed and greasy eyeballs, his pupils seemed to have withered (Opere, 258)]. Bianconi, the surgeon, insists that Remigio see the devastation of his father’s gangrenous feet: ‘[l]e dita se erano gonfiate fino a scoppiare, aprendosi; mentre il rimanente delle gambe erano magrissime, senza più carne’ [his toes had swollen to the point of bursting and opening while the rest of his legs were extremely thin, without f lesh (Opere, 262)]. Though Giacomo Selmi retains perhaps a minimal level of dignity,29 the attention paid to the repugnant details of his demise remains as remarkable as in the first two cases. This fact is important because a formal detail distinguishes the descriptions of Artemisia and Giulia’s families from that of Giacomo, namely, the position of the protagonist. While the former descriptions are provided by an ostensibly objective third-person narrator, Giacomo is described in the presence of Remigio who serves as focalizer in this scene. It is significant that, irrespective of the position of a focalizer whose sentiments might colour the description, the overriding tone remains one of disgust. This is precisely why Tozzi’s attention to an abject f lesh corresponds more readily to an expressionistic domain as the disgust triggered by the misshapen body ref lects a distorting projection outward on the part of the protagonist. Accordingly, little or no tonal difference separates descriptions provided by an ‘objective’ narrative voice, on the one hand and, on the other, the focalized description of the abject body. In effect, all narrative configurations are permeated by the hallucinatory register described by Baldacci as a ‘soggettivismo da drogati’ [drugged subjectivism (Baldacci, 1993, 13)].30 Tozzi’s entire universe, therefore, is imbued with an overriding sense of disgust before a nauseating f lesh. Indeed, the absence of a focalizer does nothing to lessen the repellent nature of the following descriptions. The beggars who depend on Domenico Rosi’s charity move between the poles of desiccated f lesh and moist inf lammation. The company

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of beggars includes a woman so emaciated that her mouth seems like a ‘taglio senza labbra’ [cut without lips] and a blind man with a dried-up hand that is missing a finger (Opere, 89–90). We also read of a woman with a face like a mask of red skin, and, finally, a woman with a case of eczema so extreme that only her inf lamed eyes are visible and they look like wounds (Opere, 90–91). The description in Il podere of Siena’s market underscores sweat and noise. Though deformity does not feature, Tozzi highlights a chaos of shouting and cursing human voices, stray dogs in search of food, f lies sucking blood from the oxen, and sweating merchants (Opere, 347–51). The novel also presents a cast of rapacious characters who thwart Remigio’s attempts to thrive, a fact that adds a subjective distortion to their repulsive bodies.31 Giulia is described as yellow, with long ruined teeth and eyes the colour of rotten fruit (Opere, 259). The subjectivism of this description is suggested by the unattributed question that opens the paragraph: ‘Come poteva piacergli quella ragazza?’ [How could he like that girl? (Opere, 259)]. Other vultures include Giulia’s lawyer who is a filthy old man ‘con i baffi sempre sporchi di saliva e tabacco’ [with a moustache that was always stained with saliva and tobacco (Opere, 270)]. Lenzi is ‘grasso e biondo, con il viso che pareva gonfio di sangue, con una bocca che gli si storceva anche a respirare, con una pappagorgia come un secondo mento’ [fat and blond, with a face that seemed swollen with blood, with a mouth that was distorted even in breathing, with a roll of fat around his chin that seemed like a second chin (Opere, 283)]. Bubbolo has a paralysed left arm that ‘faceva quasi ribrezzo’ [was almost repulsive (Opere, 337)]. Tozzi’s first-person narratives are permeated by a formally unmediated though no more insistent repulsion. Leopoldo feels a phobic disgust on learning of the dentist who performs tooth extractions in his bedroom. He sees, to his horror, that his table now holds a case of dental instruments, some of which show drops of blood (Opere, 415). He is also tormented by memories of deformity. He recalls a man with ‘piedi deformati e ripiegati in dentro’ [deformed feet that were turned inward (Opere, 420)]. He remembers the revulsion he felt for a schoolmate: ‘un imbecile, grasso, gli occhi porcini e un braccio paralizzato, al quale mancava il pollice’ [a fat imbecile with porcine eyes and a paralysed hand that was missing a thumb (Opere, 421)]. He is plagued by a beggar who is missing a portion of her face ‘come se le ulcere rosse le togliessero a poco a poco tutta la testa; e le restassero soltanto le braccia e le gambe’ [as though the red ulcers were consuming her head bit by bit and only her arms and her legs were left] (Opere, 427)].32 Deformity features in Bestie when the narrator is overwhelmed by the sight of a cobbler balancing a magpie on his wooden leg (Opere 581). In aphorism 51, the narrator contemplates the window he sees twinkling each morning and, wondering who lives inside, he speculates that it might be the old woman with the blind son, the deaf greengrocer, the consumptive tobacco seller or the insane schoolmaster (Opere, 607).33 Tre croci presents a reduced cast of misshapen characters from the ‘portalettere sciancato’ [lame postman (Opere, 193)] to the lame woman who climbs the steps of a church (Opere, 236). These individuals, however, do not evoke the same disgust evident in the other novels because, in Tre croci, any baseness of the f lesh is transferred to the protagonists, predominantly Niccolò and Enrico. Moreover, the primary

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reference to illness is to the gout suffered by the protagonists themselves. It is, in fact, an infectious complication of this disease that finally claims the life of Enrico (Opere, 252). Niccolò, on the other hand, is claimed by apoplexy and his final agony is punctuated by an intermittent delirium that prompts him to shout obscenities and emit slobbering laughs (Opere, 245–46). More importantly, Tre croci presents a specifically urban repulsion in which the disgust usually triggered by the misshapen peasantry is now projected onto the buildings of Siena. The novel is remarkable for its claustrophobic atmosphere and takes place, for the most part, within a bookshop. When outside, however, the characters’ anxiety is projected onto a city in which the houses which, much like the metropolitan crowd, seem to be imbued with a teeming life force and are packed so tightly that ‘non è possibile capire dove siano le vie; perché le case paiono separate l’una dall’altra da spacchi e da tagli quasi bizzarri, alla rinfusa’ [it is impossible to distinguish the position of the streets because the houses seem separated one from the other by rifts and bizarre cuts, and were laid out in a confused order with tight crossroads (Opere, 237)]. As another urban novel, Gli egoisti is practically devoid of references to bodily repulsion and it is once again the city that assumes the distressing impact of the deformed body.34 Here, the Roman crowds overwhelm the protagonist: ‘si sentiva un selvaggio sempre inseguito; e non riesciva più a restare chiuso in casa, benchè la folla gliene facesse provare il bisogno fino allo spasimo’ [He felt like a pursued savage and couldn’t stay in his house although the crowds made him need it urgently (Opere, 465)]. This all-pervading disgust that characterizes Tozzi’s expressionistic universe is intimately connected with the characters’ bodily shame. In fact, Nussbaum, from whom I have taken the title of this section of the chapter, associates disgust with shame although, she writes, disgust manifests at a later stage (Nussbaum, 200–01). She describes disgust as a ‘visceral emotion’ with a cognitive content that revolves around the ‘idea of incorporation of a contaminant’ (Nussbaum, 201). Thus, disgust targets alien substances that might penetrate the borders of the body. Addressing Paul Rozin’s finding that objects of disgust are animals or animal products, Nussbaum claims that disgust ref lects our ‘interest in policing the boundary between ourselves and nonhuman animals, or our own animality’ (Nussbaum, 202). The repulsion we feel before ‘spoiled or decaying’ animal products also suggests that disgust ‘wards off both animality in general and the mortality that is so prominent in our loathing of our animality’ (Nussbaum, 203). In its focus on bodily boundaries, Nussbaum’s discussion evokes Julia Kristeva’s theorization of the abject. As a necessary ‘precondition of narcissism’, the abject marks the ‘earliest attempts to release the hold of maternal entity’ in order to establish the distinctions between subject and object, or self and other, necessary for entry into the symbolic order.35 Though the abject is ‘opposed to the I’, it is not strictly an object (Kristeva, 2). In expelling the loathsome item or in repelling the mother, ‘I expel myself, I spit myself out, I abject myself ’ (Kristeva, 3, emphasis in original). Echoing Nussbaum’s definition of disgust as a means of warding off animality, Kristeva argues that, on a larger scale, the abject functions in primitive societies in order to demarcate a ‘precise area of their culture in order to remove it from the threatening world of animals or animalism’ (Kristeva, 12–13).36 However, because the abject ‘preserves what existed

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in the archaism of pre-objectal relationship’ (Kristeva, 10), the abject at once ‘draws me toward the place where meaning collapses’ and, as primal repression, constitutes a defensive reaction to that same collapse (Kristeva, 2). The corpse is the primary example of the abject as it does not just ‘signify death’, rather ‘corpses show me what I permanently thrust aside in order to live’ (Kristeva, 3, emphasis in original). As the corpse is ‘death infecting life’, the abject is ‘what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules’ (Kristeva, 4). At one level, the deformed peasant masses become the abject against which Tozzi’s protagonists must constitute themselves. In fact, while sickness also aff licts the pettybourgeois world of the protagonists, deformity is reserved for the peasantry. Even when not subject to deformity, the f lesh of the peasantry suggests an equally intense disgust as Tozzi foregrounds its base materiality. Addressing Tozzi’s representation of the peasant world, Maxia diagnoses an ‘ideologia anticontadina’ [anti-peasant ideology] in accordance with which the peasants belong to the ‘campo del biologico ancora scarsamente umanizzato’ [field of a biological dimension that is barely humanized].37 Maxia’s reference to the biological resonates with Marie-FrançoisXavier Bichat’s distinction between ‘animal life’ and ‘organic life’ as established in his Recherches physiologiques sur la vie et la mort (1800). In The Open, Agamben presents Bichat’s theory that in every higher organism two ‘animals’ live together.38 While the ‘organic’ level of existence involves the repetition of ‘blind and unconscious functions (the circulation of blood, respiration, assimilation, excretion, etc.)’, the ‘animal’ existence is ‘defined through its relation to the external world’ (Agamben, 2004, 14–15). Tozzi’s protagonists are plagued and disgusted by the necessity of the ‘organic’ or, to use Maxia’s term, biological level of existence. This is particularly evident in the younger and phobic protagonists as their disgust before the ‘organic’ dimension of their own bodies is projected outward onto those who surround them. We find, therefore, a blurring of the ‘organic’ and the ‘animal’ as Tozzi’s shamed protagonists are repulsed by a social world in which the biological dimension is deemed to predominate. Kristeva describes phobia as the mark of the ‘frailty of the subject’s signifying system’ (Kristeva, 35). Showing up at the ‘place of non-objectal states of drive’ (Kristeva, 35), the phobic object embodies the fear of a breakdown of all distinction between subject and object. Translating this breakdown into Bichat’s terms, ‘animal life’ is defined by its relations with the external world and, therefore, employs the conservative distinction between subject and object, while ‘organic life’, in ref lecting the purely biological processes, suggests the absence of the distinct subject. Tozzi’s phobic dimension, then, constitutes a rejection of ‘organic life’ perceived in others and despised in the self. This rejection, at base a rejection of the abject non-object that is also the self, is evident in Leopoldo’s aversion to the physical proximity of others (Opere, 419). His reference to the ‘tracce inestinguibili’ [indistinguishable traces] that these individuals leave on him ref lects his fear of the ‘organic’ in them and in himself. He seems to fear losing his discrete status as subject through a contaminating contact with a biological outside that is, at the same time, his own biological dimension. This fear becomes explicit when Leopoldo’s aloofness is criticized by his colleagues. Marcello Capri’s insistence that ‘[q]ui siamo

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tutti eguali’ [here we are all equal] is met with disgust on Leopoldo’s part, a disgust that triggers repulsion toward the food he is eating: ‘appena mi riesce di masticare gli ultimi bocconi’ [I can hardly chew the last mouthfuls (Opere, 414)]. Evoking Nussbaum’s description of the mouth as a ‘specially charged border’ of the body (Nussbaum, 202), Leopoldo’s disgust manifests his need to ward off the organic animality of his own physicality ref lected in his unsettling resemblance to those who surround him.39 The repulsion Adele feels before a plate of cherries echoes this disgust. She refuses to eat from a plate of cherries, finding their f lavour to be ‘disgustevole e insipido’ [disgusting and tasteless (Opere, 528)]. However, on going outside, she is overwhelmed by the temptation to eat some cherries from the tree. She blushes, seems to lose all self-control, and, as she leaps upward to grab some cherries, she crushes under foot part of a rose bush. On seeing the sign of her own material footprint on the damaged rose bush, she is overwhelmed with a ‘ribrezzo di tutta la pianta’ [disgust at the whole plant (Opere, 528)]. As with Leopoldo, the act of consuming food underlines the ‘organic’ or biological level of existence and highlights the materiality she shares with others.40 A similar concern with her materiality emerges in her realization that her existence was ‘limitato da molte leggi invisibili’ [limited by many invisible laws (Opere, 547)]. She feels the remoteness of her optimistic youth and thinks that, like a stone ‘infissa nel suo luogo’ [embedded in its place] she would have to adapt to her fate (Opere, 547). She had dreamed of a ‘sprazzo dell’eternità’ [f lash of eternity] but she would have to ‘discendere nel fiume comune’ [sink into the common river (Opere, 547)]. The reference to the inanimate stone underscores the weight of a materiality that equates her with all others. In the case of the young protagonists, Adele, Pietro and Leopoldo, the issue of sexuality also skirts the borders of disgust. Moreover, it is in their eventual refusal of sexual maturity that we might discern a specific critique that draws the feelings of shame and disgust from an ontological dimension toward a historically anchored condemnation of a given social configuration. This configuration is a paternal model of embodiment that, in line with modern capitalism, demands an economic rationalization of objects and bodies. It is, in fact, a regime that calls for corporeal activity which might be compared with Svevo’s theorization of the predatory action that characterizes the animal world. Moreover, like Svevo’s protagonists who opt for potentiality over actualized action, Tozzi’s protagonists effect an ambivalent rejection of this mode of bodily domination. This is most evident in the case of Pietro Rosi who, as critics have established, manifests a marked unease before questions of sexuality. His sexual development appears thwarted by a tyrannical father of ‘prepotente sensualità’ [overbearing sensuality (Baldacci, 1993, 5)]. Domenico f launts this sensuality as, for instance, when, in the presence of his son, he suggestively touches a girl’s apron with the tip of his phallic whip (Opere, 35). Symbol of the sexual and material power that this ‘padre-padrone’ [fathermaster] wields over his son, the whip features significantly in the ‘prova di forza e di virilità’ [test of strength and virility] that Domenico imposes on Pietro when he raises his phallic whip to his son’s nose and batters him with instructions and threats concerning the stubborn horse Pietro is trying to dominate (Opere, 34).41 Domenico’s sexually charged harassment of his son reaches its peak in the famous

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scene of the castration of the farm animals (Opere, 72–73). On Domenico’s order, the animals are castrated with little or no discrimination as to species and age and Pietro is forced to watch. Debenedetti’s inf luential diagnosis of an Oedipal complex privileges this castration scene, describing it as a condensation of the trauma of paternal mutilation (Debenedetti, 1988, 96). Debenedetti links the closed eyes of the title to Oedipus’s self-inf licted blinding and identifies Pietro’s blindness as the ‘mito centrale’ [central myth] and the ‘segreto motivo conduttore’ [secret guiding force] of all of Tozzi’s narrative (Debenedetti, 1988, 95). The metaphor of blindness is, thus, dense.42 It ref lects Pietro’s inadequacies before his father’s tyrannical domination and, at the same time, becomes a figure for the son’s moral rebellion against the father (Baldacci, 1993, 5). In refusing the ‘genitalità adulta’ [adult genitality (Luperini, 13)] that offers independence and sensual pleasures but also demands an attitude of cruelty toward others, Pietro rejects the ‘cieca fatalità del conf litto’ [blind fatality of conf lict] of a world that is ‘stupro vicendevole’ [reciprocal rape (Maxia, 87)].43 To become adult means to become ‘cattivi’ or wicked because adulthood necessitates the ‘assunzione del modello paterno’ [assumption of the paternal model (Luperini, 13)].44 As such, Pietro’s repudiation of a sexualized father is a deeply historical moment. Domenico is the ‘padrone’ or master whose duty is that of affirming, imposing and guarding order, continuity and a stable ethics (Maxia, 1971, 59). Therefore, the blinded son who will not impose himself sexually also rejects that specific economic reality affirmed, imposed and guarded by the paternal metaphor. This refusal is not limited to the young Pietro Rosi but is also evident in the novels of inheritance. Debenedetti extends his Oedipal reading with the claim the ‘roba’ inherited by Remigio and the Gambi brothers is the ‘simbolo della potenza paterna’ [symbol of paternal power (Debenedetti, 1988, 98)]. Moreover, he establishes both the centrality of the concept of possession and its reversal with respect to bourgeois positivism when he writes that though these novels appear to be about property or ‘roba’, they are, in fact, about its negation and the negation of the capitalistic fetishization of property (Debenedetti, 1988, 86). This claim leads Baldacci to argue that Remigio and the Gambi brothers engage in a wilful destruction of their property and, by extension, their father.45 Here, Debenedetti and Baldacci intuit what is a subtle but programmatic critique of a bourgeois capitalism that exploits or instrumentalizes objects for financial gain.46 It is this exploitative principle that is attacked by Remigio as he negates the economic use and exchange values of the farm and relates to his property as to the aforementioned erotic body described by Saccone (Saccone, 2000, 77).47 In literally and greedily consuming the profits of their inherited bookshop, the Gambi brothers also reject the paternal model, defined by its ability to separate from and actively exploit reality and its bodies as abstract resource. Animal Epistemologies The ambivalent metaphor of blindness is part of a programmatic negation of the epistemological authority of the human sensorium. While this apparent crisis of the authority of the senses is part and parcel of a modernism intent on exploring the

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embodied dimension of experience, in the case of Tozzi’s literary universe, it also acquires the ethical valence of a deliberate rejection of a historically determined mode of embodiment. Each novel, in fact, revolves around a particular physiological method of perception as the individual protagonist privileges a particular sense in their encounter with reality.48 However, though the novels suggest the literal employment of a sensory organ, the effectiveness of this sense is negated as the protagonists fail or refuse to grasp the social and personal implications of their sense perception. While some critics have considered Tozzi’s characters in terms of their inability to master reality or a defining ineptitude,49 the systematic quality of the protagonists’ employment of a particular sense suggests instead that Tozzi is engaged in a highly modernist refusal of the exploitative objectification of bodies. As such, the sensory programme that runs through Tozzi’s novels is the equivalent of the regime of bodily action that preoccupied Svevo. To perceive, by sight or by any other means, is to act and to dominate in a manner comparable with the paternal model of appropriation. Thus, the apparent epistemological crisis that informs Tozzi’s writing becomes a means by which the author repeatedly challenges the paternal model of exploitative colonization of the world. Pietro Rosi’s predominant sense is obviously that of sight. The primacy of the visual, evident in the title of the novel, is underscored by Pietro’s ultimately fruitless inclination toward drawing (Opere, 54). His visual imagination is evident when, having asked Ghisola about her declaration of affection, he is interrupted by his father (Opere, 33). When Domenico tells him to clean his lower lip, Pietro fears that the ‘segno delle parole dette a Ghisola’ [sign of the words spoken to Ghisola] had remained, somehow, evident on his mouth (Opere, 35). The visual register threatens to reveal his secrets and places him at the mercy of his father. Pietro understands that his father’s violence can be unleashed by little more than a misjudged or less fearful glance from his son (Opere, 82). Indeed, the gaze becomes a ‘figura dell’invasione, della sorveglianza, della penetrazione’ [symbol of invasion, surveillance, of penetration (Luperini, 139)] and Pietro’s hypersensitive timidity is such that he fears raising his eyes to interact with others.50 He is unable to withstand Agostino’s ‘sguardo crucciato, impenetrabile e lucido’ [vexed, impenetrable and lucid gaze (Opere, 18)]. Meeting a gaze means exposing the ‘mansuetudine mistica’ [mystical docility] of his own eyes and placing himself at the mercy of others (Opere, 98). Therefore, Pietro’s vision will not penetrate a social reality that is ‘refrattaria alla comprensione e minacciosa’ [threatening and will not submit to being understood (Petroni, 2006, 41)]. He ultimately opts out of any active attempt to penetrate reality and adopts the only posture that reassures him: ‘[s]tava bene sul letto, con gli occhi chiusi’ [he felt happy on his bed, with his eyes closed (Opere, 95)]. Though all of Tozzi’s protagonists manifest a heightened sensuality, for Adele and Leopoldo in particular this condition becomes a tactile sensibility. Their primary sense organ is the skin that covers their hypersensitive bodies. Yet they seem to refuse the sensual and explicitly sexual pleasures to be enjoyed by virtue of their primary sense and, like Pietro, reject adult sexuality. Their relationship with the world never really departs from the realm of the phobic and, thus, the efficacy of their sensual engagement is negated as they progressively withdraw from

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a materiality increasingly associated with images of death. In the presence of the smells of the tannery, Adele feels the presence of death (Opere, 508) and she also withdraws from the physicality of sexual touch into the madness of mystical union. Though she attempts a repeated foray into sensuality with Fabio, she is blocked by the return of a terrifying psychosis that transforms her into the guilt- and thornridden rose bush (Opere, 566). Leopoldo writes a diary comprised of disjointed sensations as he ever more senses the presence of death.51 He writes that his soul has only coffins and wreaths (Opere, 423). He observes fixedly the gradual putrefaction of a cat that lies dead on a roof (Opere, 427). Details of the process are provided. First, the carcass loses its soft tissue and appears to consist solely of skin. This skin becomes ever thinner until it appears stuck to the tiles on the roof. After this, the skin disappears and the bones are revealed. They too fade and all that remains is a dark stain that will ultimately be washed away. The focus on the cat’s skin suggests the disappearance of the creature’s ability to employ its tactile sensory engagement with the world. The skin remains almost until the end but it is a useless skin that feels nothing. Despite the fact that Remigio attempts an active engagement with an economic and social reality, he either fails or refuses to comprehend the significance of his sensory findings. Smell functions as his primary sensory perception. On observing his dying father, Remigio remains indifferent until he is finally penetrated by the exasperating smell of the iodoform used to treat the patient (Opere, 258). Subsequent to his father’s death, Remigio wanders through the house. He imagines old smells of lime and, on entering his father’s bedroom, he shivers (Opere, 267). He is disheartened by a bad smell in the shed (Opere, 309), and, on a separate occasion, he identifies a rotten smell like that of mushrooms coming from the tables in the inn (Opere, 358). He expresses a growing fondness for his farm, but notes that some white f lowers spread a bitter, almost repulsive, smell through the air (Opere, 377). What dominates is a malodorous rot that evokes a metaphorical putrefaction stemming from the fact that the farm was constructed and maintained by means of violent paternal dominion. Yet, Remigio does not grasp the meaning of this olfactory communication and, though he acknowledges these smells at the level of physical perception, he proves to be conceptually anosmiac.52 Instead, he embraces the illusory hope that the workers will somehow perceive his good intentions toward them (Opere, 369). Natural elements echo these odours of rot and Remigio, once again, refuses to comprehend the threat to his own person. Two examples will suffice here. When Remigio seeks solitude in nature, positive elements such as the ‘acqua limpida’ [limpid water] are contrasted with the veil of filth covering the water or the trunk of a ‘melo, nero e marcio’ [black and rotten apple tree (Opere, 389)]. On another occasion, Remigio denies the evidence of his sensory perception when, abandoning an unpleasant conversation with his stepmother, he seeks refuge outside where he soon feels better in the sunshine (Opere, 341). However, Remigio’s improved mental state is answered with a carefully structured downward movement through the natural space. Beginning with the sky, ‘che pareva più alto del solito’ [which seemed higher than usual (Opere, 341)], the narrator moves through the silent clouds

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that pass, to a black bird that ‘svolazzava sopra la casa’ [f luttered over the house] and down to a ‘calabrone, con le ali di un nero luccicante e turchino’ [hornet with wings of a sparkling and bluish black (Opere, 341)]. The hornet falls downward into water, ‘facendo lo stesso rumore d’una pietruzza’ [making the same noise as a stone (Opere, 341)], where he is swallowed up by a duck. Remigio’s denial of the violence becomes explicit in his affirmation of his youth when he responds to this input with the following exclamation: ‘[s]ono giovane!’ [I am young! (Opere, 341)]. While Saccone considers Remigio’s exclamation as indicative of his blindness,53 I would suggest instead that it expresses the protagonist’s refusal to engage in a social and economic struggle that demands the brutal domination of others. As he affirms his youth, Remigio, moreover, echoes the Svevian protagonists’ refusal of struggle. Yet this is a refusal that condemns Remigio to death as he becomes a scapegoat for the violence implicit in his ownership of the farm.54 Walking ahead of Berto, Remigio offers himself to the enraged worker who kills him with a hatchet (Opere, 399). Like Pietro, Dario Gavinai is a failed or, at best, struggling artist. As a composer, he privileges hearing, but seems to be plagued by deafness, as the prevailing sensory metaphor ref lects his refusal or his failure to penetrate reality aurally. In reading of his almost automatic or involuntary creative process, we read that his thoughts are translated into sounds and musical sensations (Opere, 462). Dario, however, does not comprehend these sounds because of his ‘sordità implacabile’ [merciless deafness] and must wait until they return in a more muted or distant form (Opere, 462). Experiencing a temporary cosmic accord with the universe at large, Dario feels that his soul has begun to play music, but he fails to discern this music ‘come se fosse stato profondamente sordo’ [as though he were profoundly deaf (Opere, 459)]. The apparent epistemological block is accentuated by Tozzi’s portrait of a Rome that, literally indistinct and metaphorically mediocre, is dominated by the midday sun and by dust. Like the loud music, the sun overwhelms as when the ‘barbagli di sole’ [dazzling rays of the sun] create such a glare that the colour of the surrounding countryside is impossible to determine (Opere, 496). This glare is repeatedly contrasted by the muting effect of the dust. In the offices of the Ministry of Public Education, Dario walks on tiles that dissolve into dust (Opere, 453). Light is explicitly countered by dust in the image of the lamp in Piazza di Trevi that, covered with dust, does not provide illumination (Opere, 458). Nature is associated with a dusty disintegration, as when the plants on the banks of the Tiber are covered with the now drying substance left by the high tides (Opere, 470). This programme reaches its peak in a portrait of Rome that, unlike the strong imperial and papal city rejuvenated by Italy’s various regions that Dario had hoped for, is the insignificant capital of Italy’s monarchical democracy (Opere, 452). This is the ‘terza Roma’ [Third Rome] of the idiotic and corrupt bourgeoisie that disgusts Carraresi (Opere, 469). Tre croci presents a programmatic negation of the sense of taste. The Gambi brothers spend all their dwindling resources on food, but are never seen to take pleasure in their culinary spoils. Their enjoyment of the sense of taste lies in the anticipation of the act of consumption rather than in the satisfaction itself. Taste is their predominant sense in their encounter with the world, but the act of savouring

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food is entirely absent from the novel even though lists of the food items coveted occupy significant portions of the text. Niccolò lusts after pears and apples that he sees while walking through Siena: ‘[l]’odore delle frutta gli fece allargare e stringere le narici; e gli si spiegarono le ginocchia’ [the smell of the fruit made him loosen and tighten his nostrils, and his knees gave way beneath him (Opere, 166)]. He states that he would sacrifice ten years of life just to taste this fruit (Opere, 167). He wakes only to eat (Opere, 161) and would like to have two stomachs, as one is not sufficient for the quantities he wishes to consume (Opere, 165). When arguing over who finished a bottle of cognac, Enrico shares his categorical refusal to drink water, a f luid appropriate only for cleaning one’s rump (Opere, 177). Before their impending ruin, Enrico claims that the worst thing is the impact that their troubles will have on their culinary habits. Nothing else matters, he says (Opere, 235). Giulio also suffers from a weakness for a ‘tavola bene apparecchiata’ [well-set table] and rushes home to ensure that he will not miss out on the ‘bocconi più buoni’ [tastiest morsels (Opere, 171)]. Moreover, when his thoughts go to his lunch, he, owner of a bookshop, considers the purchase of books as a waste and fantasizes about destroying his stock (Opere, 171–72). Yet, despite the centrality of food, the brothers are usually represented before or after their meals. The explicit act of eating or drinking features only three times in the text and, on each occasion, the item consumed is far from satisfactory. Niccolò quickly drinks his chocolate despite the fact that it burns his tongue (Opere, 187). Enrico complains that there is too little butter on his slices of bread (Opere, 188). Giulio’s appetite is affected by his anxiety and he eats only a little bread dipped in wine (Opere, 234). On only one occasion are the brothers depicted during one of their lunches, though no one is described in the act of eating (Opere, 190–91). Instead, excessive laughter dominates the scene. Their laughter is frothy, and underscores the fact that items exit the mouth rather than enter it. This determined negation of the pleasures of consumption echoes the refusal of the sensual satisfaction identified with an adult sexuality founded on a paternal attitude of cruelty. Instead, like Tantalus, the brothers are fated to crave food without ever obtaining gustatory satisfaction. This negation of taste also resonates with the animalistic traits that characterize the portrayal of Enrico and Niccolò. If eating underlines the materiality shared with the animal world as in the earlier examples of consumption, taste is considered as a higher faculty of human discernment. The absence of this faculty equates the brothers with the animal world. In fact, Enrico is described as a boar (Opere, 216) and his teeth are compared with those of a wolf (Opere, 249). He laughs like a mouse and sprays his saliva across the room (Opere, 205). Niccolò’s yawn ends in a braying sound (Opere, 201) and he snarls at Corsali (Opere, 225). These qualities suggest an unwillingness to confront and remedy the gravity of their ongoing fraud. Indeed, the brothers feel anxiety but never attempt to halt their activities. They behave as though in a trance and seem to live, like animals, in a type of eternal present that forecloses all knowledge of future consequences.55 Even Giulio’s act of self-sacrifice is committed as though in a trance (Opere, 240). Moreover, he suffers from an all-pervading sense of doubt and feels that he and his brothers are excluded from the world of certainty in which all others live and move (Opere, 169). In short,

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certainty, moral, epistemological or otherwise, seems absent from this gluttonous or animalistic life. What, then, is the status of these epistemologically challenged Tozzian characters? Does this metaphorical blindness or deafness, as the case may be, condemn them to a form of animal life that should be positioned beneath a socially and economically elevated model of paternal embodiment? Or, rather, does their inaction point toward an alternate morality of embodiment? It cannot be denied that, for Tozzi’s protagonists, embodiment means pain. In other words, Tozzi’s is not a joyous or triumphalist affirmation of a modern embodiment centred on a subjective encounter with a sensual dimension. Instead, his contestation of the violence of the paternal or adult model becomes an ethical choice that condemns the protagonists to an existence dominated by epistemological doubt and social and economic impotence. Like animals born with their eyes closed, Tozzi’s protagonists do not or will not apprehend the adult world around them. Though this constitutes a choice of sorts, a refusal of struggle similar in some ways to that proposed by Svevo, it also opens epistemological and moral parallels with Tozzi’s vision of the animal world. While the brutality of Tozzi’s natural world resonates with the sadism of James’s infernal cat,56 this does not complete his multi-faceted portrait of animality. Humanity slips towards an animality that is by turns violent, docile, aggressive, submissive, cruel and tormented. Moreover, recognizing these traits in themselves, the protagonists develop a relationship of attraction and repulsion with respect to the animal. The fact of the shared physicality means that these creatures are both familiar and alien and come to incarnate the disgusting organic animality of self and other that the protagonists seek to ward off. However, just as the abject entailed a formative rejection of a loathsome item that was also oneself, this troublesome animality is infinitely more familiar than it is alien. Being in f lesh, these animals suffer as humans do and, being of f lesh, these animals inf lict pain just as humankind does. Just as humans do harm and live in fear of having harm done to them, these animals are both ‘vittime colpevoli’ [guilty victims] and ‘carnefici terrorizzati’ [terrified tormentors (Baldacci, 1993, 115)]. Debenedetti’s inf luential identification of a process of human animalization (Debenedetti, 1988, 88–92) points to the crucial interpenetration of man and animal that defines Tozzi’s universe and that demands a further exploration of the ethical dimension of human animality. Despite their own capacity for cruelty, animals are for the most part subject to a capricious humanity. Benevolence is frequently replaced with cruelty for reasons beyond the control and understanding of the beasts. Even on those few occasions when animals are treated with kindness, this kindness is as inexplicable as the acts of cruelty.57 Pietro pulls the feet and wings off crickets and then impales them (Opere, 12) and, a few pages later, he manifests an attitude of benevolence toward nature prompted by his ‘emozioni delicate’ [delicate emotions (Opere, 19)]. Similarly, Ghisola cares for a nest of sparrows and then abruptly kills the terrified birds by crushing their heads between her fingers (Opere, 16). The most striking example of animal suffering is to be found in Adele and involves the dog killed by the peasants on Attilio Belcolori’s farm (Opere, 555–57). After kicking the dog, the peasants tie a rope around his neck and he is led, by the supervising peasant and his son, towards

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the fields. The reader is then brought into the interiority of the dog as he remembers a female dog encountered that morning (Opere, 556). He tries to stop walking, but is forced to submit. At this point, the dog, unused to being tied, becomes sad ‘perché non riusciva a comprendere niente’ [because he understood nothing (Opere, 556)]. The dog seems to sense the danger and he feels an intense emotion as he adopts a submissive posture (Opere, 557). At this point, despite his unease, the boy shoots the animal. The pellets hit the dog and he falls back, gasping for breath and bleeding. He stands again with his mouth open and a sweet expression on his face (Opere, 557). After the son fires again, the dog attempts to stand, staring, all the while, at his killer. At this point the father finishes the job by hitting the dog with a shovel (Opere, 557).58 Here the narrative treats the animal no differently than it does man ‘quasi che basti loro essere capaci di sofferenza per essere riconosciuti dal narratore come nostri simili, dotati, come noi, di un’ “anima” ’ [almost as though their capacity for suffering was sufficient for them to be recognized by the narrative as our equals, endowed, like us, with a ‘soul’ (Petroni, 2006, 42)]. While Debenedetti identifies a process of animalization by means of which the Other is animalized (Debenedetti, 1988, 92), animalization seems instead to touch both the Other and the self. Discussing Bestie, Debenedetti describes the fear experienced before the figure of the animal as one triggered by the ‘presenza di un essere vivo, simile a noi in quanto vivo, ma dal quale emana un’intenzione incomprensibile, di natura aliena, che si annunzia e non si dichiara’ [presence of a living being, similar to us because living, but from which emanates an incomprehensible intention, alien in nature, that announces but never clarifies itself (Debenedetti, 1988, 89)]. Petroni welcomes Debenedetti’s characterization of the ‘inspiegabilità’ [inexplicability] of the animals and stresses their quality as ‘enigmi viventi’ [living enigmas (Petroni, 2006, 138– 39)]. However, what is crucial in Debenedetti’s description is the recognition of the profound sameness that binds the human to the animal. It is this that bolsters Tozzi’s suggestion of a horrifying equivalence between animal and man, or more specifically between suffering animals and his young protagonists. How, then, are we to understand this Tozzian parallel that seems, unlike Svevo’s portrait of evolved animality, to suggest a sameness that is both moral and epistemological?59 William James’s reference to animality in Some Problems in Philosophy may be of use. James writes that, without the substitution of concepts for our perceptual impressions, we would exist as the animal does: ‘Had we no concepts we should live simply “getting” each successive moment of experience, as the sessile sea-anemone on its rock receives whatever nourishment that wash of the waves may bring’.60 Our concepts afford us agency and with them we can ‘actively turn this way and that, bend our experience’ ( James, 1987, 1015). Indeed, we are granted a greater understanding of the world we inhabit as it can practically adapt us to a ‘larger environment than that of which the brutes take account’ ( James, 1987, 1016). Moreover, the animal is unable to access a level at which the ‘whole system of relations, spatial, temporal, and logical [...] gets plotted out’ ( James, 1987, 1016). James’s discussion of animal limitations is echoed in Heidegger’s portrait of animality where, working to elevate human life above animal existence, he writes

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that animals are ‘poor in world’, while man is ‘world-forming’ because he ‘is not merely a part of the world but is also master and servant of the world in the sense of “having” world. Man has world’.61 This distinction is first and foremost cognitive, as the difference between having world and not lies in ‘apprehending something as something’ (Heidegger, 306). Heidegger describes the epistemological limits of a lizard lying on a rock in the sunshine: ‘it is doubtful whether it really comports itself in the same way as we do when we lie out in the sun, i.e., whether the sun is accessible to it as sun, whether the lizard is capable of experiencing the rock as rock’ (Heidegger, 197, emphasis in original). Stuart Elden addresses Heidegger’s differentiation of the human from the animal and writes that, being without language, animals ‘do not dwell or abide; neither do they look [...], but rather they peer, glare, gawk or gape, because there is not “a self disclosure of being” ’.62 In effect, Heidegger locates the solution to what, in his ‘Letter on Humanism’, he terms our ‘scarcely fathomable, abyssal bodily kinship with the animal’ (Elden, 281) in the human capacity to dominate and, thus, this distinction from animals is a ‘way of ordering, regulating, controlling and exploiting them’ (Elden, 284). Humanity is elevated above the conceptually blind corporeality of Heidegger’s animal precisely because of its ability to calculate, exploit and colonize the external world and the bodies that inhabit it. This regulating attitude recalls, of course, the adult or paternal model of exploitative and tyrannical action rejected by Tozzi’s programmatic negation of the epistemological efficacy of sensory perception. Tozzi’s adults are in total command and possession of a world, while the young protagonists, in identifying with animality, are entirely ‘poor in world’. Yet, though this state may be painful, it is ethical and translates, in Tozzi’s universe, into a refusal to penetrate, to act, to dominate, and to own. The young protagonists do not pass to the agency afforded, as James suggests, by conceptual organization and thus move aimlessly in this space of determined inaction. Nelson Moe suggests this mode of being when he describes an instability that ref lects both the inability to fix meaning and the ‘instability of the subject (the narrator), of the object (the animals), and of the relationship between them’.63 To possess means to fix the place of an object and to impose one’s will on it (Moe, 121).64 The moral inadequacy of this position appears most dramatically in the antepenultimate aphorism of Bestie. Here the narrator insists on the continued presence of his mother, who had died twenty years previously (Opere, 617). Moreover, the aphorism closes on the image of a pair of pigeons whose wings his dead mother must sever in order to guarantee that the birds will not f ly away (Opere, 618). Moe sees in the maimed pigeons the ‘element of necrophilia at the base of an attempt to possess, to fix, to stabilize for good’ and the ‘desperation and violence that go into securing a possession’ (Moe, 121–22). Sensory Assault and Pre-Oedipal Bodies If the Tozzian lizard does not perceive a world that is possessed economically and cognitively, what exactly does he see? To answer this, we must return to Kristeva’s theorization of the abject. Described as a necessary precondition of

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narcissism (Kristeva, 13), the identification of the abject marks the beginnings of a separation from the maternal entity and a construction of psychical boundaries that, in demarcating the self from other, prepare the way for the infant’s entry into adult subjecthood within the symbolic order. This adult subjecthood is precisely the delimited paternal model defined by a mode of embodiment constructed on the successful expulsion of an abject materiality that is also an expulsion of the abject self. As such, it is an embodiment in which we are successfully divided or split from our own materiality now felt in an indirect manner. In its creation of an abstracted subject or agent, this mode of embodiment is also the condition for an active dominion over and rationalization of our own demarcated bodies and the bodies of others, that same dominion that defines the paternal model. If Tozzi’s characters refuse this symbolic order of a subjectivity of agency, where can they locate themselves and what alternative model of embodiment can they construct? Tozzi’s answer seems to be a regression into a pre-Oedipal dimension defined by a fusion with the maternal figure and an absence of those boundaries generated by the expulsion of the abject non-object. This, however, is a risky regression because, having rejected the boundaries that are constitutive of adult subjectivity, pre-Oedipal embodiment is characterized by a terrifying state of fusion with all other bodies in a realm that, for Elio Gioanola, is peopled by ‘mostri persecutori e distruttivi, generatori di angoscia perché minaccianti castrazione, afanisi, morte’ [destructive and persecuting monsters, generators of anguish because they threaten castration, aphanisis, death].65 Gioanola cites Paul Federn’s discussion of a cosmic ego when he broaches the loss of the boundaries between the I and external reality (Gioanola, 53). For Pietro, as for all of the young protagonists, this cosmic fusion seems to constitute a positive space, as wellness is equated with a realm in which the external world ref lects intensely an emotional interiority.66 This is the state of heightened or hypersensitive sensuality that Pietro discovers when he finds that the shadows created by the pear tree ref lect the realities of his own body and are like ‘segni di febbre, e pulsanti come le sue vene; come acqua bollente’ [signs of fever, pulsating like his veins, like boiling water (Opere, 81)]. Leopoldo merges with the natural world around him as his soul imitates the water that moves but appears immobile (Opere, 433). He trembles like the poplar trees and becomes like grass: ‘[n]on sono doventato erba anch’io, per farmi falciare insieme con tutta quella del campo?’ [have I not also become grass, so that I can be cut down like all the grass in the field? (Opere, 433)]. This cosmic sentiment becomes more explicit in Adele, when the narrator describes the intensity of love in terms of a fusion as the subject extends beyond the borders of the individual body: ‘non è possibile contenersi’ [it is not possible to contain oneself (Opere, 539)]. Nature, then, ref lects this ecstatic state back to the subject as it seems that everything ‘partecipi alle nostre emozioni violente, con una straordinaria voluttà. I raggi del sole che toccano le mani sono pieni di brividi sensuali, e tutto il cielo è come un’anima semplice e immensa che invita’ [participates in our violent emotion with an extraordinary voluptuousness. The rays of the sun that touch our hands are filled with sensual shivers and the whole sky is like an immense and simple soul that invites us to it (Opere, 539)].

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This pre-Oedipal position of ecstatic fusion is, to say the least, perilous as Leo­ poldo’s identification with the ill-fated grass anticipates.67 The absence of subjective borders places the young protagonists in the unmediated presence of a terrifying face of the maternal, a circumstance clearly evident in the role played by the Virgin Mother in Adele’s suicide. On acknowledging her desire for Fabio, the psychotic Adele suffers the appearance of a vengeful Madonna and, in her madness, imagines that she is transformed into a rose bush (Opere, 566), the same f lower that prompted her disgust earlier on perceiving her footprints on the damaged plant (Opere, 528). Realizing, moreover, that the adult domain constituted a ‘ritmo estraneo a lei’ [rhythm outside herself ], she takes her own life (Opere, 568). In effect, in seeking out fusion with the all-encompassing mother-nurturer, the protagonists must also contend with the mother-destroyer. Though Gioanola depicts a gentle mother contrasted with the brutal father, he also draws on the work of Melanie Klein to describe a mother who actually belongs to the father and is, therefore, split with respect to the child between a ‘good breast’ that nourishes and a ‘bad breast’ that denies nourishment of any kind.68 Having refused Oedipal demarcations, Tozzi’s characters have no self-defensive boundaries against this mother-devourer who threatens to consume them. This is a schizophrenic realm characterized by heightened sensory experience and an accompanying inability to interpret or channel the messages that assault the I.69 Indeed, sensory perception borders on the violent. Maxia, in fact, describes the sensory relationship with the world in terms of an assault. One does not hear a sound, he writes, but is, rather, deafened by it. One does not see a light or a colour, but is, instead, blinded by it (Maxia, 1971, 68–69). Examples of this tendency are numerous and the following constitutes a selection from each of the novels. On her initial walk, Adele is reluctant to approach the fountain ‘per paura di perdere la coscienza’ [for fear of losing consciousness (Opere, 509)] and her eyes are ‘pieni e sconvolti’ [full and disturbed] as she stares at the water (Opere, 510). On one occasion, she is awoken by the ‘chiarore violento’ [violent light] of the full moon (Opere, 527), while, at another point, she seeks shade from the light of the sun behind a plant and stares out at the sunlit images that remain in her mind, blinding her and burning like f lames (Opere, 527).70 Leopoldo’s soul is hopelessly encumbered by all that he has seen and done (Opere, 409–10). Lying in bed listening involuntarily to birdsong, Pietro wonders why that which surrounds him seems like an ‘incubo oscillante e pesante’ [oscillating and heavy nightmare (Opere, 15)]. Before a mysterious and violent nature, Pietro is overwhelmed by the ‘imagini esteriori’ [external images] that ‘lo invadevano senza tregua’ [invaded him without respite (Opere, 20)]. In Il podere, a violent storm is described in terms of its dazzling impact on the workers who struggle to bring in hay (Opere, 307–08). The sky darkens, the thunderclaps seem loud enough to break up the houses and, finally, boiling drops of rain can be heard pattering on the roofs (Opere, 308).71 Set predominantly inside the gloom of the brothers’ bookshop, Tre croci creates a claustrophobic atmosphere that triggers a sensory violence of anxious oppression.72 Nerves are permanently taut and ready to snap. Just before he takes his own life, Giulio is terrified by the sound of the gaslight coming on and longs to hurl himself against the walls (Opere,

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239). This feeling of being hemmed in is intensified by the dominance of a dialogue comprised of shouts, grunts and explosive laughter.73 In effect, the brothers generate the deafening sensory overload that overwhelms them. The landscape of Gli egoisti is dominated by the disorienting effect of the sun’s glare. Dario tends to rise at midday and is thus greeted by the hot sun: ‘I vetri parevano per doventare come una colla trasparente e il sole ficcarsi dentro le cose’ [The panes seemed about to be transformed into transparent glue and the sun was about to thrust itself inside (Opere, 452–53)].74 Focusing on those objects close to him in aphorism 58, the narrator of Bestie describes the violence of the sun that ‘taglia gli occhi con i suoi pezzetti di vetro’ [cuts the eyes with its pieces of glass (Opere, 612)]. Returning once again to William James, we find that he rejects the Kantian view of sensation as blind in order to argue that our conceptual organization derives directly from our sensory encounter with reality. He differentiates between sensation and perception, arguing that while pure sensation involves a ‘simple quality like “hot,” “cold,” “red,” “noise,” “pain,” apprehended irrelatively to other things’, perception suggests the apprehension of an object that is ‘fuller in relations’, or more ‘classed, located, measured, compared, assigned to a function’ ( James, 1983, 651). Sensation, however, constitutes the first and necessary step on a path to conceptualizing the world ( James, 1983, 656). Indeed, it is by virtue of the infant’s sensory interaction with his universe that the ‘miracle of knowledge bursts forth’ ( James, 1983, 657). But, until this miracle occurs, the baby lives ‘assailed by eyes, ears, nose, skin, and entrails at once’, and experiences the world as ‘one great blooming, buzzing confusion’ ( James, 1983, 462). Yet, while the baby exists without the agency afforded by conceptual organization, he or she also dwells in a space in which embodiment is most powerfully experienced. Sensory impression is not interpreted as part of a causal chain of events beyond the borders of the organism, but is intensely felt in and on a body that is not demarcated from the world. Similarly, Tozzi’s hypersensitive or schizophrenic domain of sensory assault also becomes the space of hypersensitive embodiment in which localized or demarcated pleasures of adult sexuality and taste are replaced with an all-pervading and even terrifying intensity similar to the immediate sensuousness of the animal. The absence of the targeted or, in the specific case of Tozzi, tyrannical action that extends outward to possess the world also heightens this experience and transforms Tozzi’s young bodies into intensively vital sites of hypersensitivity. It is this same sensory intensity that Tozzi renders in his style and narrative organization. Styling Sensory Blindness Despite the insistent presence of human and animal bodies, the particular character of Tozzi’s style, like the content of his novels, has been attributed to an authorial exploration of the human psyche. Tozzi’s characteristically anti-hierarchical narrative organization has been associated with the unconscious, oniric and visionary mechanisms of the psyche. In support of this reading, critics habitually refer to the author’s stated predilection for the ‘racconto di un qualsiasi misterioso atto nostro; come potrebbe essere quello, per esempio, di un uomo che a un certo punto della sua strada si sofferma per raccogliere un sasso che vede, e poi prosegue la

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sua passeggiata’ [tale of some mysterious act of ours, as, for example, a man who, at a certain point of the road, stops to pick up a stone that he sees and then continues his walk (Opere, 1325)]. Yet, while this citation might tempt us to speculate about the psychological motivation that prompts the man to reach down and grasp the stone, the true mystery lies in the physical act itself. The man responds, after all, to an external stimulus that acts upon the sensory organs of the material body. But what seems crucial to this literary vision is that the man’s response to this external stimulus is characterized by ideologically motivated epistemological limitations that intensify the encounter with the tangible world. I would, then, correlate Tozzi’s noted anti-hierarchical style with a heightened corporeal sensitivity rather than with the dynamics of the psyche. Tozzi’s literary production has been divided into two six-year phases or ‘sessenni’, each corresponding to a distinct style of composition.75 The first phase ref lects the time spent at Castagneto and stretches from 1908 to 1914, to encompass the composition of Adele, Con gli occhi chiusi, Bestie, and Ricordi di un impiegato. The second ‘sessennio’ was spent in Rome and stretches from 1914 to the author’s death in 1920. Here, Tozzi wrote Il podere, Tre croci and Gli egoisti. The later novels manifest what has been seen as a more conventional narrative organization, a development attributed to the inf luence of Borgese, whom Tozzi befriended in or around 1913 (Cesarini, 167).76 Notwithstanding Borgese’s exaltation of Tozzi’s later works, subsequent critical opinion has largely privileged the experimental lyricism of the first phase of composition.77 Central to this preference is the conviction that the earlier period better illustrates Tozzi’s stylistic and narrative innovation. In describing this innovative narrative, Debenedetti underlines Tozzi’s ‘vocazione narrativa’ [narrative vocation] in order to distinguish him from the vociani whom he defines in terms of a preference for the lyrical fragment (Debenedetti, 2001, 54).78 Insistent in his claims that Tozzi is not a naturalist, Debenedetti identifies a Tozzian narrative economy that, eschewing principles of causality, records rather than explicates: ‘Il naturalismo narra in quanto spiega, Tozzi narra in quanto non può spiegare’ [Naturalism narrates inasmuch as it explains, while Tozzi narrates inasmuch as he cannot explain (Debenedetti, 1988, 92)]. Debenedetti instead identifies parallel innovation in the work of Joyce and Kaf ka, this latter with whom Tozzi worked in a ‘sincronismo involontario’ [unconscious synchronism (Debenedetti, 2001, 248)].79 Baldacci also insists on the modernity of Tozzi in analysing his early style and narrative construction. He describes an anti-naturalism based in an anti-hierarchical organization: ‘non esistono momenti privilegiati ai fini delle conseguenze narrative. Ogni momento ha lo stesso diritto di cittadinanza’ [there are no moments that are privileged with respect to narrative consequences. Every moment has the same rights (Baldacci, 1993, 9)]. He also identifies a ‘tecnica aggregazionale’ [aggregational technique] that develops ‘per montaggio di spezzoni’ [by montage of clips (Baldacci, 1993, 13)].80 Sandro Maxia describes Con gli occhi chiusi as a text whose overall structure is one of a paratactical and centrifugal episodicity in which terms such as foreground and background lose all significance as both everything and nothing is highlighted (Maxia, 1971, 11). Yet, insisting that Tozzi did not perform a narrative revolution,

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Maxia describes an ‘operazione di eversione dall’interno’ [operation of subversion from within] built on a challenging of narrative temporality and a use of dystaxia evident in the tension between narrated time and time of the narrative (Maxia, 1971, 14, 16–17). For Maxia, Tozzi’s innovation lies in the stylistic rigor with which he rendered a distorted perception of the world (Maxia, 1971, 66). While Petroni rejects the hypothesis of an a-ideological Tozzi, he applauds Debenedetti’s comparison of Tozzi with Kaf ka on the grounds that both authors perceive a reality marked by a dark and disquieting vitality (Petroni, 2006, 22).81 Petroni stresses the absence of rational causality and identifies a ‘logica simmetrica’ [symmetrical logic] that occasions the temporal reversibility characteristic of the working of the unconscious (Petroni, 2006, 147–48). In this narrative economy the hypotactic structure of the sentence is replaced with an organization based on parataxis (Petroni, 2006, 24). In fact, challenging the concept of two phases of production, Petroni argues that all of Tozzi’s work is characterized by the ‘uso oltranzistico della paratassi’ [extremist use of parataxis (Petroni, 2006, 106)].82 Luperini also rejects the division of Tozzi’s work, but he does express sympathy with Baldacci’s focus on the ‘aspetto più dirompente e innovativo della ricerca tozziana’ [most disruptive and innovative aspect of Tozzi’s production (Luperini, ix)].83 Luperini argues instead for the continuity between the phases and speaks of a ‘progressiva evoluzione, senza strappi’ [progressive evolution without breaks (Luperini, xi)] towards more ideologically engaged and compact narratives. In terms of stylistic specifics, Luperini identifies a more intimate connection between psychology and style than with any other author of the Novecento (Luperini, 41). Cataloguing a series of stylistic and organizational characteristics including expressionism, parataxis, a levelling of syntactical and grammatical hierarchies, Luperini connects these traits to psychologically oriented elements such as the autonomy of individual details and the animation of nature (Luperini, 41). The result is a centrifugal narrative organization evident at the level of the tale and the individual sentence (Luperini, 42). This sampling of critical approaches to Tozzi’s style and narrative construction indicates that, in characterizing Tozzi’s innovation, critics have focused on the anti-hierarchical and paratactic qualities of his style. The absence of a traditional causality both at the level of the overall narrative organization and the individual sentence has prompted the identification of an oniric mode of narration that respects the a-logical processes of the unconscious. However, this anti-hierarchical parataxis can be more convincingly applied to the disjointed sensory perceptions of a modernist body excluded from the epistemological certainties afforded by social and economic possession. In effect, Tozzi’s thematic fixation on a hypersensitive f lesh is echoed in a style that eschews the certainties of rational causality. This episodic parataxis, then, is the style of the body that perceives but does not access the level of conceptual abstraction and agency described by James. Robert De Lucca identifies these qualities in a Tozzian writing that ‘records, to excess, sensual impressions’.84 In this incessant gathering of ‘sounds, sights and smells’, impressions become ‘words without the mediation of the intellect’ (De Lucca, 247–48). However, this should not suggest an involuntary or automatic process of composition on the part of the author.85 Instead, this stance ref lects a desire to ‘lasciare inalterati, così come sono e

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si presentano in una qualunque porzione di realtà guardata, tutti gli elementi della vita’ [leave all elements of life unaltered as they are and as they present themselves in any portion of examined reality].86 This is the world of the tangible that, according to De Lucca, dominates Tozzi’s texts (De Lucca, 248). It is the attention to the concrete elements of this sensory encounter with reality that guides Tozzi’s reading process. Wary of the ‘effetti cinematografici’ [cinematographic effects] that artificially bind the various portions of a text into a plot, he expresses a preference for the individual piece or ‘pezzo’ of a text where the writer has succeeded in indicating ‘qualunque parvenza della nostra fuggitiva realtà’ [some semblance of our f leeting reality (Opere, 1325)]. The individual words of this representation cannot be selected in a haphazard manner with a ‘psicologia approssimativa’ [approximate attitude], but must instead constitute a necessary choice (Opere, 1326). Tozzi defines his own rejection of the ‘effetti sicuri’ [sure effects] of conventional plot as an instance of ‘forza lirica’ [lyrical force (Opere, 1325)].87 Moving beyond those ‘fila che sono reputate indispensabili a un buon romanziere’ [threads that are deemed indispensable to a good novelist (Tozzi, 1993, 318)], Tozzi infuses his work with a lyrical urgency. This urgency is what provides Bestie, ‘un libro sinteticamente lirico’ [a synthetically lyrical book] with a ‘stile capace di definire il valore schietto d’ogni vocabolo adoprato’ [style capable of determining the unadulterated value of each word used (Tozzi, 1993, 192)].88 This is the stylistic innovation that Tozzi and his contemporaries have a duty to perform. They must steer Italian literature ‘non solo a nuove percezioni intime e spirituali, ma anche a quelle maturazioni stilistiche che ormai non possono tardare, perché coincidono con nuovi stati d’animo’ [not only toward new spiritual and intimate perception, but also toward those stylistic developments that can no longer delay in coming because they illustrate new spiritual states (Tozzi, 1993, 229)]. These new states of spirit and mind are precisely those representations of modernist perception of the concrete world that provide the Tozzian text with what Saccone has described as a ‘splendore — e uno spessore — iperreale’ [splendour — and a depth — that is hyperreal (Saccone, 2000, 44)] Throughout his novels, Tozzi pays attention at both the thematic and formal level to non-conceptualized sensory experience. Frequently what formally marks the representation of the encounter with the world is the disjointed character of its presentation. The following passage from Con gli occhi chiusi illustrates Tozzi’s rendering of immediate perception: Una striscia umida di nuvole color della seppia divideva esattamente dal cielo turchino l’orizzonte lucente di raggi serotini. Le chiome degli olivi sembravano un solo velo trattenuto e avvolto ai rami aperti di ciascun albero. I cipressi dell’aia erano neri. I moscerini e le farfalle bianche rasentavano la fronte della giovinetta; e una fragranza ignota s’avvicendava con il fetore caldo della stalla di sotto. Una cicala fece uno strido da un pesco, i cui fiori erano mollicci e resinosi: come se avesse sognato (Opere, 17). [A humid strip of sepia-coloured clouds separated the dark blue sky from a horizon that shone with evening rays. The foliage of the olive trees seemed a single veil held and enveloped in the open branches of each tree. The cypress trees of the farmyard were black.

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The above constitutes one of the most formally extreme examples of Tozzi’s paratactic representation of raw sensation. The narrator yields his position and what emerges is an unmediated record of the sensory perception of sights, sounds, smells and tactile input of the focalizer of this passage, Ghisola. Immediate sensuousness is ref lected in the formal disconnection between the individual sentences as distraction motivates an abrupt switch from one sensation to the next. No sooner has Ghisola observed the clouds than she realizes that the tops of the olive trees appear to her as a single veil over the branches. Her attention switches, for no apparent reason, to the blackness of the cypress trees and this observation is interrupted by the f lies and butterf lies that brush against her forehead. Conceptual classification exists only at the very elementary level of the black colour of the cypresses and the veil-like quality of the olive trees. This absence of a theoretical connection between the perceptions underlines the animalistic immediacy of raw sensation similar to the experience of Heidegger’s lizard on the rock. The entranced stare of the focalizer is underlined by the final return of the narrator who references a dream-like state. Leopoldo’s diary constitutes an almost uninterrupted record of sensory perceptions and offers numerous examples of this abrupt and distracted switch from one perception to another. While on an evening stroll, Leopoldo registers a muddy Arno with green banks, a family with whom he crosses paths and two lovers. Sunset arrives, the mountains turn golden and the river glitters. He stops to listen to the sounds of a guitar and a woman singing. This sound is supplanted with the monotonous drone of the water. As he walks, a dog threatens to attack him. He turns back and is distracted by the moon. A train passes, making excessive noise (Opere, 424–25). This passage manifests no organizational hierarchy, but is rather defined by the erratic nature of sensory input. In short, the dynamic of the section is that of the distraction and interruption that characterizes intense physical sensation. Similarly Adele offers numerous examples of this mechanism of distraction. On her initial walk through Siena, Adele’s attention switches in a distracted manner from the water in the fountain, to the men and smells of the tannery, to the old woman who carries a jug of water (Opere, 508–09). This dynamic of presentation is wedded to an hallucinatory perception when, out in the morning light, she notices that the stain of light appears as fantastic f lowers (Opere, 527). We find two disconnected sentences that read as follows: ‘[s]i sentono svolazzare gli uccelli. Gli alberi si illuminano nelle chiome’ [birds can be heard f luttering. The foliage of the trees brightened (Opere, 527)]. Though shorter than the passage that registered Ghisola’s perceptions, this example also renders the disjointed impressions in disconnected and brief sentences. Though the narrative organization of Il podere differs with respect to earlier texts, the novel, nonetheless, manifests a similar attention to sensory perception.89 Remi­g io’s sensory abilities dominate when he seeks refuge from his economic pressures:

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Remigio s’appoggiò con i gomiti al cancello della strada. Tornavano a casa, verso Colle di Malamerenda e l’Isola, le ragazze che andavano tutti i giorni a Siena a portare le bombole del latte e ad imparare a far la sarta. I mandorli e i peschi, sparsi su per le colline, erano quasi invisibili nell’ombra della sera: sebbene, sopra il sole tramontato, restasse una luce limpida a rischiarare quasi la metà del cielo. Un branco di avvinazzati passò, cantando. Dietro un barroccio, un gregge di pecore empì tutta la strada; e il cane si fermò a fiutare lo spigolo della capanna sciupato dai mozzi delle ruote (Opere, 297). [Remigio leaned his elbows on the gate that opened onto the road. The young girls who went every day to Siena to bring bottles of milk and to study tailoring were returning home, towards Colle di Malamerenda and the Isola. The almond and peach trees, scattered across the hills, were almost invisible in the evening shadows, even though after sunset a clear light continued to illuminate almost half of the sky. A pack of drunkards passed by, singing. Behind a cart a herd of sheep filled the entire road, and the dog stopped to sniff the edge of the shed damaged by the wheel hubs]

Remigio sees the young girls as they return from Siena. His attention switches to the fading visibility of the trees scattered across the hills at sunset. A visible and audible group of singing drunkards passes, as does a cart followed by a herd of sheep and a sniffing dog. The visible and audible elements are presented as though directly, and no principle of causality other than the purely sensory and paratactic contact with reality dictates the order of representation. A further example of immediate sensuousness appears as Remigio walks through his father’s house: Attraversando il salotto, rivide il ghiro imbalsamato, quel ghiro che suo padre aveva tenuto due anni dentro una gabbia; rivide anche gli uccelli. Uno specchio antico, screpolato, in una cornice la cui indoratura s’era scrostata e rotta, li rif letteva, ed egli, allora, si mise a guardarli nello specchio. Girò gli occhi per tutta la stanza: era rimasta quasi nuova, e si ricordò bene di quando il pittore l’aveva rifatta; gli parve perfino di riavere nel naso l’odore della calce spenta dentro i secchi di latta. Quelle righe rosse, che in tutti e quattro gli angoli s’intrecciavano con svolazzi ripiegati, e d’un altro colore, gli parvero come staccate da tutta la parete e animate d’una vita propria. In camera, i cassetti erano ancora chiusi con le chiavi che egli non aveva; e non sapeva né meno quel che contenessero. Il letto stava di traverso alla stanza; i campanelli elettrici pendevano con i fili attorcigliati (Opere, 267). [Crossing the drawing room, he saw again the embalmed dormouse, that dormouse that his father had kept in a cage for two years; he also saw the birds. They were ref lected in an antique mirror, cracked and held in a frame on which the gilded covering was peeling and broken, and he looked at them in the mirror. He glanced about the entire room; it had remained as though new and he remembered clearly when the painter had redone the walls. He even sensed in his nostrils the smells of the old lime in the tin buckets. Those red lines that in all four corners were intertwined with furled up decorative f lourishes of a different colour, seemed to stand out from the walls and were as though animated by a life all their own. In the bedroom, the drawers were still locked with keys he did not have and he didn’t even know what they contained. The bed stretched crosswise into the room; electrical bells hung with twisted wires].

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Though mediated, for the most part, by the narratorial voice, Remigio’s impressions manifest the same mechanism of distraction evident in Ghisola’s perception. His attention switches from the stuffed animals to the mirror that ref lects them. A passing memory of when the room was painted prompts an imagined olfactory sensation. Remigio’s attention switches to the ornamentation in the corners and, at this point, a menacing autonomy animates the objects he sees, a fact reinforced by the locked drawers that contain contents unknown to him. The final sentence, comprised of two clauses, acquires the unmediated quality that characterized Ghisola’s perception. The narrator relinquishes his mediatory position when we read simply that the bed is positioned diagonally across the room and the hanging wires are twisted. What is also evident in these passages is Tozzi’s use of the semicolon. Luperini underlines this authorial technique in his description of the detached and autonomous segments of the individual sentences (Luperini, 42). This anomalous use of punctuation leads to the disappearance of hypotactic difference between clauses, as all is placed at the same level (Luperini, 42). Luperini considers this strategy in terms of its ability to unite a visionary mode of narration with realist elements as single details are rendered in their threatening particularity (Luperini, 42). This syntactical strategy underscores the fact that sensory input obeys a dynamic that is accumulative rather organizational. In the aforementioned example of Ghisola’s direct sensations, we note that the sentence concerning the small f lies and butterf lies consists of two parts separated by a semicolon. The first concerns the proximity of the f lies and butterf lies to the girl’s forehead, and the second part registers an unknown fragrance that alternates with the stench emanating from the shed: ‘[i] moscerini e le farfalle bianche rasentavano la fronte della giovinetta; e una fragranza ignota s’avvicendava con il fetore caldo della stalla di sotto’ [The f lies and white butterf lies brushed against the young girl’s forehead; and an unknown fragrance alternated with the hot stench emanating from the stables below (Opere, 17)]. There is no apparent conceptual association that binds the first clause to the second. Rather, the physical laws of the sensory body dictate the necessity of the additional clause as the f ly-generated movement of the air around Ghisola’s face intensifies an awareness of the competing odours. The final sentence describing Remigio’s impressions of his father’s home also employs the semi colon: [i]l letto stava di traverso alla stanza; i campanelli elettrici pendevano con i fili attorcigliati [The bed stretched crosswise into the room; electrical bells hung with twisted wires (Opere, 267)]. Once again, what dictates the addition of the clause is the fact of sensory perception as Remigio simply sees the twisted wires. Even when memory complicates the representation of raw physical data, Tozzi employs the semicolon (Opere, 267). Remigio’s hallucinated olfactory sensation complements or, perhaps, interrupts his recollection of the room as even his interiority is diverted by the dynamics of a material body that, knowing of no abstraction, registers an accumulation of sensation. What this paratactic switching and accumulation of sensation reveals is the alternative epistemologies of characters who will only register input without classifying it in any conceptually meaningful manner. Like a dog perpetually

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distracted by a squirrel, Tozzi’s characters are subject to the primacy of a f lesh that, in its schizophrenic intensity, negates all theoretical abstraction. However, unlike the dog, for whom this existence does not, in all likelihood, constitute suffering, Tozzi’s protagonists are engaged in an often painful refusal of an ideological model of embodiment constructed on action and possession. This question of action implicates the dominant verbal tenses of the novels. Con gli occhi chiusi evidences a frequent employment of the imperfect tense that Petroni associates with the repetitive behaviour of the characters (Petroni, 2006, 102).90 While Petroni links this primacy of the imperfect tense with the impossibility of communication that, to his mind, dominates the text, the imperfect equally suggests a refusal of transformative action, a refusal that leaves the protagonist to drift through distracted repetition. Overwhelmed by the accumulative impact of sensory input, Pietro does not interpret his external reality in a manner that would permit of action. While Il podere is dominated by the perfect tense of action and change, the protagonist’s ambivalent actions are consistently neutralized by the counteraction of the hostile community and, more importantly for our purposes, a tendency to f lee, to hide from the economic necessities of his inherited farm.91 Moreover, even when Remigio does act, he only does so at the prompting of others. In short, he, like Pietro, seems reluctant to perform actions that would equate him with the exploitative father. The primacy of dialogue in Tre croci suggests an implicit present tense. This theatrical present of explosive exclamations and shouts underlines a mode of insistently material embodiment that negates the possibility of strategized action.92 This programmatic manipulation of verbal tense points to the dimension of Tozzian temporality. Critics are, for the most part, in accord with the claim that Tozzi fractures conventional narrative temporality in order to posit a non-causal sequence of moments.93 It is this absence of causality that allows Petroni to posit a Tozzian ‘symmetric logic’ that, in the absence of a consequential temporality, renders narrative sequences reversible (Petroni, 2006, 112). Without cause and effect, narrated events, especially in a text like Bestie, could easily run in reverse order, a dimension most commonly attributed to Tozzi’s oniric mode. The most cited example of this mode of composition can be found in Con gli occhi chiusi. The remarkable passage in question begins when Pietro sees pale blue smoke emerge from Giacco’s mouth. Commenting on the substandard quality of the tobacco, Giacco packs his pipe using a thumb topped by a broken nail. At this point, the oniric mode takes over: Pietro vide un’altra volta quel fumo, e, dentro di sé, come una cosa reale, che gli dette un malessere, la mamma che andava a un cassetto, in casa, e voleva prendere qualche cosa. Ma tutti s’erano allontanati da lei! E mentr’ella si ostinava, il cassetto spariva nel muro. Allora gli parve di sentire sul volto le sue mani, come un grande bacio, come se le mani lo baciassero (Opere, 30). [Pietro saw again that smoke and, inside himself, like a real thing that gave him a sense of unease, he saw his mother going to a drawer, at home, and she wanted to get something. But everyone had drawn away from her! And while she persisted, the drawer disappeared into the wall. At this point he thought he could feel her hands on his face like a great kiss, as if her hands kissed him]

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What is noteworthy for our purposes is the prevalence of sensation in this passage and its role in dictating the imaginative process. The mother appears, presumably, because it is she who supplies Giacco with his tobacco. However, what is more important is that the mechanism of dispersal of the insubstantial smoke is what determines Pietro’s image of the disappearance of the drawer. Furthermore, because Pietro, as pre-Oedipal subject, is unable to separate himself from the objects that surround him, external elements such as the smoke are part of his interiority. The cosmic ego knows of no boundaries between the self and the other, and thus Pietro is enveloped, both literally and imaginatively, by the insubstantial smoke. On Pietro’s hypersensitive f lesh the weightless smoke acquires the pressure of an enveloping caress and kiss. Giacco’s damaged hand is transformed into the loving hands of the mother and the smoke that emerges from his mouth becomes a kiss of sorts that envelops Pietro’s face. His inner life is repeatedly blamed for his inability to navigate reality: ‘[q]uella sua vita interiore che si sovrapponeva sempre!’ [that inner life of his that always superimposed itself! (Opere, 39)]. However, the real culprit is a physical hypersensitivity to the impact of sensory input prompted by a schizophrenic mode of heightened perception. Pietro is only able to ‘gustare’ or taste after the fact precisely because sensory input overwhelms him in the first instance (Opere, 39). As the subject is unable to process physical sensation in a logical or causal manner, the narrative evidences an expressionism defined not only by the distorting projection of an interiority onto an external world, but rather by the interpenetration of inside and outside of which the oniric mode is a symptom.94 Tozzi’s oniric mode, then, is not the language of an insubstantial interiority, but, rather, it is the stylistic embodiment of a schizophrenic body that knows of no consequential temporality and no separation between inside and outside. This schizophrenic perception of a hypersensitive f lesh without boundaries resonates with Deleuze’s discussion of the ‘optical-acoustic image’ of modernist cinema. This sound or image that cannot be sourced is the product of a human sensorium that will not penetrate, grasp or possess reality. Accordingly, phenomena become unrecognizable, as in Deleuze’s example from Rossellini’s Europa ’51 where the woman misidentifies the workers as convicts (Deleuze, 1989, 2). The difficulty of discerning an ‘objective’ third-person narratorial voice is testament to this circumstance. The narrator, in short, does not have a privileged perspective that allows an access to knowledge that the characters lack.95 In imposing such limits on his narrators, Tozzi deliberately refuses to unite the perspectives of his characters into an interpretive whole that might offer the prospect of true anagnorisis. As such, Tozzi’s novels offer a sensory perception of reality characterized by what Robbe-Grillet identifies as the bewilderment of instrumental reason in the face of a ‘pure description’ in which the absolute presence of an object overwhelms its narrative function and the object can only be contemplated rather than utilized.96 This is the domain in which, as Baldacci notes, verbs such as parere, sentire, sembrare, credere prevail (Baldacci, 13). Equally, we might compare Robbe-Grillet’s ‘pure descriptions’ of presence with Luperini’s description of a visionary realist mode of narration in which single details are rendered in their threatening particularity (Luperini, 42).97 In effect, as in the case of Remigio’s aforementioned encounter

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with his dead father’s belongings, objects are animated by a life of their own that evidently parallels the pure presence of Robbe-Grillet’s objects (Opere, 267). Tozzi’s schizophrenic subject of hypersensitivity epitomizes not simply the ‘radical empiricism’ of modernist vision identified by Armstrong (Armstrong, 2005, 100). Rather, it offers a deeply ethical encounter with objects and bodies that, in refusing rationalization or abstraction, posit themselves as immediate and tangible components, both internal and external to the subject, of a material embodiment comparable with that of the peering and gawping animal. Notes to Chapter 3 1. Though left incomplete and never officially approved for publication by Tozzi, Adele was composed from 1909 to 1911; Tozzi, Opere, ed. by Marco Marchi (Milan: Mondadori, 1987), p. 1364. The novel appeared in 1979 when it was published by Vallecchi and edited by Glauco Tozzi. It was reprinted in volume IV of Glauco Tozzi’s 1981 Vallecchi edition of Tozzi’s complete works. 2. Initially composed in 1910 (Tozzi, Opere, p. 1347), Ricordi di un impiegato underwent revision in the year before Tozzi’s death. Borgese edited the first published version of the work that appeared in La Rivista letteraria in 1920. This edition was published in book form by Mondadori in 1927. Glauco Tozzi returned to the original manuscript and published the first integral edition in 1960 with Vallecchi. Though the manuscript reveals that Tozzi had entitled the work Ricordi di un giovane impiegato, Glauco Tozzi maintained the title of Borgese’s edition. 3. Con gli occhi chiusi was probably composed in 1913 (Opere, p. 1331) and was published by Treves in 1919. 4. Bestie was composed in 1914 and 1915. Marchi cites information provided by Emma Tozzi in the Notizie biografiche of Novale, where she states that part of the work was written in Castagneto and the ‘pagine più amare’ [more bitter pages] were composed in Rome (Opere, p. 1365). The text was published in 1917 by Treves. Though Bestie is not strictly a novel, I include it in my selection because of its fundamentally narrative nature. Debenedetti unscores the text’s dynamic nature (Debenedetti, 2001, p. 86), a point seconded by Petroni in Ideologia e scrittura: Saggi su Federigo Tozzi (Lecce: Manni, 2006), p. 138. 5. Though initiated in 1915, Il podere was composed in July 1918 (Opere, p. 1345). The text was published, with authorial approval, in instalments in the journal Noi e il mondo from 1920 to 1921. It was subsequently published in book form in 1921 by Treves. 6. Tre croci was written in October and November of 1918; Paolo Cesarini, Tutti gli anni di Tozzi (Montepulciano: Le Balze, 2002), p. xxii. The novel was, however, inspired by the suicide of a friend in 1915 (Cesarini, pp. 222–25). The text was published in 1920 by Treves. 7. Composed over the last two years of Tozzi’s life, Gli egoisti was published posthumously by Mondadori in 1923. 8. In this chapter I consistently provide what is perhaps an unusually large body of examples, to the point of, on occasion, counting the number of references to a given physical action. I do this precisely because critics have tended to privilege the psychical dimension of Tozzi’s work and have underestimated the importance of the body. 9. Tozzi underlines similar struggles in his portrayal of Lenzi, the notary’s scribe who hopes to benefit from Remigio’s financial difficulties by purchasing his property. Trying to present his plan to his colleague as though the matter were a triviality, he finds himself unable to conceal his emotion. His excitement emerges as spluttered laughter that prevents him from speaking and, even in silence, his heart beats too quickly (Opere, p. 283). 10. Dario’s friend, Carraresi, also suffers from convulsive physical behaviour. Repulsed by Rome, he is overcome with trembling (Opere, p. 467). On seeing the dome of St. Peter’s, his religious fanaticism prompts a ‘giubilo convulso’ [convulsive joy] evident in his face (Opere, p. 469). He clenches his jaw and, because of the tremor in his hands, he is unable to put a cigarette in his mouth (Opere, p. 469).

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11. Fabio’s response is similarly physical and, feeling his throat close, he is unable to speak (Opere, p. 546). 12. Psychologist and philosopher, William James (1842–1910) wielded a profound inf luence on Tozzi’s thought, an inf luence that has been well documented and analysed. Loredana Anderson provides archival documentation of Tozzi’s extensive studies of the writings of William James in ‘Tozzi’s Readings, 1901–1918’, MLN, 105.1, (1990), 119–37. Further evidence is provided in the aforementioned Marco Marchi, ‘La cultura psicologica di Tozzi’; Martina Martini, Tozzi e James. Letteratura e psicologia. Loredana Anderson’s article indicates that Tozzi first withdrew James’s Principles of Psychology from Siena’s Biblioteca degli Intronati in December 1905 (Anderson, p. 127). A letter included in Tozzi’s Novale and dated 29 September 1907 records the author’s purchase of James’s text; Tozzi, Novale (Milan: Mondadori, 1925), p. 183. 13. William James, The Principles of Psychology (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), p. 1065. 14. James incorporates memory into the sphere of the somatic when he writes that recollection excites ‘new griefs and raptures’ and ‘organic irradiations’ make the emotion a reality again ( James, 1983, pp. 1087–88). 15. On another occasion, a woman blushes on observing Fabio and Adele kissing (Opere, p. 559). 16. While there are more references to embarrassment, there are no specific references to the act of blushing. 17. Tozzi also underlines the embarrassment Pietro feels during his interactions with Ghisola (Opere, p. 18, p. 32, p. 109). 18. Ghisola blushes six times. Four of these occasions can be related to questions of modesty (Opere, p. 40, p. 109, p. 121, p. 142). She also blushes in Pietro’s father’s inn where she is unused to the heat and surrounded by food items that she covets (Opere, p. 19). And, finally, she blushes when she is forced to admit that she does not know how to read (Opere, p. 119). The remaining references to blushing include Masa (Opere, p. 17, p. 79), Anna (Opere, p. 14), a customer at the inn (Opere, p. 25) and the farmer who had sex with Ghisola (Opere, p. 147). 19. Giulia blushes on three occasions. She blushes on thinking that the surgeon must realize that she was Giacomo’s mistress (Opere, p. 314). She blushes on wondering why Berto has brought her apricots (Opere, p. 346). And, finally, she blushes when paid a compliment by her fiancé (Opere, p. 357). A final reference to blushing is found in Luigia’s reaction to Remigio’s claim that her tone of voice conveys a meaning contrary to the words spoken (Opere, p. 317). 20. A final reference to blushing involves the priest who inquires about the method of Giulio’s suicide (Opere, p. 241). 21. Saccone considers Remigio’s relationship with the body of the farm as an erotic one; Saccone, Allegoria e sospetto: Come leggere Tozzi (Naples: Liguori, 2000), p. 77. 22. Cited in Agamben, Remnants of Auschwitz, (New York: Zone Books, 2002), p. 103. 23. Emmanuel Levinas, On Escape, trans. by Bettina Bergo (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), p. 64. 24. James’s text comprises the Gifford Lectures delivered at the University of Edinburgh in 1901 and 1902. Quotations are taken from William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: Image Books, 1978). 25. This resembles Tozzi’s portrait of nature, a fact that Martini highlights (Martini, 196). Tozzi provides many examples to support this parallel as, for instance, his description of the hen that foolishly entered the pig’s trough, where she was snatched by the animal that would have killed her had someone not struck him. Here, he also describes the two hens almost massacred by the other hens: ‘furono trovate ancor vive; ma con il capo completamente spellato. Il sangue gocciolava ancora sopra la cornea gialla’ [they were found still alive but with their heads entirely skinned. Blood still dripped over their yellow eyes (Opere, pp. 536–37)]. 26. Jill McNish, ‘ “Failure, then, Failure!”: Shame and William James’s “Sick Soul” ’, Cross Currents, 53.3 (2003), 389–403 (p. 394). 27. Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 196. 28. Russo compares Tozzian ‘inettitudine’ or ineptitude with Verga’s work; Russo, I narratori, 1958. Baldacci highlights the themes of degeneration, paralysis and death in order to acknowledge the case for classifying Tozzi as a belated product of the last stage of naturalism; Baldacci, Tozzi

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moderno (Turin: Einaudi, 1993), pp. 3–5. He settles, however, on a convoluted compromise: ‘rispetto al naturalismo, Tozzi si comporta come quel mollusco che, non disponendo di una corazza sua propria, prende asilo in quella di certe chiocciole di mare. E accade così che il guscio e il suo abitatore abbiano qualcosa in comune dal punto di vista della coesistenza, ma non abbiano niente da quello della biologia specifica’ [with respect to naturalism, Tozzi behaves like that mollusc that, not having its own shell, takes refuge in that of certain seasnails. And so it happens that the shell and its inhabitant have something in common from the perspective of coexistence but share nothing at the level of specific biology (Baldacci, 1993, p. 6)]. Yet, even as he presents a case of sorts for Tozzi’s naturalism, Baldacci writes that ‘si astiene, a proposito dei suoi personaggi, da ogni illazione scientifica e insomma biologico-ereditaria’ [with respect to his characters, he abstains from any inference that is scientific and, in short, concerns genetic heredity (Baldacci, 1993, p. 5)]. 29. Though these details are gruesome, Giacomo is not, however, reduced to mere abject f lesh as Remigio, though initially unmoved, eventually feels sadness and not repulsion. Marco Marchi reads Giacomo’s death as a type of Christology of the father, ‘Una cristologia del padre’, in Immagine di Tozzi. Florence: Le Lettere, 2007, pp. 41–71. 30. Baldacci describes a narrative technique similar to Arcimboldo’s painted portraits composed of objects such as fruits, vegetables, f lowers and animals (Baldacci, 1993, 13). Baldacci’s examples of this technique in Tozzi’s texts include the description of Giacco’s arms, on which the veins raise the skin to such an extent that these ridges seem like ‘lombrichi lunghi e fermi sotto la moticcia’ [long and immobile worms under the mud (Opere, p. 35)]. 31. Debenedetti describes these characters as vultures or ‘avvoltoi’ (Debenedetti, 1988, p. 97). 32. Leopoldo also describes an uncle whose eyelids are red owing to a chronic inf lammation. On learning of his death, the text dwells on the image of those swollen eyelids, as if this part of the body had remained alive (Opere, p. 433). 33. Sickness features explicitly in aphorism 6, which describes a husband and wife who walk pursued by a ‘canettaccio bastardo, spelacchiato e rattrappito’ [vicious little mongrel, mangy and bent (Opere, p. 578)]. The husband is consumptive and has a ‘viso giallo e incavato’ [yellow and sunken face (Opere, p. 578)]. 34. Bestie and Ricordi present several examples of a similarly expressionistic description of the urban landscape. 35. Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p. 13, emphasis in original. 36. This characterization echoes Debenedetti’s claim that, for Tozzi, writing functioned as a defense against a frightening reality. Debenedetti compares Tozzi’s narrative vocation with the ‘intenti di magia’ [magical intentions] of the cave-dwellers who paint the animals that terrified them and on whom they depended (Debenedetti, 1988, p. 93). 37. Sandro Maxia, Uomini e bestie nella narrativa di Federigo Tozzi (Padua: Liviana, 1971), pp. 116–17. 38. Agamben, The Open: Man and Animal (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), p. 14. Agamben also employs Bichat’s distinction between ‘animal life’ and ‘organic life’ in his discussion of the ‘Muselmann’ in Remnants of Auschwitz. 39. Although it does not strike him while eating, Remigio manifests a similar fear of the contaminating impact of others: ‘La curiosità degli altri gli ripugnava, come se gli mettessero nell’anima un cencio sporco. E, credendo di poterla combattere, non avvicinava quasi nessuno’ [The curiosity of others repulsed him, as if they were inserting a dirty rag into his soul. And, believing that he could combat it, he approached almost no one (Opere, p. 298)]. 40. I would also recall Giulio’s embarrassment before his brother who, laden with fruit, reminds Giulio of his own biological materiality (Opere, p. 171). In fact, throughout the novels, food and especially fruit seems to carry a reminder of human materiality. In Il podere, Giulia blushes on receiving a gift of apricots (Opere, p. 346). Remigio is troubled by the theft of his cherries and he blushes when he realizes he is being observed (Opere, p. 301). As the novel closes, Remigio’s body lies on the ground with the ‘pampini e l’uva acerba’ [vine-leaves and bitter grapes] and the ‘rame dei frutti schiantati’ [branches of crushed fruit (Opere, p. 399)]. Meat is the food that, in Adele, prompts Artemisia’s family to surrender to their instincts: ‘A Natale la sua famiglia uccideva un porco. Allora, dinanzi a quella carne squartata e sanguinosa, i loro istinti si manifestavano’

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[At Christmas the family would kill a pig. Then, before that butchered and bloody meat, their instincts became manifest (Opere, p. 550)]. 41. Romano Luperini, Federigo Tozzi. Le immagini, le idee, le opere (Rome: Laterza, 1995), pp. 7–11. Luperini provides a reading of this sequence focusing on the role played by the gaze (pp. 139–41). He also identifies the recurrence of this triangle when Domenico f lirts with the girl who works in the bar (Opere, p. 65); (Luperini, pp. 141–42). 42. Luperini describes the unresolved and irreducible ambiguity of the metaphor (Luperini, p. 20). He traces its evolution through the text from, for the first two thirds of the text, a distance from a brutal reality to, in the final third, an ideological self-deception (Luperini, p. 134). 43. Leopoldo faces a similar dilemma when faced with his parents’ opposition to his relationship with Attilia. Asking if goodness is really so very difficult, he wonders whether he will be forced to embrace ‘cattiveria’ [wickedness] in order to maintain some modicum of self-respect in the adult world (Opere, p. 407). 44. Luperini writes that eternal youth means ‘vivere il lutto della propria impotenza a vedere il mondo e a diventare adulti e maturi’ [to live while mourning one’s own impotent incapacity to see the world and to become adult and mature (Luperini, p. 20)]. 45. Baldacci, Introduction to Il podere (Milan: Garzanti, 2002), p. xxi. 46. This supports Franco Petroni’s insistence that all of Tozzi’s protagonists live in a historical dimension even though their attention is constantly diverted toward an interiority (Petroni, 2006, p. 32). Maxia also suggests a historical dimension and describes Berto’s murder of Remigio as a rudimentary act of class struggle (Maxia, p. 119). 47. Petroni describes Remigio’s relationship with his farm as one that highlights use value rather than exchange value (Petroni, 2006, p. 83). 48. Bestie constitutes an exception to this rule as the aphorisms revolve around visual, auditory and olfactory sensory perception. If any method employed by the narrator in his navigation of reality seems unique to Bestie, it is the act of writing, as Bestie is the only one of the novels to thematize writing. 49. In developing a parallel between Tozzi’s ‘semplici inetti’ [simple inept characters] and Verga’s ‘vinti’, Russo writes that Tozzi’s characters are ‘dei vinti che non hanno mai pensato di combattere’ [defeated characters who never considered fighting (Russo, 1958, p. 274)]. In Modelli e scrittura di un romanzo tozziano. Il podere. (Padua: Liviana, 1972), Aldo Rossi turns to James’s terminology to describe Remigio as an ‘iper-inibito’ [hyperinhibited] incapable of acting on his reality (Rossi, p. 42). Luperini describes Pietro Rosi as an ‘inetto’ because the inept one is ‘colui che non apre mai gli occhi, non è la persona pratica con gli occhi ben aperti, esperta del mondo, che sa navigare bene in ogni frangente’ [he who never opens his eyes, he is not the practical person with eyes wide open, an expert on the world who knows how to navigate in all circumstances (Luperini, 1993, p. 14)]. 50. Pietro’s reluctance to hold the gaze of others also ref lects back on the aforementioned question of sexuality. Luperini identifies a programmatic opposition of hands and eyes in the novel and associates the former with the affection offered by the mother and the latter with sexuality (Luperini, pp. 16–17). The sexualized gaze also finds a crucial place in the ‘sfida degli sguardi’ [staring matches] that always plays out in favour of the father whose ‘occhi penetranti e giudi­canti’ [penetrating and judging eyes] manifest a sadistic and phallic quality (Luperini, p. 17). 51. Like Adele, his f light from materiality also takes the form of an asceticism that leads him to avoid food despite his hunger (Opere, p. 428). I would also recall the aforementioned examples of his disgust before food (Opere, p. 414). 52. This strategy of denial extends to the hostility that Remigio consciously registers, but fails to act upon. The house and farm are permeated with antagonism toward the benevolence of the protagonist as, for example, in the following example: ‘ormai trovavasi di fronte alle cose, come una inimicizia. Anche il suo podere era un nemico; e sentiva che perfino le viti e il grano si farebbero amare soltanto se egli impedisse a qualunque altro di doventarne il proprietario [By now he felt the hostility of the things he found before him. Even his farm was an enemy, and he felt that even the vines and the grain would allow themselves to be loved only if he could prevent anyone else from becoming their owner (Opere, p. 367)].

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53. Saccone highlights Remigio’s blindness to his own fate: ‘questi vede, ma senza veramente vedere: i suoi occhi sono cioè ciechi al grafico del suo destino’ [he sees but without really seeing. His eyes are blind to the signs of his destiny (Saccone, ‘Tozzi e la poetica del romanzo’, MLN, 90.1 (1975), p. 15)] 54. Identifying Remigio as scapegoat, Petroni describes an ideology of sacrifice that dominates Tozzi’s mature novels and writes that sacrifice becomes the only way to avoid engaging in this violence (Petroni, 2006, p. 75). This sacrifice of self is at the base of the possibility of a sociality as one man must cede before another (Petroni, 2006, p. 85) in order to move away from an existence characterized by the ‘tendenza alla sopraffazione reciproca’ (Petroni, 2006, p. 67). 55. The dialogic or theatrical qualities of the novel add to this sense of an eternal present. This question will be addressed in the section on Tozzi’s style. 56. I would refer again to the examples of the henhouse from Adele (Opere, pp. 536–37). 57. Cases of true benevolence toward the animal world are limited. Examples include Picciòlo’s defence of a cat from Berto and his insistence that cats too have the right to live as they were created just as humans were (Opere, p. 381). I would also include the ‘grande tenerezza’ [great tenderness] that Giacco feels while ref lecting on the warm breath of the calf who pushes his muzzle against him while he fills the manger with grass (Opere, p. 11). 58. Further examples of human cruelty toward animals include Migliorini’s killing of the toads in aphorism 10 of Bestie (Opere, pp. 581–83). The narrator underlines the fact that Migliorini is a man of culture who reads passages of the Gerusalemme and Orlando to his fellow-workers (Opere, p. 581). Yet, despite this passion, he seems to delight in tormenting toads and teaches others how to kill them. The narrator is haunted by a subsequent massacre of toads and, returning home one night to the accompaniment of toad voices, he remembers the variety of tortures including impalement, evisceration and burning (Opere, p. 583). 59. Petroni identifies the cognitive dimension of the equivalence between human and animal when he writes: ‘Se l’essere umano è non diverso dagli altri esseri viventi, e sofferenti, egli non può avere nemmeno il privilegio della conoscenza [...] Conoscere, nel senso di porsi, almeno per un momento, con atteggiamento di obiettività e di distacco di fronte alla realtà esterna o alla realtà della psiche, è impossibile’ [If the human being is not different from other living and suffering beings, he cannot even have the privilege of knowledge. [...] To know, in the sense of approaching oneself, at least for a moment, with an attitude of objectivity and detachment with respect to the external reality and the reality of the psyche, is impossible (Petroni, 2006, p. 54)]. 60. William James, Writings 1902–1910 (New York: Library of America, 1987), p. 1015. 61. Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), p. 177, emphasis in original. 62. Stuart Elden, ‘Heidegger’s Animals’, Continental Philosophy Review, 39 (2006), 273–91, p. 278. 63. Nelson Moe, ‘Observations on Bestie’, MLN, 108.1 (1993), p. 120. 64. Moe selects the following example from Bestie to illustrate this ideal of possession: ‘Quando ci sono io, tutto ciò che è nella mia casa vive con me. Io stesso ho insegnato a tutte le cose, scegliendole, come dovevano fare per piacermi perché le amassi. Queste pareti riconoscono la mia voce; e la loro fedeltà è profonda’ [When I am there, everything in my house lives with me. I myself have taught all the objects, choosing them, how they should please me so that I love them. These walls recognize my voice and their loyalty runs deep (Opere, p. 613)]. 65. Elio Gioanola, ‘Gli occhi chiusi di Federigo Tozzi’, in Otto/Novecento, 4.1 (1980), 31–65, p. 35. Baldacci also identifies a process of regression, writing that he who discovers that he is not loved closes himself in aphasia and regresses to an infantile stage where he returns to the level of beast, to the child, to the thing (Baldacci, 1993, p. 20). Gioanola critiques the vagueness of Baldacci’s reading and he argues for a more productive interpretation of regression to an oral stage characterized by aggression (Gioanola, pp. 35–36). Luperini affirms Gioanola’s identification of an archaic dimension and identifies this quality in his discussion of blindness as a pre-Oedipal regressive attitude, an archaic dream, anterior even to the paternal threat of castration or the maternal prohibition to approach other women (Luperini, p. 20). 66. Tozzi’s subjects become those same hypersensitive modernist characters that we find in the work of authors such as Kaf ka. In fact, Gioanola draws heavily on Kaf ka’s Letter to His Father

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and identifies a similar double bind in Tozzi’s texts, according to which the son cannot marry because this would equate him with the father (Gioanola, p. 61). 67. Gioanola describes it as a ‘miraggio che non salva’ [mirage that does not save (Gioanola, p. 53)]. 68. Luperini identifies this persistent opposition between a nurturing female figure and a destructive one (Luperini, pp. 11–15) and associates this opposition with Ghisola. 69. In his description of this schizophrenic dimension, Gioanola refers to Gregory Bateson’s discussion of schizophrenia as a confusion of messages, an inability to contextualize and, therefore, interpret correctly the meaning of communication (Gioanola, p. 38). 70. Fabio is also tormented by sensory input. In Rome, he is plagued by the intolerable odour as well as the sounds and voices that created ‘un brusio insopportabile ai nervi’ [a buzzing that was intolerable to his nerves (Opere, p. 564)]. 71. On another occasion, the workers toil under a burning sun: ‘la sferza del sole era insopportabile; gli occhi s’infiammavano’ [the burning rays of the sun were intolerable; one’s eyes became inf lamed (Opere, p. 326)]. Tozzi’s descriptions of the fair also suggest a sensory chaos (Opere, pp. 347–53). The fair offers an oppressive ‘ronzìo sempre eguale’ [endless drone] which is followed either by silence or an incomprehensible din (Opere, p. 349). 72. The only reference to the dazzling sun is on the occasion of the nieces’ walk through Siena and, even in this case, the glare is not direct but rather ref lected onto a haze (Opere, p. 193). 73. Maxia describes a dialogue that is ‘soprattutto urlo, rumore, sfogo di nervi malati, accompagnamento sonoro di una mimica esagerata e convulsa’ [predominantly shouting, noise, venting of nervous infirmity, thunderous accompaniment to a gesticulation that is exaggerated and convulsive (Maxia, p. 137)]. 74. Further references to the sun include the following: As Dario walks out into the midday heat, he imagines that the sun and the shadows seek to block his path (Opere, p. 453). Rome seems infinitely large and the sunset illuminates the surrounding countryside so intensely that certain points become as mirrors (Opere, p. 461). 75. Baldacci is the principal proponent of this division. He shows a clear preference for the poetic innovation of the first period and its supposed absence of ideology, arguing that ‘c’è un Tozzi bambino e c’è un Tozzi adulto. Il Tozzi che piú c’interessa oggi è il primo, al quale sarà sempre illecito chiedere risposte d’ordine politico o ideologico; mentre sarà meno illecito chiederle all’altro Tozzi’ [there is a Tozzi child and a Tozzi adult. The Tozzi that interests us the most today is the first, to whom it will always be forbidden to demand answers of a political or ideological nature; while it will be less inappropriate to demand them of the other Tozzi (Baldacci, 1993, p. 62)]. 76. While this more conventional narrative development is arguably evident in Il podere and Tre croci, it does not characterize the narrative of Gli egoisti. The impact of Dario Gavinai’s disoriented and disorienting introspection is more readily comparable with the atmosphere and narrative evolution of Con gli occhi chiusi. 77. Debenedetti describes Tre croci as a ‘pure splendido passo indietro’ [step backwards albeit splendid (Debenedetti, 2001, p. 222)]. Baldacci describes Con gli occhi chiusi as Tozzi’s most important work (Baldacci, 1993, p. 37). Though Luperini casts doubt on the very concept of two phases of production, he does suggest that, while Il podere remains a masterpiece, Gli egoisti and Tre croci are not ‘all’altezza’ [at the level] of the earlier works (Luperini, p. xiii). Saccone constitutes a notable exception to the tendency to privilege the early phase as he formulates a preference for Il podere and Tre croci, in the face of which Con gli occhi chiusi ‘deve forse passare in seconda linea, canovaccio ed elaborazione sperimentale di temi ancora troppo ancorati a un filo biografico’ [needs to retreat to second place, with its experimental plot and development of themes that are still too anchored to a biographical thread (Saccone, 2000, p. 71)]. 78. Debenedetti’s insistence on Tozzi’s ‘torbida, faticosa, ma inalienabile, irrimediabile vocazione di narratore’ [gloomy, arduous but inalienable and irredeemable vocation as narrator (Debenedetti, 2001, p. 60)] is of particular relevance in approaching Bestie. The aphoristic structure of Bestie led some critics to propose a resonance with the frammentismo of the vociani, but Debenedetti importantly insists on the dynamic and narrative nature of Bestie (Debenedetti, 2001, pp. 61–68). 79. Debenedetti writes that Tozzi’s Kaf kaesque qualities bring the expressionistic distortions of external reality to the text, and both authors suffer the haunting presence of a terrifying father

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figure (Debenedetti, 2001, pp. 248–55). With Joyce, on the other hand, Tozzi shares a ‘poetica delle epifanie’ [poetics of the epiphany (Debenedetti, 1988, p. 92)]. 80. Given Baldacci’s insistence on Tozzi’s two phases of composition, it is no surprise that he claims that Tozzi’s ‘poetica della destrutturazione’ [poetics of dismantling] might be applied to his earlier works, but does not correspond as convincingly, if at all, with the novels composed in Rome (Baldacci, 2002, p. xviii). 81. Accordingly, Petroni argues that Tozzi is not a verista: ‘non è uno scrittore verista, al quale interessi la rappresentazione di una realtà sociale, sia pure nel suo risvolto psicologico; le sonde che egli cala nell’ “anima” dei suoi personaggi non hanno la funzione di svelarne i meccanismi, ma di gettarvi, per un attimo, un raggio di luce che ne riveli l’insondabile complessità’ [he is not a verista, for whom what matters is the respresentation of a social reality even in its psychological dimensions. The probes that he drops into the depths of the soul of his characters are not intended to unmask its mechanisms but, rather, to shed, for a moment, a ray of light that reveals its unfathomable complexity (Petroni, 2006, p. 44)]. 82. Petroni has also questioned the validity of the division by drawing attention to Tozzi’s uninterrupted composition of novelle that all manifest shared oniric and visionary elements (Petroni, 2006, p. 229). Baldacci unequivocally rejects Petroni’s suggestion of a formal continuity between the two periods of composition when he writes that the coherence of the larger structures of the novel cannot be negated by the stylistic qualities of the individual page (Baldacci, 2002, p. xxxiv). 83. Luperini rejects the divisional model on the grounds that ‘Come leggo io’, the key essay cited by Baldacci, was written in 1919 at the close of the second phase of composition. Like Petroni, he underlines the continued composition of novelle and he addresses the problem inherent in arguing for two different ‘maniere’ [manners] by pointing out the internal differences of narrative organization within Con gli occhi chiusi (Luperini, pp. x-xii). 84. De Lucca, ‘Tozzi, Automatism, and Epistemology’, Quaderni d’italianistica, 16.2 (1995), 245–59 (p. 247). 85. In stressing the unconscious mechanisms of the psyche, certain critics evoke an author who is not in full command of his material. Debenedetti suggests that Tozzi achieves results ‘che non sospetta e forse non vorrebbe’ [that he would not have imagined and that he perhaps would not have wanted (Debenedetti, 1988, p. 84)]. In his aforementioned definition of Tozzi’s antinaturalism, Debenedetti also underlines an inability to provide objective analysis (Debenedetti, 1988, p. 92). And, although Debenedetti rebukes those who blur the author’s psychology with that of his characters, his statements still suggest that Tozzi’s work benefits as much from his shortcomings as it does from his skills. What does not help matters is the fact that Tozzi’s critical writings focus more on his activity as a reader than on his own creative process. In the absence of a sustained elaboration, critics have hinted at an unconscious process that resembles Dario’s almost involuntary musical composition. In this process, Saccone identifies a game of impersonality ‘che esclude l’intervento del soggetto, o quanto meno la pone fortemente in questione, non però alla maniera di un naturalista, piuttosto di un surrealista: una sorta di scrittura automatica, in effetti, o sotto dettattura’ [that excludes the intervention of the subject, or at least challenges it seriously, not however in the manner of a naturalist but, rather, in that of a surrealist as a sort of a writing that is, in effect, automatic or dictated (Saccone, ‘Tozzi e la poetica del romanzo’, p. 11)]. 86. Tozzi, Pagine critiche (Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 1993), p. 318. 87. Saccone addresses Tozzi’s lyric prose (Saccone, 2002, pp. 43–69). 88. In addressing Con gli occhi chiusi, Tozzi refers to a ‘concetto lirico della prosa’ [lyrical understanding of prose (Tozzi, 1993, p. 318)]. 89. One of the principal distinctions that differentiate Il podere and Tre croci from Tozzi’s earlier production is the reduction in the number of apparent narrative digressions. These two novels also show an increased use of free indirect style to render the thoughts and feelings of the protagonists. 90. Petroni writes that the perfect tense is used rarely in Con gli occhi chiusi and, on those rare occasions that it is employed, it appears when the cycle of repetition is broken by the physical death of a character or at moments when the destiny of the character is clarified (Petroni, 2006, p. 102).

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91. Petroni, in fact, identifies, both in ll podere and Tre croci, what he terms a radicalization of the opposition between the protagonist and his environment (Petroni, 2006, p. 102). 92. I would refer again to Maxia’s characterization of the language of Tre croci as shouting, noise, venting and thunderous accompaniment to a convulsive gesticulation (Maxia, p. 137). Petroni argues that this dialogue serves the function of paratactic accumulation performed by the digression in Con gli occhi chiusi (Petroni, 2006, p. 109). 93. Baldacci writes of the ‘subite illuminazioni’ [sudden illuminations] that break narrative temporality. Petroni writes that Tozzi destroyed the temporal continuity of narration (Petroni, 2006, 9). Petroni also describes a subject who lives not in an objective temporality but, rather, in a series of ‘atomi temporali, ciascuno dei quali lo ingloba, costringendolo in un presente privo di sviluppi’ [temporal atoms each of which absorbs him, forcing him into a present that is devoid of developments (Petroni, 2006, pp. 40–41)]. 94. This is equally evident in the aforementioned example of Ghisola’s unmediated perception of reality, when the narrator concludes the disconnected series of sentences with the reference to a dream-like state: ‘come se avesse sognato’ [as though it had been dreaming (Opere, p. 17)]. 95. Petroni acknowledges this limited narratorial view when he writes: ‘il narratore non ha alcuna coscienza superiore a quella dei suoi personaggi, perché non esiste conoscenza della vita, e della sofferenza che ne è l’essenza. Il suo ruolo è solo quello di narrare le diverse vite, cioè le diverse sofferenze’ [the narrator does not benefit from a level of knowledge superior to that of his character because there is no knowledge of life and the suffering that is its essence. His role is only that of narrating different lives or different suffering (Petroni, 2006, p. 55)]. 96. Galvan addresses similarities between Tozzi’s narrative objects and the French nouveau roman; Alberto E. Galvan, ‘Tozzi precursore fra esistenzialismo e nouveau roman’, Esperienze letterarie, 21.3 (1996), 97–108. 97. Luperini also associates this quality with Tozzi’s use of the Sienese vernacular and argues that these vernacular terms impose their own individuality or autonomy within the text (Luperini, p. 42).

Chapter 4

v

Bodies, Borders and the Offended Self Gadda’s Stylistic Ethics of Misogyny

The monumental management of bodies that defines the project of social and technological modernity lies at the heart of Gadda’s ethically informed meditations on embodiment, an issue that he addresses from the perspective of the borders of the body. In dwelling on this point of demarcation that ostensibly separates self from other and interiority from exteriority, Gadda positions himself to consider, on the one hand, the subjective and anguished experience of embodiment and, on the other hand, the objectification of a material body that must submit to regimes of social management and ideological control. Indeed, this opposition under­pins Gadda’s central recognition that the penetrative objectification of bodies offends the embodied human subject. This too is the ethical dilemma that, surprisingly, animates an apparent misogyny informed in large part by Weininger’s thought and comparable, therefore, with the most stridently misogynistic voices of European modernism. Gadda’s, however, is a deeply ambivalent misogyny. Even as he condemns the self-preservative impetus that defines an irrational and narcissistic femininity, he identifies, at the same time, the passive female body as the offended material object of the entire edifice of modernity. This chapter will explore the dynamics of Gadda’s misogynistic ethics, and will also consider the author’s macaronic or baroque writing as a f luctuating stylistics that strives to voice a human singularity that, beyond the rationalization of modernity, is incarnated in the material body of woman. Ethical ref lections on the body inform the two novels that will constitute the main focus of this chapter, namely La cognizione del dolore and Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana. Originally and partially published in Alessandro Bonsanti’s journal Letteratura, La cognizione del dolore appeared in the form of seven instalments published from 1938 to 1941.1 Arguably the most autobiographical of Gadda’s novels, La cognizione del dolore revolves around a misanthropic protagonist, Gonzalo Pirobutirro d’Eltino, who lives with his elderly mother Elisabetta in the family villa. Theirs is an anguished relationship that oscillates from uneasy affection to open aggression, in accordance with Gonzalo’s fits of rage in the face of a series of perceived offences, including maternal neglect, the death of a brother, a repulsive peasantry, and an exclusion from the world. Set in the fictitious South American country of Maradagàl, a thinly veiled representation of post-First World War Italy,

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the novel opens with a description of the ‘Nistitúos provinciales de vigilancia para la noche’, an agency that coerces property owners into hiring night watchmen. It is two of these watchmen who, in the final chapter, discover Gonzalo’s mother brutally beaten in her home, the victim, it is suggested, of an attempted matricide. Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana was also initially published in Letteratura, appearing in five instalments in 1946.2 The novel revolves around the murder of Liliana Balducci in the Roman palazzo at 219 via Merulana on 17 March 1927, four days subsequent to a theft of jewellery from a neighbour, Signora Menegazzi. Chief investigator, Francesco Ingravallo embarks on a dual inquiry into the crimes, an investigation that takes him, his assistants, Gaudenzio and Pompeo, and their collaborators within the carabinieri, Brigadiere Pestalozzi and Maresciallo Santarella, to the Alban hills outside Rome and into the sordid world of the hideous seamstress Zamira Pàcori and the poor young men and women associated with her tavern-brothel. The jewels are ultimately recovered in the hovel of Camilla Mattonari and a possible co-conspirator of Liliana’s murderer is approached by the arm of the law, as embodied in Ingravallo himself.3 Configurations of Bodily Identity Both La cognizione and the Pasticciaccio linger over the details of bodies that are, by turns, beautiful and grotesque, elegant and malodorously deformed. Though broad, this assortment revolves around three distinct bodily configurations that, in each case, suggest a specific construction or configuration of subjectivity. At the centre of both novels is a male protagonist who, within an unattractive and seem­ ingly impenetrable body, suggests a self-contained monadic identity marked, in the case of Gonzalo, by pain, fury and phobia and, in Ingravallo’s case, frustrated desire and repression. These males stand in stark opposition to the second bodily configuration characterized by the stinking and even misshapen bodies that belong to the rural and urban peasantry. Here, we find that the repressed and apparently discrete monadic self is replaced with a f luctuating and amorphous identity that confuses or blurs individuals within a mass of bodies whose material or biological status is insistently underlined through references to stench, filth and deformity. The third configuration involves the refined bodies of bourgeois women, namely Elisabetta and Liliana, who, preoccupied with maternity and family lineage, are subject to a violent attack suggestive of matricide. It is at this point that Gadda’s misogyny finds full voice as he appears to equate the maternal impulse with a desire for self-preservation that unmasks an irrational and eroticized narcissism that, it is suggested, defines the feminine principle. Turning initially to the first configuration represented by the male protagonists, we find that Gonzalo and Ingravallo experience an embodiment that, in accentu­ ating a segregation that is both corporeal and psychological, underscores an exist­ ence of anguished isolation. Gonzalo’s body is a veritable conundrum, the seat of phobic rages and docile courtesies, violent egotism and ethical ref lection, of excessive indulgence and total sensual deprivation. Though explicitly depicted as a man of culture who feels a tortured love for his aging mother, he is given to violent

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outbursts targeting not just Elisabetta but the peasants whom she repeatedly invites into their home. While he treats the local doctor, for instance, with pronounced civility, his relationship with the world of the peasantry is marked by a phobic hypersensitivity of extreme proportions. Tragically aware that all constructions of subjective stability are illusory and unethical, he lives with a deep rage that manifests itself as a ‘male oscuro’ [obscure sickness] that darkens his soul.4 A rancour has grown in him, a ‘perturbazione dolorosa, più forte di ogni istanza moderatrice del volere’ [sorrowful perturbation, stronger than any moderating entreaty of the will], which emerges ‘da una zona profonda, inespiabile, di celate verità: da uno strazio senza confessione’ (Cognizione, 128) [from a deep, inexpiable zone of shrouded verities: from a torment without confession (154)]. Seen through the eyes of the doctor, Gonzalo’s curved and pathetic body reveals the abuses of his past and is ‘alto, un po’ curvo, di torace rotondo, maturo d’epa, colorito nel viso come un Celta: ma la pelle alquanto rilasciata e stanco all’aspetto’ (Cognizione, 56) [tall, a bit bent, round-chested, ripe-bellied, his face f lushed like a Celt’s: but the skin was somewhat sagging and the appearance weary (64)]. Aff licted with duodenal ulcers, Gonzalo must deprive this body and its swollen belly of all sensual pleasure and he is obliged to consume large quantities of bismuth (Cognizione, 41–42). He lives a life of medical examination and fasting, an existence that contrasts with his years of gastronomic excess, a transgressive practice that many blamed for his intestinal aff liction. This indulgence culminates famously in an episode in which Gonzalo was reputed to have consumed a large creature (sea urchin, sea scorpion, crab or swordfish) which he swallowed whole and head first so that the tail ‘gli scodinzolò a lungo fuor dalla bocca, come una seconda lingua che non riuscisse a ritirare, che quasi quasi lo soffocava’ (Cognizione, 39) [f lapped for a long time outside his mouth, like a second tongue he could no longer retract, and came close to suffocating him (42)]. This sea creature, believed by some to be the size of a human infant, was consumed in a ‘stambugio tenebrosissimo’ (Cognizione, 41) [tenebrous den (44)] frequented by gypsies, guitar players, idlers, and stray cats patrolling for fallen scraps. In this space of monstrous consumption, Gonzalo interacts with the filth that later prompts phobic rage. In effect, this pronounced contrast between excess and deprivation underscores Gonzalo’s monadic self-segregation. During his period of indulgence, he seems untroubled by potential contaminants and, in fact, he violently dominates them by forcing them beyond the borders of his body into his material interiority.5 Later, we find an ascetic Gonzalo who, though tragically aware that his defensive actions are futile, guards obsessively the borders of his corporeal self and his meagre finances. Now he is permitted only the modest meals that his mother offers served with lashings of medicinal bismuth. This differentiation should not suggest that the young Gonzalo lived in joyous interaction with a world of bodies. On the contrary, both the middle-aged and the young Gonzalo manifest an egotistical violence that drives them to brutalize weaker creatures. What this differentiation, instead, highlights is a literally corporeal selfentrenchment that suggests a pathologization of Elias’s corporeally self-contained homo clausus. As self-enclosed body and subject, Gonzalo dwells in furiously obsessive segregation from an outside world conceived as object to his impenetrable

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subjectivity. Indeed, he threatens to eject all visitors from his home and affirms his ‘sacrosanto privato privatissimo mio, mio!’ (Cognizione, 77) [sacrosanct private, most private, mine, mine! (90)].6 This is a sacred right explicitly equated with the limits of his body that appear here in the form of his fingernails and his toenails (Cognizione 77; Acquainted, 90). Even the dead pose a threat to Gonzalo as he describes the beds waiting for those ‘anime dei morti’ [souls of the dead] who might climb the walls of the house, walls that are also the borders of the bodily self, in order to return home after the war (Cognizione, 76–77; Acquainted, 90).7 Gonzalo’s horror at the thought of a penetration of the walls of his sacrosanct property becomes a ‘desperate assertion of his own self ’ that leads him to ‘reclaim the unity of person’ (Pedriali, 151), a unity constructed on a self-entrenchment within a house that is, at the same time, the suffering body of an ethically conf licted and pathologized homo clausus. Turning to the Pasticciaccio, it is evident that Francesco Ingravallo’s relationship to his external environment does not come close to the extremes of Gonzalo’s phobic self-seclusion. Indeed, unlike Gonzalo, Ingravallo seems marked by an erotic desire that encompasses not just the bourgeois milieu of Liliana Balducci but also the raw sensual allure of the poor young women from the Roman hinterland. Nonetheless, he also seems to exist in a type of ascetic space in which he deprives his material body of sensual pleasure in the interests of professionalism and in the face of a sense of his own sexual inadequacy. The opening pages of the novel ref lect the hierarchical structure of Ingravallo’s existence as we are first informed of his professional ranking and are then provided with the description of an awkward and unattractive body. He is of medium height, rotund or even squat and the hairline of his thick, black, curly mop of hair crosses the middle of his forehead. He moves gracelessly and heavily like a ‘persona che combatte con una laboriosa digestione’ [like a person fighting a laborious digestion].8 Moreover, he has a somnolent de­meanour so pronounced that he ‘pareva vivere di silenzio e sonno’ (Pasticciaccio, 4) [seemed to live on silence and sleep (4)]. This is a state of bodily repose that he occasionally interrupts in order to express his philosophical ruminations on crime and criminality, ruminations uttered, it is underlined, on an empty stomach and with an extinguished cigarette between his f leshy lips (Pasticciaccio, 5; Mess, 7). Yet this same lumbering and sleeping body houses an insistent sexual desire that, perennially unsatisfied, reveals itself in a jealous resentment of other men. Directed towards all young men, Ingravallo’s jealousy is most pronounced in his interactions with handsome young men, though, it is made clear, he does manage to maintain a professional demeanour (Pasticciaccio, 13). His resentment of Giuliano Valdarena surfaces while he dines at the Balducci apartment, because he discerns an attentiveness on Liliana’s part and immediately thinks that Giuliano is her young lover (Pasticciaccio, 13). He resents Ines Cionini’s boyfriend, Diomede, whose attraction to women is such that he is obliged to conceal himself from them: ‘ “Anche lui, anche lui!” dolorò Ingravallo in suo sentire [...] “Anche lui! Perseguito dalle donne!” ’ (Pasticciaccio, 153) [‘He, too! He, too!’ Ingravallo’s feelings ached [...] ‘He, too, persecuted by women! (227)]. While Fumi underlines the female sexual appetite in his vociferous and suggestive insistence that women who visit Italy want to encounter living painters rather than dead ones, Ingravallo ref lects on his

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reading of D. H. Lawrence and Norman Douglas. He recalls the geodetic theory of an erotic triangle of sexual virility that coincides with southern Italy. Though he cannot recall which of the two proposed the theory, Ingravallo curses this individual for not having included his own native Molise within the geometry of eroticism: ‘ “Poteva arrivé nu poco chiù a Norte, sto minch... iòlogo” ’ (Pasticciaccio, 163) [‘He could have moved a little farther north, this sonovanologist’ (241)]. Accordingly, in the face of his own erotic shortcomings, Ingravallo strives to conceal and repress the attraction he feels both for Liliana and the poor young women he finds in her home: ‘[g]li bisognò reprimere, reprimere’ (Pasticciaccio, 8) [he had to repress, repress (11)]. His attempts at repression are, paradoxically, bolstered by Liliana’s noble melancholy, which inspires a ‘disciplina armoniosa: quasi una musica: cioè un contesto di sognate architetture sopra le derogazioni ambigue del senso’ (Pastic­ ciaccio, 8–9) [harmonious discipline, like music, that is: a texture of imagined archi­ tectures over the ambiguous derogations of the senses (11)]. Liliana’s muted sexuality suggests an architectonic organization of the self that is contrasted with the sensory maelstrom of the overt sexuality embodied in the ‘nieces’. It is this sensory and subjective disorder that Ingravallo strives to evade by transforming his somnolent body into an apparently sealed organism of repression and self-restraint. The self-contained and repressive bodily posture of the monadic males contrasts most dramatically with the second bodily configuration, namely, the sphere of the rural peasantry of La cognizione and the urban poor of the Pasticciaccio. La cognizione offers nauseatingly creative descriptions of the peasantry of Lukones, descriptions that culminate in the case of Battistina whose goitre is so large that it obliges her to look permanently to the left as though her head had been attached incorrectly (Cognizione, 47; Acquainted, 52–53). The goitre seems like an animal that has savaged her trachea and ‘le bevesse fuori metà del respiro’ (Cognizione, 47) [was now drinking forth half her breath (53)]. Moreover, it has the appearance of a photographer under a sheet and makes a sound similar to that of ‘il cuocere d’una verza e carote in una terrina, a cui per un attimo si sia tolto il coperchio’ (Cognizione, 47) [the cooking of a cabbage with carrots in a pot from which for a moment the lid has been removed (53)]. When not explicitly deformed, the peasantry is characterized as filthy as, for instance, in the case of Giuseppe, the caretaker at the Pirobutirro villa. Giuseppe tracks manure through the house on his wooden clogs (Cognizione, 146; Acquainted, 176) and he emits a distinctly unpleasant door (Cognizione, 142; Acquainted, 172). Unpleasant smells dominate again when Gonzalo’s mother invites the peasantry into her home. While Poronga brings a basket of mushrooms that adds to the odour of the sweaty miles covered on foot (Cognizione, 161; Acquainted, 197–98), Beppina, the fishmonger, brings a dead fish generating a stench that complements the smell of dog urine and that of the local cheese, croconsuelo, sucked by Giuseppe’s toothless mother (Cognizione, 164–65; Acquainted, 200–01). Despite Liliana Balducci’s beauty, the Pasticciaccio is also dominated by malodorous and filthy bodies. The novel offers the obvious example of the unsightly Zamira, known to all for the ‘mancanza degli otto denti davanti [...] di che la bocca, viscida e salivosa, d’un rosso acceso come da febbre, si apriva male e quasi a buco a parlare: peggio, si stirava agli angoli in un sorriso buio e lascivo, non bello, e, certo

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involontariamente, sguaiato’ (Pasticciaccio, 135) [lack of her eight teeth in front [...] whereby the mouth, viscid and salivary, red as if burning with fever, opened badly, like a hole, to speak: worse, it stretched at the corners into a dark and lascivious smile, not handsome, and, no doubt involuntarily, coarse (200)]. Even the remarkable beauty of the young women associated with Zamira’s brothel is most often concealed by grime as in the case of Ines. She is a ‘ragazza piuttosto provveduta del suo, con du meravigliosi occhi nel volto, luminosissimi, lucidi’ (Pasticciaccio, 133) [rather wellsupplied girl, with two marvelous eyes in her face, very luminous, shiny (197)]. However, she is also ‘incredibilmente sudicia e scarruffata, e certe calze! Certe scarpe de pezza mezzo sfasciate con un dito de fora. Una ventata di selvatico, a non dire peggio, alitò nella stanza: un odore!’ (Pasticciaccio, 133) [incredibly dirty and dishevelled, and her stockings! her cloth shoes, half in tatters, with one toe sticking out. A gust of the wild, not to say worse, breathed into the room; a smell (197)]. The novel offers a similar description of Assunta Crocchiapani. She was Liliana’s ‘stupenda serva’ [stupendous maidservant] who f lashed ‘lampi neri sotto le ciglia nerissime dove la luce albana s’impigliava, si diffrangeva iridandosi [...] dai capelli avviluppati neri su la fronte quasi ad opera del Sanzio’ (Pasticciaccio, 258–59) [black gleams under her coal-black lashes, where the Alban light became entangled, broke, iridescent [...] from the black hair gathered on her forehead, like the work of Sanzio (380)]. However, as the novel closes, she is confronted by Ingravallo in the filth of a hovel where she tends to her dying father in a room filled with the door of sweat and faeces: ‘Un lezzo, ivi, di panni sudici o di persone poco lavabili e poco lavate nel male [...] o anzi, in più, di feci male accantonate presso la degenza’ (Pasticciaccio, 260–61) [A stink, there, of dirty clothing or of not very washable or seldom-washed people in illness [...] or rather, even more, of faeces poorly put away near the illness (383)]. The configuration of identity that animates these bodies emerges in the face of Gonzalo’s phobic horror before the peasantry. Echoing to some extent Tozzi’s repulsively biological peasantry, this is a world that, for Gonzalo, constitutes a purely biological or carnal dimension, removed from the systematization of distinct subjectivity. It is a ‘campo oltraggioso di non-forme’ (Cognizione, 65) [outrageous field of non-forms (76)]. This is most obvious when Gonzalo discovers his mother engulfed by a gathering of peasants that includes not just Peppa, Beppina, Poronga but also ‘polli, peone, la vecchia emiplegica del venerdì, la moglie nana e ingobbita dell’affossamorti, nera come una blatta, e il gatto, e la gatta tirati dal fiuto del pesce’ (Cognizione, 165) [chickens, peon, the old hemiplaegic of Fridays, the gravedigger’s dwarfed and humpbacked wife black as a roach, and the tomcat, and the tabby drawn by the whiff of fish (202)]. This specific encounter prompts Gonzalo’s recollection of his ‘antica ossessione della folla’ [old obsession of the crowd] which, as a child, had triggered a sense of disgust before his schoolmates who radiated the stench of feet and cheese (Cognizione, 166; Acquainted, 203). In response to this ubiquitous and putrid multitude, Gonzalo furiously affirms his own individuality as, in the months following the war, he had once f led like a ‘belva dalla loro carità inferocita, di uomini: di consorzio, di mille. Egli era uno’ (Cognizione, 166) [as if he were an animal, by their infuriated charity, of men: of association, of a thousand. He was one (203)].

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Gonzalo’s f light from the masses evokes the hypersensitivity of the male modernist before the anonymous metropolitan hordes. Indeed, this anonymity is the crux of his phobic vision of a peasantry represented as an amorphous entity characterized by a blurring of those corporeal borders that define his own self-consciously illusory subjectivity. This contrast is made manifest in the movement of gossip through Lukones. The news of Gaetano Palumbo’s mendacity spreads rapidly through a community represented as a single functioning body. This body is the ‘albero della collettività’ [tree of the collectivity] that spreads the scandal by means of a ‘naturale processo dell’assorbimento, reso possibile da una attiva endòsmosi [...] il lavorìo vitale delle cellule’ (Cognizione, 17) [natural process of absorption, made possible by an active endosmosis [...] the vital toiling of the cells (14)]. Individuated beings are blurred as Gadda analyses the routes taken by the news. Made public by a salesman and confirmed by the doctor (Cognizione, 13), the gossip is spread by Peppa, ‘una donna-uomo più dura e salda che sia stato mai un facchino’ (Cognizione, 17) [a manwoman harder and tougher than ever stevedore was (14)], Beppina, famed for her ‘modo sbrigativo e piuttosto amazònico di far la piscia’ (Cognizione, 18) [brisk and rather Amazonic way of pissing (15)], and the tiny and hunchbacked Pina, known as Pinina del Goeupp and officially named Giuseppina Voldehagos (Cognizione, 18; Acquainted, 15). Moving from the source to the scientific confirmation of the doctor and on to the women, Gadda seems to identify the distinct links in the chain of transfer. Yet, the source is not a stable nucleus but is, instead, a nomadic merchant. Moreover, though the women are distinguished by remarkable traits, they all bear variations of the same name, Giuseppina. As part of the tree of the collectivity, they become indistinguishable cells in a biological process of relation and transfer. This fusion is underscored as Gadda names those who became privy to further details: Giuseppe [...] anche Don Giuseppe [...] José Inrumador, Fernando el Gordo, Mingo Ruiz, Carlos La Torre, Miguel Chico, il Batta, Carmelo De Peppe; e il nonagenario indio Huitzilopótli detto Pablo o anche Repeppe [...] la Peppa, la Beppa, la Pina (Cognizione, 32) [ José [...] even Don Giuseppe [...] José Inrumador, Fernando el Gordo, Mingo Ruiz, Carlos La Torre, Miguel Chico, old Batta, Carmelo De Peppe; and the nonagenarian Indio Huitzilopótli known as Pablo and also as Repeppe [...] Peppa, Beppa, Pina (34)]. We note a slippage from one variation on a name to the next; the recurrence of the name Giuseppe and its metamorphosis into De Peppe, Repeppe, Peppa, Beppa and Pina. Even the most notable name, Huitzilopótli, is reduced to Repeppe, as the Indian becomes a cell in an amorphous identity bound to a materiality insistently posited by means of odour and deformity.9 This carnality underpins an identity conceived in opposition to the prescribed standards of corporeal and, specifically, sensory functionality that govern the selection of the nightwatchmen. Indeed, these professional standards prompt a conf lict between the ironically presented ‘finalità etica’ [ethical purpose] of the corrupt Institute and the ‘carnale benevolenza verso la creatura umana’ (Cognizione, 11) [carnal benevolence toward the human creature (6)]. It is this benevolence, embodied in a peasant collectivity, that forgets the ‘fine imperativo’ [imperative end] and introduces a chaotic branching or splitting of the ‘palo teleologico’ (Cognizione, 11) [teleological pole (6)].

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This chaotically f luctuating peasant identity contrasts with the third configuration of identity that is identifiable with Elisabetta and Liliana, the bourgeois women associated principally with motherhood. Moreover, it is here that Gadda’s ambivalent misogyny begins to make itself clearly felt as he closely allies the maternal impulse with the conservative ideology of a bourgeoisie intent on self-preservation. Indeed, the female reproductive organs and the act of procreation are tied to possession, property or continuity of family and, as such, maternity is revealed to be animated by the desire for self-preservation that bolsters the entire social class. Elisabetta is a mother whose procreation has produced two sons, namely, the misanthropic Gonzalo and his dead brother, lost in the war. Liliana Balducci, on the other hand, is a woman so obsessed with her unfulfilled maternal ambitions that she invites a series of girls into her home to serve as surrogate daughters. Both women are repeatedly identified as belonging to the bourgeoisie and, specifically, to families with an important lineage. Gonzalo’s family can be traced back to the Spanish governor of the province of Néa Keltiké (Cognizione, 43). Liliana is a very rich woman who lives in a palazzo with the other ‘signori grossi’ [real gents] who belong either to the Roman ‘generone’ [high-class] or the class of ‘signori novi de commercio’ [people who were new to business] (Pasticciaccio, 7; Mess¸ 9).10 The Valdarena clan is the f lower of the Roman upper classes, ‘na famija che in tutto er generone nun ce n’è un antra’ (Pasticciaccio, 77) [a high-class family whose like you can’t find in the whole of Rome (114)]. Liliana’s genealogy receives much attention. She hails from a family whose lineage is carefully traced by Pompeo with ‘tutte le parentele e tutte le ramificazzione che je sbottaveno fora a primavera’ (Pasticciaccio, 65) [all their kith and kin, and all the ramifications that sprung in the spring (96)]. The bond between sexual reproduction and continuity of family becomes evident in the women’s equation of property with children. Elisabetta feels grief at the loss of one son and at the recognition that her living son Gonzalo is not the ‘bel nome della vita! Una continuità che s’adempie’ (Cognizione, 118) [lovely name of life! A continuity which was achieved (142)], but rather a ‘fallito sperimento delle viscere’ (Cognizione, 116) [failed experiment of her womb (138)]. In her desperation, she holds to the idea of possession as her family villa becomes an extension of her material body, incorporated into her sense of self as a sign of her triumph (Cognizione, 124). This concept of the villa has served to stave off total despair throughout her life and has become a physical organ consubstantial with the womb: ‘La idea Matrice della villa se l’era appropriata quale organo rubente od entelechia prima consustanziale ai visceri’ (Cognizione, 125) [The Matrix Idea of the villa she appropriated for herself as rubescent organ or prime entelchy consubstantial with the womb (150)]. She is subject to the ‘ormoni indefaticabili della anagènesi’ (Cognizione, 125) [tireless hormones of anagenesis (151)], an evolutionary process that, unlike the chaotic ramification identified with the carnality of the peasantry, results in a single lineage without branching or splitting. This insistently linear evolution points to the truth of Elisabetta’s procreation. A villa that becomes her womb and, by extension, her offspring, represents nothing less than the ‘sacra interezza della sua persona’ (Cognizione, 125) [sacred wholeness of her persona (150)]. In the Pasticciaccio an association between familial property and procreation is

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developed by means of the attention paid to the pale blue opal in the gold watch chain as it passes to Liliana from her grandfather, Rutilio, via zio Peppe (Pasticciaccio, 96; Mess, 142–43). Having changed the stone, Liliana passes the watch chain to Giuliano, who tells Ingravallo of her insistence that he have a child immediately after marriage: ‘me fece subbito giurà subbito subbito, che avrei fatto subito un pupo: un Valdarenino. Un Valdarenuccio, diceva fra le lacrime!’ (Pasticciaccio, 101) [she made me swear right away that I’d have a kid, as soon as I could: a little Valdarena. A Valdarenuccio, she said through her tears (150)]. The gold watch chain links the generations of the Valdarena clan as it binds Giuliano’s procreation to the figure of the grandfather, the ‘archetipo di tutti i Valdarena’ (Pasticciaccio, 96) [archetype of all the Valdarenas (143)]. In effect, though Liliana yearns for her own child, what seems to motivate this desire is not so much an altruistic longing to nurture a defenceless creature, but a wish that the child be of her lineage. Liliana herself is equated with the property of the clan when her aunts, mourning their murdered niece, liken her value to that of the jewellery stolen in the burglary: ‘era una splendida figliola, ed era un cofano di gioie: l’una e l’altro maturati dagli anni’ (Pasticciaccio, 78) [she was such a splendid girl, and there was a coffer of jewels: former and latter ripened by the years (115)]. Given this equation, Liliana’s failure to reproduce does not result simply in sadness but is also a question of pride inseparable from social class, as Valdarena reveals: ‘esiste un orgoglio fisico, una vanità della persona, delle viscere’ (Pasticciaccio, 100) [there’s a kind of physical pride, a vanity of the person, of the viscera (147)]. Valdarena’s claim also underscores the carnality of this feminine desire for reproduction. However, this is not the proliferating carnality of the peasantry, remarkable for its tendency toward indistinguishable fusion. Rather, the maternal impulse reveals a sense of individual subjectivity bound to an equally individuated body. This nexus of self-interested and profoundly carnal procreation of self and class is rendered graphically in what can only be described as the programmatic projection outward of the female genitalia. We read that Gonzalo’s parents contributed to the collection for the village bells in 1903 (Cognizione, 55; Acquainted¸ 63). This attitude, described by Sbragia as an ‘idealized populism’ (Sbragia, 1996, 39), forms part of a social agenda that exemplifies a nineteenth-century bourgeois Milan founded upon a positivist faith in economic liberalism and civic pride. Animated by the same positivist progressivism, the parents’ investment in the wellbeing of the village is, at bottom, a self-interested investment in their own future just as their ill-fated procreation was. The bells reveal the truth of this hypocritical philanthropy as they project outward the image of female genitalia. Upturned in their production of hated waves of sound, the bells are, at first, the androgynous but female Bacchantes who reveal their entrails, ‘il viscerame’ (Cognizione, 63) [their entrails (73)]. Shameless in their clamour, the bells display their internal clappers, components equated with a female genitalia that takes the form of the ‘inanità incaparbita della cervice’ (Cognizione, 63) [obstinate inanity of the cervix (73)]. The bells return as Gonzalo rages against his parents’ donation and against their habit of inviting the peasantry into their home, a circumstance that seems all the more unjust as he recalls his own childhood deprivation, his hole-riddled clothing and his

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hunger (Cognizione, 166–67). At this point, the hated bells assume, once again, the form of female genitalia as the ‘batacchio’ or clapper becomes a ‘batacchio-clitoride’ (Cognizione, 167) [clitoris-clapper (204)]. Liliana’s desperate quest for a child transforms the entire city of Rome and environs into a massive female reproductive system. The girls that she welcomes into her home come from the belly of the hinterland and descend the fallopian tubes of the Tiber to blossom in via Merulana: Per lei, dal Tevere, in giù, là, là, dietro i diroccati castelli e dopo le bionde vigne, c’era, sui colli e sui monti e nelle brevi piane d’Italia, come un grande ventre fecondo, due salpingi grasse, zigrinate d’una dovizia di granuli, il granuloso e untuoso, il felice caviale della gente. Di quando in quando dal grande Ovario follicoli maturati si aprivano, come ciche d’una melagrana: e rossi chicchi, pazzi d’amorosa certezza, ne discendevano ad urbe, a incontrare l’aff lato maschile, l’impulso vitalizzante, quell’aura spermatica di cui favoleggiavano gli ovaristi del Settecento. E a via Merulana 219, scala A, piano terzo, ci rifioriva la nipote, nel meglio grumolo, propio, del palazzo dell’Oro (Pasticciaccio, 12). [For her, from the Tiber down, there, there beyond the crumbling castles, and after the blond vineyards, there was, on the hills and mountains, and in the brief plains of Italy, a kind of great fertile womb, two swollen Eustachian [sic] tubes, streaked with an abundance of granules, the granular and greasy, the happy caviar of the race. From time to time, from the great Ovary ripened follicles opened, like pomegranate seeds: and red grains, mad with amorous certitude, descended upon the city, to encounter the male aff latus, the vitalizing impulse, that spermatic aura of which the ovarists of the eighteenth century wrote their fantastic treatise. And at Via Merulana two hundred and nineteen, stairway A, third f loor, the niece is re-burgeoned, in the best of cores, there, in the palace of gold (Mess, 16–17)]

Given the sustained critique of Fascism evident in the Pasticciaccio, this description of a feminized Rome is not exclusively a theorization of a self-interested maternity. It is also a specific ref lection on fascist doctrines of reproduction, a point Ellen Nerenberg addresses as she describes the ‘feminized Rome’ as a ‘vagina mundi’.11 Yet, despite the giant ovary of the hinterland, Liliana is disappointed in her search for a surrogate daughter, a fact that prompts a transformation of the accumulative practices that typify her feminine carnality and bourgeois self-preservation. This circumstance is made manifest in the charity evident in her will, written on 12 January, just two months before her death.12 Though she leaves the bulk of her wealth to her husband and to Gina, she also leaves other items to several of her former servants as well as a variety of organizations associated with the care of the young (Pasticciaccio 91; Mess, 137). This frenzy of giving ref lects, in the eyes of Ingravallo, an attitude that runs counter to the biologically-determined essence of femininity which tends to conserve and to amass material goods: ‘Quel dare, quel regalare, quel dividere altrui! [...] operazioni [...] tanto disgiunte dalla carnalità e in conseguenza dalla psiche della donna [...] che tende vice-versa a introitare: a elicitare il dono: a cumulare: a serbare per sé o per i figli’ (Pasticciaccio, 93) [that giving, that donating, that sharing out among others! [...] operations [...] so removed from the carnality and, in consequence, from the psyche of woman [...] which tends, on the

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contrary, to cash in: to elicit the gift: to accumulate: to save up for herself or for her children (138)]. In Liliana’s prodigality, Ingravallo reads the ‘psicosi tipica delle insoddisfatte’ (Pasticciaccio, 93) [typical psychosis of the frustrated woman (138)]. In effect, the failure of the maternal project figured in the projection outward of female genitalia is transformed into a dispersal of those material possessions so bound up with motherhood. The Feminine, the Fascist Horde and Weininger Gadda paints a portrait of a femininity that, even when engaging in acts of apparently altruistic philanthropy, seeks only to accumulate possessions and safeguard its carnal self and its social class by means of the project of maternity. In such a portrait, we might note a distinct resonance with the thought of Otto Weininger.13 Indeed, Gadda’s unf lattering portrait of the maternal impulse echoes Weininger’s claim that woman draws courage and security from being ‘linked in the chain of the generations’ (Weininger, 223). Moreover, Liliana’s uncharacteristic prodigality suggests further parallels with Weininger who, identifying the two poles of feminine typology as motherhood and prostitution, writes that most women have ‘both possibilities in them’ (Weininger, 217). Initially identifiable with the maternal pole, Liliana is the woman for whom the ‘getting of the child is the chief object in life’ (Weininger, 219). However, her escalating despair prompts a psychological collapse of sorts that distances her from the maternal pole as she embraces a prodigality that, for Weininger, defines the behaviour of the prostitute and differentiates her from the stingy mother (Weininger, 224). The parallels between Gadda and Weininger’s thought do not, however, terminate here. Rather, Weininger seems to constitute an adamant presence in Eros e priapo, the anti-fascist pamphlet that represents Gadda’s most persistently misogynistic text.14 In the pages of Eros e priapo, Gadda attributes a psychosexual character to the lure of Fascism, as he describes an eroticized Italy in which the phallus virilizes even female genitalia: ‘Dacché tutto era, allora, maschio e Mavorte: e insino le femine e le balie: e le poppe della tu’ balia, e l’ovario e le trombe di Faloppio e la vagina e la vulva. La virile vulva della donna italiana’ [For everything then was male and Martial: even broads and wet nurses, and the tits of your wet nurse and the ovary and the fallopian tubes and the vagina and the vulva. The virile vulva of the Italian woman (SGF II, 268)].15 Accordingly, Mussolini is derided in a dazzlingly hyperbolic act of name-calling that more often than not targets the hyperbolic and hyper-sexual qualities of fascist discourse.16 Mussolini is the ‘primo Racimolatore e Fabulatore ed Ejettatore delle scemenze e delle enfatiche cazziate’ [first Gatherer and Confabulator and Spouter of nonsenses and bombastic crap (SGF II, 224)]. He is a ‘Marco Aurelio ipocalcico dalle gambe a ìcchese: autoerotòmane affetto da violenza ereditaria’ [hypocalcemic Marcus Aurelius with legs like an X: a wanker aff licted with congenital violence] and a ‘teratocèfalo e rachitoide babbèo’ [teratocephalus and dwarfish dummy (SGF II, 225)]. He is the ‘Priapo Ottimo Massimo’ [Phallus Optimus Maximus (SGF II, 258)] and the ‘centrale dello sperma’ [sperm central (SGF II, 263)]. He is a braying donkey (SGF II, 236) who emits ‘berci, grugniti’

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[bawls, grunts] and performs ‘sussulti priapeschi’ [priapic jumps] on his balcony (SGF II, 242). Fascism demands a privileging of Eros over Logos, a hierarchy that Gadda identifies as the cause of the fascist crime (SGF II, 244). In its distance from the temperate wisdom of Logos, this dark Eros reveals an egotistical narcissism at its base. For the narcissist, everything relates to the self, to the ‘erezione perpetua [...] dell’Io-minchia, invaghito, affocato, affodato di sé medesimo’ [perpetual erection [...] of the I-prick, infatuated, enf lamed, entranced by himself (SGF II, 343)]. This narcissism of this inf lated and sexualized I is embodied in the baying multitude, a configuration that, like Gustave Le Bon’s metropolitan crowd, is identified as feminine in nature (SGF II, 224). It is this feminized horde that covets Mussolini and sees in him the ‘fallo paterno padronale e precipuo’ [paternal, masterful, and chief phallus (SGF II, 259)]. Indulging their reverence for the most virile and powerful of men (SGF II, 254), women’s carnality now overlaps with their patriotic duty, which is, quite simply, to ‘lasciarsi fottere’ [let themselves be fucked (SGF II, 245)].17 Political activism should be denied to women, Gadda writes, as the vagina was designed with the sole purpose of being filled (SGF II, 246). As such, women who voice political slogans are neighing hysterics (SGF II, 246)]. The very possibility of reasoned female discourse is undermined as Gadda identifies a female tendency toward echolalia, especially when repeating phrases spoken by an authoritative male (SGF II, 251). This echolalic tendency is the result of an intellectual receptivity that stems from the absence of female critical faculties (SGF II, 257). Therefore, woman is matter, while man provides form (SGF II, 256–57). Indeed, man is the ethical element that looks to the future, while woman is the ‘elemento cicatrizzante’ [scarring element (SGF II, 257)] that perfects the past as ‘[s]avia conservatrice e accumulatrice’ [sage conserver and accumulator (SGF II, 256)]. Just as Gadda posits a femininity dominated by an eroticized carnality, Otto Weininger describes a sexualized woman whose entire existence is ‘bound up with the Phallus, and so that is her supreme lord and master’ (Weininger, 299). While Gadda’s female has no critical faculties, Weininger describes a woman who, ‘without the power of making concepts’, is ‘unable to make judgments’ (Weininger, 194). Gadda’s discussion of the echolalia of womankind parallels Weininger’s declaration that women are susceptible to forms of inf luence such as hypnosis (Weininger, 207). ‘Credulous, uncritical’ (Weininger, 207), woman imitates all those who surround her (Weininger, 262). Moreover, she is ‘only too glad to get her opinions “ready made” ’ and, entirely unashamed of being ‘receptive’, she is happiest ‘when she may be perfectly passive’ (Weininger, 262). Though he attributes the concept to Bergson, Gadda himself seems guilty of a certain echolalia when he claims that man is ‘forma’ or form and woman is ‘materia’ or matter (SGF II, 256) as Weininger had expressed the dichotomy in identical terms (Weininger, 293). The Pasticciaccio reiterates and develops the Weiningerian argument of Eros e priapo.18 As Mussolini spews his ‘vommito de li gnocchi’ (Pasticciaccio, 43) [vomiting stream of words (63)], women feel the erotic charge: ‘tutte le Maria Barbise d’Italia, già principiavano a invulvarselo, appena discesce d’altare, tutte le Magde, le Milene, le Filomene d’Italia’ (Pasticciaccio, 44) [all the Maria Barbisas of Italy [...]

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already they were beginning to invulvate him, Italy’s Magdas, Milenas, Filomenas (64)].19 This eroticized carnality is revealed in its absolute irrationality in the form of the Roman crowd, portrayed by Gadda as a demarcated body. This is not the amorphous tree of the collectivity that defined peasant being. The crowd becomes, instead, an augmentation of the individuated subject, having replaced the selfpreserving feminine ‘io’ with the equally self-interested ‘noi’ of fascist normativity. Accordingly, this engorged subject is demarcated as a single, albeit mass, entity. The feminine multitude of Eros e priapo (SGF II, 224) appears outside the palazzo at via Merulana: Davanti al casermone color pidocchio, una folla: circonfusa d’una rete protettiva di biciclette. Donne, sporte, e sedani: qualche esercente d’un negozio di là, col grembiule bianco: un ‘uomo di fatica’ e questo col grembiule rigato, e col naso in veste e in colore d’un meraviglioso peperone: portinaie, domestiche, ragazzine delle portinaie che strillavano ‘a Peppì’, maschietti col cerchio, un attendente saturo d’arance, prese in una sua gran rete, con in cima i ciuffetti di due finocchi, e di pacchi: due o tre funzionari grossi, che in quell’ora matura agli alti gradi avevano appena disciolto le vele: diretti, ciascuno, al suo ministero: e un dodici o quidici tra perdigiorno e vagabondi vari, diretti in nessun luogo. Un portalettere in istato di estrema gravidanza, più curioso di tutti, dava, della sua borsa colma, in culo a tutti: che borbottavano mannaggia, e poi ancora mannaggia, mannaggia, uno dopo l’altro, man mano che la borsona perveniva ad urtarli nel didietro [...] Tutt’attorno, la fascia delle ruote delle biciclette, come un derma sui generis, pareva rendere impenetrabile quella polpa collettiva (Pasticciaccio, 16). [In front of the big, louse-colored building: a crowd: circumfused by a protective net of bicycles. Women, shopping bags, and celery stalks: a shopkeeper or two from across the street, in his white apron: an ‘odd job’ man, also in an apron, striped, his nose the shape and color of a wondrous pepper: concierges, maids, the little daughters of the concierges shouting ‘Peppiiino!’ to boys with hoops, a batman saturated with oranges, trapped in his great net bag, and crowned by the ferns of two big fennels, and packages: two or three important officials, who in that hour ripe for the higher ranks seemed to have unfurled their sails: bound, each of them, for his personal Ministry: and a dozen or even fifteen idlers, headed in no direction at all. A letter carrier in a state of advanced pregnancy more curious than all, with his brimming bag which smacked everyone in the ass: some muttered goddamnit, and then goddamn, goddamn, one after the other, as the bag struck them, in turn, on the behind [...] All around, the stripe of the bicycle wheels, like a sui generis skin, seemed to render impenetrable that collective pulp (Mess, 22–23)].

What is crucial in this configuration is that distinct elements such as working men, pieces of fennel, shopping bags and celery are bound together within a precisely demarcated entity. Indeed, Gadda underlines twice the presence of the epidermis of bicycle wheels and, moreover, characterizes this entity as impenetrable. Moreover, this entity exemplifies Weiningerian feminine unreason as Logos is lost in a babelic confusion of voices, human and animal: Parlavano tutte in una volta. Era una confusione di voci e di aspetti: serve, padrone, broccoli: enormi foglie di un broccolo uscivano da una sporta

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We discover a distinct body that utters indistinguishable and incomprehensible noises, a nonsense that culminates in the barking poodle whose non-signifying and non-rational voice merges with and comes to define the others. Moreover, the crammed shopping bag mirrors this engorged self, jammed and swollen with its eroticized self-importance. This same entity, now explicitly feminized, emerges in Gadda’s discussion of the criminal case involving Pirroficoni.20 He writes that Mussolini, baying over Pirroficoni’s alleged crime like a ‘belva cogliona e furente a freddo sopra una mascella d’asino’ [stupid and furious beast, in cold blood, over an ass’s jawbone], whips the ‘megera anguicrinita’ (Pasticciaccio, 81) [snaky-haired Megaera (119)] into a state of credulous frenzy. The extent of this frenzy is evident in the reference to the voracious women of the crowd who, when offered the innocent sacrificial ram or stag, rip it to shreds in the bacchanal of their own making: ‘le scarmigliate che lo faranno a pezzi, lene in salti o mamillone ubique e voraci nel baccanale che di loro strida si accende, e dello strazio e del sangue s’imporpora’ (Pasticciaccio, 81) [dishevelled women who will rip it apart, light of foot, ubiquitous and mammary in the bacchanal which their own cries kindle, purple with torment and blood (119– 20)]. This same bloodlust motivates the beating of the ‘mal capitato Pirroficoni’ [hapless Pirroficoni] who was ‘ridotto in fin di vita a busse da un taliana di quelli’ (Pasticciaccio, 81) [almost killed by the blows of an Italian of the same stripe (120)]. This group bloodlust reveals the true face of the fascist horde, that same ‘psicosi totale della folla’ (Pasticciaccio, 81) [total psychosis of the mob (120)] that, Gadda writes, prompted the summary execution of an innocent man in Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Subverting a Masculine Ethics of Becoming This Weiningerian femininity of self-preservative carnality is explicitly contrasted with a masculine ethical impulse intent on shaping the future in the interests of the common good. This contrasts with a portrait of woman who, as passive accumulator (SGF II, 256), is condemned to seek self-realization within the physiological limits of her own body and its capacity for reproduction. Yet, as we proceed in our exploration of Gadda’s misogynistically gendered dichotomy of ethical being, we discover that his configuration of male and female identity is entirely elastic.21 Indeed, his deployment of these gendered terms ultimately points not to a biological or sexual differentiation, but suggests, rather, an ethical distinction attuned to the dignity of embodied beings, male or female. The female body itself comes to

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incarnate this ethical problematic and is the corporeal space employed by Gadda as he meditates on the offended dignity of the embodied and objectified subject of the project of social modernity, a project gendered male. Gadda introduces his ethical project of heuristic becoming in his treatise, Meditazione milanese, a work that takes the form of a dialogue between a decidedly unconventional philosopher and a pedantic, fastidious critic.22 Here Gadda describes a tripartite algebraic system that locates the ethical position beyond the borders of the individuated subject. Lying at the centre of the system, N represents the subject’s attempt to preserve a stable identity that, explicitly associated with physiology, suggests the self-interested carnality of womankind: ‘è il conservare l’esistente, il ribadire, il permanere, l’esser io, l’essere materia, l’esser coscienza’ [it is to conserve the existing state of affairs, to confirm, to persist, to be I, to be matter, to be consciousness (Meditazione, 146]. On the other hand, n+1 designates an ethically superior state that often demands the sacrifice of the distinct self in order to access a sphere of becoming: ‘è un divenir supercoscienza, supersistema’ [it is to become superconsciousness, supersystem (Meditazione, 146)]. Finally, n-1 is a contemptible condition epitomized by the military deserter who seeks his own self-preservation over the ‘superconsciousness’ of country, by the murderer who, in obeying his own greed, negates all human connectedness, and, finally, by the corrupter who denies the principle of human solidarity (Meditazione, 149). In accordance with this ethics beyond the self, Gadda challenges the validity of a self-same identity, a foolish construct that he dismisses as the subjectivity of the ‘pacco postale’ [postal parcel (Meditazione, 36)].23 This denunciation of the parcelself is described by Bouchard as originating as a ‘critique of the identity-thinking of the speculative tradition, and in a deep respect for substance’s complexity and immanence’ (Bouchard, 2000, 91).24 In his condemnation of stable constructs of subjectivity, the author opposes a discrete material body to the ethical subject: ‘vedo di non essere un corpo, ma un fratello, un padre: vedo di non essere un ‘cittadino’ adorno di diritti, ma un ‘cittadino’ carico di doveri, di vincoli’ [I see that I am not a body, but a brother, a father: I see that I am not a ‘citizen’ endowed with rights, but a ‘citizen’ laden with duties (Meditazione, 146)]. Why, however, does Gadda oppose this duty-bound citizen to a material body? A clarification is necessary at this point. First of all, Gadda is not proposing a Cartesian dualism that privileges the mind as locus of an ethical self.25 When he speaks of ‘un corpo’, he targets not some imagined base physicality but, rather, the specific configuration of a self constructed on the supposed material separateness from other bodies. In this particular case, Gadda is targeting a ‘body-image’, that, to use Ferguson’s terminology, is constructed on the dichotomies of Subject/Object, Self/Other, and Ego/World that constitute the basis of classical modernity (Ferguson, 2000, 3). This, Ferguson clarifies, is the ‘vacuum-packed’ bourgeois body-image that ‘corresponds precisely to the physical boundary of the individuated body: it fits “like a glove” ’ (Ferguson, 2000, 46). This is the same corporeally delimited subjectivity that Gonzalo, despite his own phobic monadism, attacks in his tirade against the first person pronoun: ‘l’io, l’io!... il più lurido di tutti i pronomi!’ (Cognizione, 73) [I, I... the foulest of all pronouns! (86)].26 As the ‘pidocchi del pensiero’ (Cognizione, 74)

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[lice of thought (86)], pronouns serve as an instrument of moralistic differentiation with which the ‘salumiere ladro’ [thieving butcher] distinguishes himself from the ‘salumiere furfante’ (Cognizione, 75) [scoundrel butcher (88)]. The bond between this configuration of subjectivity and Ferguson’s sealed body-image is made clear when Gonzalo associates these pronouns with a measuring out of being into ‘un sacco, in una lercia trippa’ (Cognizione, 75) [a sack of foul guts (89)], corporeal sacks compared with the low and permeable walls that demarcate the villa.27 To this enclosed body, Gadda opposes a self constituted by its relations: ‘ognuno di noi mi appare essere un groppo, o nodo, o groviglio, di rapporti fisici e metafisici’ [I see each of us as a skein, a knot, a tangle of physical and metaphysical relations (I viaggi, 10)].28 The egoist, on the other hand, is the ‘homo oeconomicus’ who, oblivious to these ‘correlazioni di fatto’ [actual correlations], reveals that he has not meditated sufficiently on Leibniz’s monadology (I viaggi, 235).29 In this reference to Leibniz, a philosopher central to his own evolution,30 Gadda seems to allude to paragraph 61 of the Monadology in which the interconnectedness of bodies is underscored: ‘each body is affected, not only by those in contact with it [...] but also, through them, it feels the effects of those in contact with the bodies with which it is itself immediately in contact’.31 However, the egoist’s failure to ref lect on Leibniz’s philosophy is also a criticism to be levelled at the philosopher of the Meditazione, a fact illustrated by the critic who states that the concepts employed by his interlocutor are antileibnizian (Meditazione, 190). At stake is the apparent refusal of Gadda’s philosopher to recognize that the Leibnizian monad has ‘no windows through which something can enter or leave’ (Leibniz, 214). As such, intersubstantial causality is not possible because only God has the ability to affect the monads as when he programmes a ‘pre-established’ harmony (Leibniz, 223). In effect, it is Leibniz’s God, a being ‘incapable of limits’ and containing ‘as much reality as is possible’ (Leibniz, 218), that interests Gadda. This divine being becomes the ideal body of a Gaddian reality of systems in f lux wherein the ethical position is equated quite simply with a receptivity to reality. Thus, the being that is supremely moral must also be ‘sommamente reale’ [supremely real (Meditazione, 145–46].32 Yet, while Leibniz posits a God who selects one world from the infinity of possible worlds (Leibniz, 220), Gadda leaves his embodied subject in a proliferation of systems.33 Reality is a ‘coinvoluzione di significati’ [coinvolution of meanings] that cannot constitute a system with a single meaning ‘a meno che non si intenda per tale l’affermazione della molteplicità’ [unless that meaning is itself the affirmation of multiplicity (Meditazione, 146)].34 In highlighting the impossibility of a closed system (Meditazione, 127), Gadda describes a rhizomatic network constructed as a ‘maglia o rete a dimensioni infinite’ [a mesh or net of infinite dimensions] where each knot of relations is linked ‘da infiniti filamenti a grumi o grovigli infiniti’ [by infinite filaments to infinite grumes or tangles (Meditazione, 36)]. In this space, Gadda’s ideal subject is the cluster of consequences of other connections: ‘[l]’individuo umano [...] non è un effetto ma un insieme di effetti ed è stolto il pensarlo come una unità’ [the individual human [...] is not an effect but a totality of effects and it is foolish to consider him as a unity (Meditazione, 35)]. Far removed

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from the Leibnizian self-contained room, this subject resembles what Whitehead terms an ‘actual occasion’, an entity that becomes its own ‘concrescence’, a process by which it merges ‘prehensions’ or ‘concrete facts of relatedness’ of other actual occasions.35 This chaotic reality prompts the critic of the Meditazione to equate the openness of Gadda’s universe with the movements of gossip through a community of servants. He insists that, instead of a corporeally sealed Leibnizian monad of ‘chiuso pensiero, puro io, che non ha bisogno di luce dal di fuori’ [closed thought, pure I, that has no need of light from outside], Gadda’s monadology is a ‘mostro indescrivibile, che fa pettegolezzi con tutti’ [indescribable monster that gossips with everyone (Meditazione, 190)]. This reference to the traffic of gossip must recall the chaotic transfer of information through the peasant collectivity in which ostensibly discrete subjects are fused in a process that accentuates a shifting materiality. Thus, the bodily configuration identifiable with the peasantry seems to be that which manifests the most ethical correspondence with a material reality in f lux. This grotesque configuration suggests, in short, the infinite f luctuation of the unlocked bodily monad. Though Gadda explicitly states that man constitutes the heuristic element of the human species (SGF II, 257) in contrast with the accumulative tendencies of a self-preservative femininity bound by the limits of physiology, it is precisely here that the author’s misogynistic categories begin to buckle and fold in on themselves. Indeed, the male heuristic gaze toward the future encompasses a capacity to form or shape a material reality composed, in large measure, of female bodies. As such, the very passivity of Gadda’s woman, her receptive carnality and status as objectified matter to man’s form transforms her into an ethical figure. It is no coincidence that the peasant body is comprised, for the most part, by women. Indeed, these are the passive and insistently material bodies that, highly embedded in a f luctuating reality, come to incarnate the supremely moral connectivity to a world in f lux. Man’s purportedly formative role, moreover, is a problematic one comparable with Gadda’s ref lections on methodology. Discussions of method appear in the pages of the Meditazione where Gadda writes that an ethical methodology must become a ‘sistema autodeformantesi che muta e deforma o almeno raddoppia e triplica e molteplica i suoi significati’ [self-deforming system that changes and distorts or, at least, doubles and triples and multiplies its meanings (Meditazione, 119)]. In its con­ stitutive adaptability, this methodology respects reality by recognizing that know­ ledge is, as Dombroski insists, a ‘transformative action’ that deforms the reality it seeks to comprehend.36 Gadda describes the problematic as follows: ‘conoscere è inserire alcunché nel reale, è, quindi, deformare il reale’ [to know is to insert something into reality and it is, therefore, to deform that reality (Medita­zione, 249)]. This epistemological deformation of reality informs Gadda’s entire engagement with embodiment. The formative action of a masculine agent is revealed as a deformative endeavour comparable with the entire project of social and technological modernity. As such, the passive and receptive female body becomes a figure for the offended embodiment of modernity. Moreover, it becomes clear that Gadda’s deployment of the categories of male and female veils a subject/object divide that opposes subjective agency to an objectified and moulded materiality. Accordingly, the

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elasticity of the gender dichotomy reveals its ethical heart as Gadda ref lects on the offended dignity of male and female embodied beings. It is this dimension that accounts for the ‘continuous subversion’ of Gadda’s own gendered categories, which Diaconescu-Blumenfeld identifies not just in a representation of social class and sexuality that ‘short-circuits the simple polarity of male/female’, but also in the homoerotic programme that implicates not only the pathetic Angeloni, but Liliana and, indeed, Ingravallo himself.37 Referencing the ‘omoerotia sublimata’ (Pasticciaccio, 95) [sublimated homoeroticism (140)] of Liliana’s fixation with the fertile bellies of other women, she writes that Ingravallo’s identification of Liliana’s ‘paternità metafisica’ (Pasticciaccio, 95) [metaphysical paternity (140)] posits a male dimension to her identity: ‘in a classic male interpretation of female homosexuality, he sees in her a man’ (DiaconescuBlumenfeld, 42).38 As such, Ingravallo’s apologetic claim that women are to be found somewhere in every crime (Pasticciaccio, 5) ref lects a programmatic mandate to ‘cherchez la femme’ within the male self (Diaconescu-Blumenfeld, 42). In short, the crucially f luid categories of male and female point to a dimension beyond the biological and the sexual. For Diaconescu-Blumenfeld, this dimension is the underlying ‘problematic of representation’ because ‘woman [...] is always the object of knowledge, theory, representation, and the theorizing intelligence, always male’ (Diaconescu-Blumenfeld, 38).39 It is this compelling argument that I would extend to the project of modernity itself in order to argue that Gadda’s feminized bodies ref lect an ethical meditation on modernity’s management of objectified bodies. As such, Gadda’s representation of his bourgeois women preoccupied with maternity acquires a defining ambivalence. At once subjects and objects of a modernization that affords an active and, therefore, masculine role to their social class, so central to their own construction of self, these women are also the feminized bodies of the same process and, as such, live an embodiment defined by impotent passivity. In short, guilty of objectifying their own bodies in the service of an agenda of social and self-preservation, they are also the offended material object of that same process. Though Elisabetta triumphantly incorporates her family villa into her bodily self, her maternity is so marked by inconsolable loss that, for her, the maternal figure is only conceivable as a ‘groppo di disumano dolore superstite ai sacrificati’ (Cognizione, 164) [lump of inhuman grief surviving the victims (201)]. Fixated on her maternal contribution to the continuity of her family line, Liliana is an almost entirely silent object of the desire and the will of male others.40 Ethics and Horror of Matricide This ambivalence reaches a density of almost impenetrable proportions when we come to the question of matricide, an act that suggests an ethical inspiration but which nonetheless remains an instance of the utmost brutality. If murdering the mother thwarts any and all of her attempts to construct a cohesive and enduring self on the backs of her offspring, can matricide constitute an ethical act? If the ethical position is the heuristic n + 1, does the annihilation of a maternal figure revealed to be n or even the contemptible n -1 constitute a principled gesture? Elisabetta’s

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bloodied and swollen face evokes the ethical consequence of the matricide, namely, the obliteration of cohesive subjectivity: ‘parve a tutti di leggere la parola terribile della morte e la sovrana coscienza della impossibilità di dire: Io’ (Cognizione, 193) [it seemed to all that they could read the terrible word of death and the supreme awareness of the impossibility of saying: I (237)]. In ridiculing her attempts to shore up and preserve self hood, the assault is directed not only against her person, but also against her social class, and its clinical vision of a society of bodies moulded in accordance with the tenets of progress and order. It is this that prompts Robert Dombroski to argue that her wounded body ‘signals her entry into the complex workings of a material cosmos, into the web of causes and subcauses, into the infinite dimensions of the universe, into the chain of events, actions, thought, det­ er­m inations, in sum into an infinitude of creative possibilities’ (Dombroski, 1999, 94).41 Though this is the space of the ethical subject of relation, the violent attack on Elisabetta cannot be considered seriously as a gesture of ethical inspiration.42 Rather, as her subjectivity is extinguished, Elisabetta becomes the absolute embodiment of the feminized object body subjected to the pain and outrage of violence. Ingravallo’s scrutiny of Liliana Balducci’s body further complicates this ethical density by drawing us toward the question of investigative methodology and punitive judgment. He stares openly, though regretfully throughout, at Liliana’s body in a manner that would have been unseemly when she was alive.43 Yet the inappropriateness of this gaze seems to relate predominantly to Liliana’s social status and, as such, wrongs the constructs with which she bolstered her non-heuristic self. What Ingravallo’s gaze offends, then, is Liliana’s self-preserving subjectivity and he seems, at some level, to liberate the now dead matter of her body by placing its various parts and qualities in relation with a rich series of referents. In this way, Ingravallo’s gaze also deviates from the investigative norm, as it moves beyond the instrumental logic of deduction and eschews any unitary perspective by alternately presenting Liliana as the subject of a police investigation, an object for aesthetic and sartorial contemplation, and, finally, a murdered friend. This oscillation with respect to the points of reference or comparison transforms and fragments, with each shift in point of view, the object being contemplated. The body is itself reconfigured and splintered by the companion part of each comparison and by the nature of the language with which it is described. The description begins with an indication of the arrangement of the body which lies supine in an appalling position (Pasticciaccio, 46). Moving to her clothing, the particulars of her garments are reported with an attention to detail that might characterize a tailor’s expert eye. We read of Liliana’s grey wool skirt, her white slip, and then her undergarments that are elegantly stitched (‘di maglia a punto gentile, sottilissimo’; of elegant jersey, very fine) and reach mid-thigh [‘terminavano a metà coscia in una delicata orlatura’ (46); ended half-way down the thighs with a delicate edging (68)]. Her stockings (‘una lieve luce di seta’; light-shaded silk) are described as are her taut garters [‘ondulate appena agli orli, d’una ondulazione chiara di lattuga’ (46–47); curled slightly at the edges, with a clear, lettuce-like curl (68)]. The sartorial detail gives way to a portrait of Liliana’s extinguished sexuality, a sexuality that intrigued Ingravallo more than he might have admitted. Her thighs

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[‘già si adeguavano al gelo: al gelo del sarcofago, e delle taciturne dimore’ (46); were already becoming used to the chill: to the chill of the sarcophagus and of man’s final taciturn abode (68)], are slightly parted so as to reveal the underwear that ‘modellò inutilmente le stanche proposte d’una voluttà il cui ardore, il cui fremito, pareva essersi appena esalato dalla dolce mollezza del monte, da quella riga, il segno carnale del mistero’ (46–47) [shaped uselessly the weary proposals of a voluptuousness whose ardor, whose shudder, seemed to have barely been exhaled from the gentle softness of the hill, from that central line, the carnal mark of the mystery (68)]. At this point Liliana’s body is intimately connected with the subject matter of great art as Ingravallo’s mind associates her genital parting or ‘riga’, once entirely fixated on the self-preservative project of maternity, with that which Michelangelo thought it best to omit at San Lorenzo in Florence (Pasticciaccio¸ 47). Ingravallo’s eye then moves to the fatal wounds, described with both the attention to bloody detail worthy of a pathologist and the sense of horror that might characterize the reaction of a friend. In this way, the descriptions of her clothing and her extinguished sexuality are interrupted by the mental interjections of Ingravallo who, with expressions and structures heavily inf luenced by dialect, condemns the brutality of the attack (Pasticciaccio, 47). Her face was scratched by the killer [‘Fin sotto un occhio, sur naso!’ (47); Under one eye, on the nose (69)] and is pale and sunken [‘emaciato dalla suzione atroce della Morte’ (47); emaciated by the atrocious suction of Death (69)]. A cut [‘profondo, un terribile taglio rosso’ (47); deep, terrible red cut (69)] has opened her throat from right to left; to the right, Gadda clarifies in the detail-oriented and detached voice of the detective, for those looking down at the body, but, and here we return to the point of view of the victim, to the left from Liliana’s perspective. This cut, jagged or uneven at the edges as though the result of a repeating cutting, is quite simply a ‘horror’ as is clarified in dialect: ‘un orrore! Da nun potesse vede’’ (47) [a horror! You couldn’t stand to look at it (69)]. The blood has spread across her neck and down her blouse, onto her sleeve and her hand in a ‘spaventevole colatura’ [frightful stream] that lies below a face that, resigned to death, has turned away from her murderer, ‘quer boja’ (Pasticciaccio, 47–48) [the killer (69–70)]. Liliana’s throat is a ‘pasticcio’ or messy pastiche that becomes both linguistic and perspectival as it splinters Liliana’s corpse and symbolically fragments her unified subjectivity. Even Gadda’s narrative voice draws close to the voice of the actual man behind the authorial persona, as the exclamation of sympathy for a mother becomes Gadda’s own f leeting association of the blood from Liliana’s neck with Faiti and Cengio, the location of his own brother’s death in World War I. This f lash of Gadda and his mother’s grief underscores Liliana’s status as maternal figure and suggestively spreads the matricidal guilt from Virginia to Ingravallo and, indeed, to Gadda himself. Yet this same sticky pastiche of blood unites Liliana with the other non-bourgeois female bodies that people the novel.44 Her throat is linked to the genital mouth of Zamira as the strange bubbles that form in blood on her wound [‘spumiccia nera der sangue’ (47); black foam of the blood (69)] foreshadow the saliva bubbles of Zamira’s mouth: ‘Nella bocca senza denti er bucio, nero: da cui tra verbo e verbo, ella risucchiava dentro la già erogata saliva [...] Un indugio di piccole, soavissime

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bulle, sui labbri, accompagnava il ricupero’ (Pasticciaccio, 164) [In the toothless mouth, the hole, black: from which, between one word and the next, she sucked back in the already erogated saliva [...] A hesitation of tiny, sweet bubbles, on the lips, accompanied this salvage (243)]. This identification of Liliana, now deprived of the illusions of her bourgeois subjecthood, with the bodies of other women reveals the ethical truth of Ingravallo’s investigative gaze. Though friend, he is also an agent of the law, and as such he transforms her into the object of his judgment and, in so doing, commits a second and symbolic murder.45 This process unveils the problematic of the law which, like all methodologies, transforms the bodies it seeks to know and judge. Judging Singular Bodies Ingravallo seems to be highly aware that knowledge and judgment carry a transformative power. As an investigator, therefore, he applies a methodology that seems to correspond with that of the ethical philosopher who, rather than seeking out methodological stability, embraces a method that, like a ‘chiazza d’olio allargantesi’ [spreading patch of oil], extends in all directions (Meditazione, 128). Ingravallo’s is an investigative methodology that, rather than reducing possibilities in order to isolate a single culprit from a body of suspects, expands those possibilities and propels the investigation beyond the confines of the city to the Roman hinterland where a legion of suspects waits and, even, multiplies. Though rational, his method generates an ever-proliferating multiplicity of causes for any given criminal consequence: Sosteneva [...] che le inopinate catastrofi non sono mai la consequenza o l’effetto che dir si voglia d’un unico motivo, d’una causa al singolare: ma sono come un vortice, un punto di depressione ciclonica nella coscienza del mondo, verso cui hanno cospirato tutta una molteplicità di causali convergenti. Diceva anche nodo o groviglio, o garbuglio, o gnommero, che alla romana vuol dire gomitolo. Ma il termine giuridico ‘le causali, la causale’ gli sfuggiva preferentemente di bocca: quasi contro sua voglia. L’opinione che bisognasse ‘riformare in noi il senso della categoria di causa’ quale avevamo dai filosofi da Aristotele o da Emmanuele Kant, e sostituire alla causa le cause era in lui una opinione centrale e persistente: una fissazione, quasi (Pasticciaccio, 4). [He sustained [...] that unforeseen catastrophes are never the consequence or the effect, if you prefer, of a single motive, of a cause singular; but they are rather like a whirlpool, a cyclonic point of depression in the consciousness of the world, towards which a whole multitude of converging causes have contributed. He also used words like knot or tangle, or muddle, or gnommero, which in Roman dialect means skein. But the legal term, ‘the motive, the motives’, escaped his lips by preference, though as if against his will. The opinion that we must ‘reform within ourselves the meaning of the category of cause’, as handed down by the philosophers from Aristotle to Immanuel Kant, and replace cause with causes was for him a central, persistent opinion, almost a fixation (Mess, 5)]

This logic refuses to provide a definitively linear account of the events surrounding

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the murder as, at each turn, a probable cause unfolds yet another constellation of circumstances and ruptures the unified wisdom of judicial deduction. His method­ ology fractures each link on his causal chain and forces the insertion of another succession of causal links, which will, in its turn, permit of another logical chain and so on. Gian Carlo Roscioni describes a deadlock in which the detective’s need to identify the maximum number of antecedent facts precludes the possibility of ‘ogni solicita conclusione’ [any prompt conclusion] and ‘ogni speditivo giudizio’ [any speedy judgment].46 Yet, despite his methodological ethics, Ingravallo remains troubled by the implications of legal practice and, in particular, the prospect of judgment. Indeed, the Pasticciaccio presents an almost consistently negative portrait of a despotic law.47 Ines Cionini’s interrogation is indicative of this tendency. As the group of police and carabinieri pressure and bully Ines for information, their apparent quest for justice is revealed to be, from her perspective, a tyrannical and inhuman undertaking: ‘quegli uomini, la ricattavano col solo sguardo [...] di una cupidità ripugnante. Quegli uomini, da lei, volevano udire, sapere. Dietro di loro c’era la giustizzia: na macchina! No strazzio, la giustizzia’ (Pasticciaccio, 158) [those men, blackmailed her with their gaze alone [...] of a repugnant greed. Those men, from her, wanted to hear, to know. Behind them was Justice: a machine! A torment, that’s what Justice was (234)].48 Commendatore Angeloni, one of those characters central to the homoerotic programme of the novel, also falls victim to an overzealous legal edifice. Though innocent of any involvement with the robbery of the Countess Menegazzi, Angeloni becomes disoriented when under interrogation and seeks to withdraw like a snail into a shell before the language of the questura (Pasticciaccio, 32; Mess, 46). The offence suffered by Angeloni while at the police station is evident in his eyes which veil over while his face comes to constitute a ‘muta disperata protesta contro la disumanità, la crudeltà d’ogni inquisizione organizzata’ (Pasticciaccio, 32) [mute and desperate protest against the inhumanity, the cruelty of all organized investigation (47)]. This unethical dimension of the law emerges again as the novel closes. Ingravallo enigmatically expresses regret when, having identified the guilty party, he contemplates his work in the face of the vitality of Assunta who, like Virginia, is remarkable for her sensuality and, more specifically, the beauty and intensity of her eyes. Ingravallo who, having had first-hand experience of this gaze, seems to mourn his own investigative efforts: Una vitalità splendida, in lei, a lato il moribondo autore de’ suoi giorni, che avrebbero ad essere splendidi: una fede imperterrita negli enunciati di sue carni, ch’ella pareva scagliare audacemente all’offesa, in un subito corruccio, in un cipiglio: ‘No, nun so’ stata io!’ Il grido incredibile bloccò il furore dell’ossesso. Egli non intese, là pe llà, ciò che la sua anima era in procinto d’intendere. Quella piega nera verticale tra i due sopraccigli dell’ira, nel volto bianchissimo della ragazza, lo paralizzò, lo indusse a rif lettere: a ripentirsi, quasi (Pasticciaccio, 264). [A splendid vitality, in her, beside the moribund author of her days, which should have been splendid: an undaunted faith in the expressions of her f lesh, which she seemed to hurl boldly to the offensive, in a prompt frown, with a

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scowl: ‘No, it wasn’t me!’ The incredible cry blocked the haunted man’s fury. He didn’t understand, then and there, what his spirit was on the point of understanding. That black, vertical fold above the two eyebrows of rage, in the pale white face of the girl, paralyzed him, prompted him to ref lect: to repent, almost (Mess, 288)]

What his soul seems to be on the verge of grasping in this moment is the conf lict between, on the one hand, the punitive judgment that constitutes the practical closure of an investigation and, on the other, the outrage that this closure commits with respect to the embodied vitality of the accused. And even though the murderer is evidently an undisputed embodiment of the unethical n — 1, the detective, as Todorov points out, seems to perform a further murder in his identification of the guilty party.49 The splendid vitality that characterizes Assunta (and, by extension, Virginia) stems from her unshakeable faith in the power of her own f lesh to protect her, presumably, by its seductive force. This reference to Assunta’s faith in her body, coupled, obviously, with the murder itself, seems to place both her and Virginia in a non-heuristic zone limited by a physiological drive to self-preservation. How­ ever, despite the ethical necessity of punishment, the vitality of these beautiful girls continues to trouble Ingravallo. Moreover, the ‘piega nera’ or black fold that appears between Assunta’s remarkable eyes connects her with the barely concealed fold of the genitalia of Liliana’s corpse and, by extension, the fatal wound on her throat.50 As such, Liliana’s status as victim also seems to encompass Assunta and, paradoxically, Virginia, the presumed murderer. Gadda’s enigmatic conclusion intimates the presence of two key categories that illuminate his detective’s unexpected remorse: the general and the singular. Generality, as Deleuze clarifies in his introduction to Difference and Repetition, consists of two orders: ‘the qualitative order of resemblances and the quantitative order of equivalences’.51 Belonging to the order of laws, generality imposes its systems of resemblance and equivalence on the subject of the law, determining ‘the resemblance of the subjects ruled by it, along with their equivalence to terms which it designates’ (Deleuze, 1994, 2). Singularity, on the other hand, emerges as an impersonal power that surpasses any individual’s lived experience. In an essay entitled ‘Immanence: A Life’, Deleuze discusses a scene from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens in which a disagreeable character is found on the verge of death and is treated with reverence by those who had previously despised him. Ultimately, the character recovers and is ostracized once again. In this evolution from derision to reverence and back again, Deleuze identifies a point at which the life of an individual cedes to ‘an impersonal and yet singular life that disengages a pure event freed from the accidents of inner and outer life, that is, from the subjectivity and objectivity of what happens’.52 This, of course, is also the moment when Ferguson’s ‘body-as-shadow’ reveals itself as universalized and corporealized materiality ‘purified of difference’ (Ferguson, 2000, 65). In light of Ingravallo’s reluctance to impose a legal punishment that evidently belongs in the order of the general, the vitality of Assunta and Virginia might be said to belong to the order of the singular. Yet it seems improbable that these young women, self-serving or murderous as the

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case may be, could somehow come to embody an ethical imperative. The physical similarity of these young women may provide a means to untangle this quandary. Gadda repeatedly draws attention to Assunta and Virginia’s eyes. Both are beautiful women, but what strikes Ingravallo is, above all, their eyes. The former ‘niece’, most probably Virginia, is described by Ingravallo as being possessed of startling eyes, as well as an impressive rear and bosom (Pasticciaccio, 6). Assunta or Tina, the new servant, is equally impressive. She has ‘due occhi fermi, luminosissimi, quasi due gemme’ (Pasticciaccio, 7) [a pair of luminous, steady eyes, two gems (9)]. The young girls, in fact, vaguely resemble one another: ‘la domestica era una faccia nuova, per quanto somigliasse, vagamente, alla nipote di prima’ (Pasticciaccio, 6) [the maid, too, was a new face, though she vaguely resembled the first niece (8)]. When Ingravallo confronts Assunta at the close of the novel, the first thing he notices is her eyes in the dark. Moreover, these eyes are identified, as if by synecdoche, with her entire person: ‘un viso, un par d’occhi! nella penombra lustravano: la Tina Crocchiapani!’ (Pasticciaccio, 258) [a face, a pair of eyes! gleaming in the penumbra: Tina Crocchiapani! (279–80)]. Equally accentuated by the narrative, Virginia’s eyes suggest a vitality that is both seductive and cruel. As Don Corpi describes Virginia to the police, he focuses on her eyes and their apparent hypnotic power: ‘i suoi occhi! davvero c’era da crede che avessero ipnotizzato marito e moje’ (Pasticciaccio, 123) [her eyes! one could really believe that she had hypnotized husband and wife (182–83)]. In a second reference to her eyes, Don Corpi discerns a cruelty in her gaze: ‘Quegli occhi! da sotto le frange nere delli cigli: che sfiammavano a un tratto in una lucidità nera, sottile, apparentemente crudele’ (Pasticciaccio, 124) [Those eyes! from below the black fringe of her lashes: they f lamed up suddenly in a black lucidity, narrowed, apparently cruel (184)]. Liliana’s eyes feature prominently in Ingravallo’s description of her corpse: ‘Oh, gli occhi! dove, chi guardavano?’ (Pasticciaccio, 47) [Oh! the eyes! where, at whom were they looking? (69)]. It is, in fact, this image of her blank gaze that marks the intrusion of personal regret into his investigative examination of the body and the description of the corpse moves from the sartorial and sexual to the outrage of the offence.53 The same attention to the eyes marks La cognizione del dolore. Elisabetta’s eyes receive attention both in the description of her wounded body and her moments of pain. When she comes to clean up after one of Gonzalo’s furious assaults on the family property, we read that her eyes are ‘velati dal dolore’ (Cognizione, 54) [veiled with sorrow (62)]. Gonzalo also manifests a sadness in his eyes and this after a medical examination that obliged him to bend over in an undignified manner: ‘con il gonfio e le pieghe del ventre in mezzo ai femori, a crepapancia, e tra i ginocchi la faccia’ (Cognizione, 59) [with the swell and the folds of his belly between his femurs, to split the stomach, and his face between his knees (68)]. Though he offers a docile body to the doctor’s probing touch, a touch likened to the action of a maddened washerwoman, Gonzalo, at the end of the consultation, is aff licted by an ‘oltraggio non motivato nelle cose’ (Cognizione, 59) [outrage not motivated by the facts (68)]. This is followed by a change in his eyes as they register a sadness (Cognizione, 60; Acquainted, 69). This sadness seems to stem from the necessity and humiliating reality of the medical examination and, as such, it suggests that an outrage has been

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committed by scientific practice, an outrage mirrored in Ingravallo’s investigation. Embedded in a positivist world of bourgeois progress, La cognizione denounces the manner in which the positivist doctrine subjects bodies to the abstractions of scientific law. Again, Gadda opposes a scientific realm defined by equivalence to the singular bodies obliged to confirm its laws. The positivist target of this critique is evident in the famous episode of Gonzalo’s experimentation on a cat whose offended vitality is manifested in its eyes: Avendogli un dottore ebreo [...] dimostrato come pervenga il gatto (di qualunque doccia cadendo) ad arrivar sanissimo al suolo in sulle quattro zampe, che è una meravigliosa applicazione ginnica del teorema dell’impulso, egli precipitò più volte un bel gatto dal secondo piano della villa, fatto curioso di sperimentare il teorema. E la povera bestiola, atterrando, gli diè difatti la desiderata conferma, ogni volta, ogni volta! come un pensiero che, traverse fortune, non intermetta dall’essere eterno; ma, in quanto gatto, poco dopo morì, con occhi velati d’una irrevocabile tristezza, immalinconito da quell’oltraggio. Poiché ogni oltraggio è morte (Cognizione, 36). [Since, a Jewish doctor [...] had demonstrated to him how the cat (from whatever drainpipe it falls) can safely reach the ground on all four paws, which is a marvelous gymnastic application of the theorem of impulse, he at various times hurled a handsome cat from the third f loor of the villa, having become curious to test the theorem. And the poor animal, landing, in fact furnished him each time with the desired confirmation, each time! Each time! Like a thought that, through every vicissitude, never ceases being eternal; but, as cat, it died shortly thereafter, its eyes veiled with irrevocable melancholy, saddened by that outrage. Because all outrage is death (Acquainted, 38–39)]

Belonging definitively within the sphere of positivist investigations of the body, this experiment was made famous by Étienne-Jules Marey who in 1894 captured the movements of a falling cat on camera and proved that even when the cat is dropped with its back to the ground, it will adjust or twist itself in order to land feet first. Though this experiment advances knowledge about organic physiology, Gadda underlines the devastation it wreaks on the singular being subjected to this scientific proof. Moreover, this devastation also implicates the being who performs the experiment, a circumstance highlighted by Pasolini when he observes that the guilty party, the apparent bully, the very one who tosses the cat from the window is ultimately a victim of the same pitiless process and is himself cast down, dehumanized and destroyed, ‘perché in realtà non è il gattino, ma il Gaddino, o il Gaddone, che viene defenestrato’ [because in reality it is not the little cat, but the little Gadda, or the big Gadda who is defenestrated].54 Though corporeally distinct beings, the little cat, the little Gonzalo and even the little Gadda are not here incarnations of the self-interested bourgeois subject but are, instead, suffering moments of a vital being. There is an anonymous or impersonal quality about their offended vitality as it is common to animal and human alike. This configuration remains open and, potentially, infinite. It crosses social class and species and places the characters it encompasses beyond the category of the self-preserving subject in a reality of heuristic connectivity. As such, in contrast to the laws of scientific positivism and before legal judgment, an impersonalized being emerges and reveals

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itself in these offended bodies. Accordingly, Ingravallo’s legalistic judgment comes to constitute an outrage to the impersonal reality embodied in Virginia and Assunta just as the cat is profoundly wronged by the progressivist optimism of a scientific project embodied in this case in Gonzalo. These, moreover, are the feminized and singular bodies wronged by any project of scientific or social homogeneity. In La cognizione this project is the bourgeois programme of social order exemplified in the transformative domination of nature brought to fruition by the actions of an agronome whose speculations on Progress, with a capital P in the text, led him to introduce the Hornbeam, a ‘radice utilitaria e propagativa’ (Cognizione, 46) [utilitarian and propagative root (51)], into the country.55 These trees produce leaves ‘piene di giudizio’ [full of sound judgment] that, in their symmetry, embody the ‘idea d’ordine e di denaro bene speso’ [idea of order and of money well spent] (Cognizione, 46; Acquainted, 52). In their identical configuration, these leaves speak of a normalized ‘Standard’ (Cognizione, 46; Acquainted, 52) that suggests a homogenization of social bodies, in particular, the immigrant bodies that f lock to the southern hemisphere ‘in balìa del Progreso’ (Cognizione, 130) [at the mercy of Progreso (157)]. In the description of the national traditions upheld by these arriving individuals, the narrative also inserts a reference to the ubiquitous wristwatches or ‘orologi a braccialetto!’ and to the fact that some boasted of even more precise time-keeping devices that placed them in a ‘supposta élite matematico-geomantica’ (Cognizione, 135) [supposed mathematicgeomantic elite (163)]. This is the vision of a very modern and very ordered society constructed upon the progressivist positivism of the individuated body and self, an individuation reinforced in the image of the smoking man who, as he smugly lights his post-prandial cigarette, casts an empty match-book beyond the ‘confini dell’Io’ (Cognizione, 139) [boundaries of the Ego (167)]. In the Pasticciaccio Gadda’s critique of normative systems becomes overtly political when he describes the enthusiastic motorbiking activities of Maresciallo Santarella. As a member of the Touring Club of Italy, Santarella supported the initiative of the club’s president, Luigi Vittorio Bertarelli, to sow the Italian roads with signposts, ‘simboli venuti di Milano’ [symbols, imported from Milan] that would pepper the riotous travels of the Maresciallo: I milanesi, il Luigi Vittorio, avevano perseminato l’Italia del seme raro de’ loro ammonimenti, dei loro ‘cartelli stradali’. Il loro spiccato semaforismo, un bel dì, fece, dello stivale vecchio, un semaforo nuovo. Ammonir le genti, inculcare a’ velocipedastri il rispetto delle discipline viatorie, e, ad un tempo, del loro proprio osso del collo: insegnare al prossimo come si fa a star al mondo: rizzar ferri in tutt’Italia, inarborarvi ‘cartelli stradali’ smaltati per oblazione pubblica, di quella voglia si sentan venir la bava: presi a pretesto i più innocui, i più sonnacchiosi livelli, ogni curva, ogni bifurcazione, ogni cunetta, come dicano loro, ogni zanella (Pasticciaccio, 146). [The Milanese, Luigi Vittorio, had sown Italy with the rare seed of their warning, of their ‘road signs’. Their outstanding signalism, one fine day, made, of the old boot, a new signal. To warn the people, to inculcate in the velocipederasts respect for disciplined ways, and, at the same time, for their own necks; to teach one’s neighbor how to live in this world: erect iron stakes in all

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of Italy, hoist on to them ‘road signs’ enameled, through public oblation, that desire made them water at the mouth: taking as pretexts the most innocuous, the most sleepy crossing, every curve, every fork, every bump, or, as they say, every dip (Mess, 216–17)].

This scheme extends beyond a well-intentioned concern for the inhabitants of Italy and ref lects, instead, an entire project of social control. The erection of markers that either name or describe the roads and driving conditions in and around the Italian capital is equated with the prescriptive imposition of a disciplinary structure. These signs aim, after all, to teach the people how they should live in this world. Accordingly, these symbols from Milan are paralleled with the notices posted by the fascist regime ‘su riscialbate muriccia ad ogni entrar di borgo, il politico-totalitario del Merda’ (Pasticciaccio, 146) [on reblanched walls at the entrance to every hamlet, the totalitario-politico signs of the Turd (217)]. In denouncing the signs, Gadda challenges the value of a prescriptive organization of the network of roads that identifies similar road types or curves and submits them to laws of equivalence. Moreover, in paralleling the pedagogical attitude of the signs with the totalitarian politics of Mussolini, he explicitly condemns Fascism as a political regime of homogenization that, as with the realm of the general, equates the bodies it seeks to dominate and manage. The extent of fascist ambitions of social management emerge when, in the closing lines of the chapter, Santarella raises his eyes from the roads before him and looks to the incessantly f luctuating clouds above his head. He sees ‘carovane bianche di nuvole trascorrendo a mezzo marzo nel cielo da nullo reale perseguite’ (Pasticciaccio, 147) [white caravans of clouds, crossing the sky in mid-March, pursued by no royal representative (218)]. Nonetheless, it seems that efforts are under way to capture these vaporous entities, characterized by a ‘perpetua deformabilità’ [perpetual deformability], as the peaks of the antennae seem to hook the clouds, ‘come punte di pettine di carda un’ovatta’ (Pasticciaccio, 147) [like the teeth of a curry-comb biting into cotton (218)].56 These deformable clouds, unpredictable and far beyond the realm of equivalence, suggest the singularity of the feminized bodies that pepper the novels and, paradoxically, constitute the ethical heart of a Gaddian misogynistic ethics that is both conceptual and stylistic.57 A Stylistics of Singular Presence Gadda’s denunciation of any and all attempts to penetrate and organize a shifting reality of feminized bodies also informs at a profound level the organization and style of his writing. Italo Calvino, in addressing what he calls Gadda’s ‘enciclopedismo’ [encyclopaedism], describes an authorial methodology according to which every object is conceived as the centre of a ‘rete di relazioni che lo scrittore non sa trattenersi dal seguire, moltiplicando i dettagli in modo che le sue descrizioni e divagazioni diventano infinite’ [net of relations that the author cannot restrain himself from following, multiplying details so that his descriptions and his digressions become infinite].58 According to this logic, all authorial description ‘s’allarga a comprendere orizzonti sempre più vasti, e se potesse continuare a svilupparsi in ogni direzione arriverebbe ad abbracciare l’intero universo’ [extends

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to encompass ever more vast horizons, and if it could continue to develop in all directions it would embrace the whole universe (Calvino, 2002, 117)]. This tendency is responsible for a critical position described by Bouchard as one that sees Gadda as a ‘belated modernist whose totalizing projects of noumenal, absolute knowledge have tragically run amuck’ (Bouchard, 2000, 82). She adds that this ‘metaphysical interpretation’ was inaugurated by Roscioni who ‘formulated Gadda’s project as the Cartesian “Singula enumerare” in order to “omnia circumspicere” ’ (Bouchard, 2000, 183, n.2). Bouchard is correct to critique this attempt to characterize Gadda’s philosophical and stylistic project as a doomed and tragic attempt to systematize all of reality. The author’s frequently pessimistic meditations on the complexity of reality are not the work of a frustrated scientist or logician, sulking because he cannot find the formula of all formulae, or isolate the underlying principle of all reality. Rather, they ref lect a difficult ethics of encounter with a f luctuating reality and a corresponding attack on those who would seek to limit that reality. Given this claim, however, how might we characterize Gadda’s complex stylistic attempts to grasp and represent that same f lux? Is representation not always already an attempt to dominate the represented? How, in short, does he justify and perform the task of rendering in language the living and shifting bodies of reality? The specifics of Gadda’s writing need to be approached at three distinct levels, namely, the linguistic registers incorporated in his plurilingual writing, the relationship between this plurilingual regime and Gadda’s search for a poetics capable of ref lecting a reality in f lux, and, finally, the strategies employed to represent objects and bodies and the implications of this representation. Turning initially to the language or, to be more precise, languages used in Gadda’s texts, a superficial description acknowledges the plurilingual variety of regimes and registers incorporated in his texts. In short, Gadda blends what might be described as an aulic or literary Italian with a variety of Italian dialects including Roman, Neapolitan and Milanese, as well as a variety of non-Italian terms such as, in the case of La cognizione, a type of Spanish. In addressing the varieties of literary Italian, Pasolini describes a geometric figure in which he places the dialectal and verist authors at the lowest level, the Hermetic poets at the highest level and equates the middle line with modest literary compositions and anonymous pseudo-literary works.59 Gadda’s compositions require the introduction of a ‘linea a serpentina’ or serpentine line that moves repeatedly from high to low (Pasolini, 1995, 10). This continuous movement between higher literary registers and dialectal constructs prompted Gianfranco Contini to locate Gadda within the tradition of macaronic literature (Contini, 1989, 3–10). Central to this tradition is what Cesare Segre described as the stylistic ‘interference’ between the many elements of the linguistic mishmash.60 It is this same interference that prompts both Segre’s diagnosis of a Gaddian linguistic ecumenism (Segre, 178) and a subsequent critical tendency to view his writing as the work of a baroque stylist.61 Gadda responds to these interpretations with the claim that his incorporation of multiple literary registers, whatever critical terminology is used to describe this, constitutes an effort to ref lect the variety of reality. He responds to Contini’s diagnosis with a reading that equates the macaronic inclusion of all linguistic registers and types with a literary

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means of echoing the multiple faces of reality and ‘un immergersi nella comunità vivente delle anime’ [a self-immersion in the living community of souls (I viaggi, 90)]. Employing the macaronic pastiche is tantamount to moving to a creative space beyond the accepted or canonical norms. It is the joyous attainment of the ‘strati autonomi della rappresentazione’ [autonomous strata of representation] and the ‘umore freatico delle genti’ [phreatic humours of the peoples (I viaggi, 90–91)]. Turning to the critical identification of a baroque Gadda, the author writes that it is reality rather than himself that is baroque: ‘Il barocco e il grottesco albergano già nelle cose, nelle singole trovate di una fenomenologia a noi esterna’ [The baroque and the grotesque already dwell in the things, in the single discoveries of a phenomenology that is external to us (Cognizione, 198)].62 Therefore, the critical claim that ‘barocco è il G’ [G. is baroque] would be better rephrased as follows: ‘barocco è il mondo, e il G. ne ha percepito e ritratto la baroccaggine’ [the world is baroque and G. has discerned and portrayed its baroqueness (Cognizione, 198)]. Gadda’s macaronic or baroque tendencies, however, do more than echo the diversity of the social heteroglossia. The macaronic serves a ‘funzione etica e gnoseologica’ [ethical and gnoseological function], namely, that of exposing the abuses of the hegemonic linguistic systems as it ‘polverizza e dissolve nel nulla ogni abuso’ [pulverizes and dissolves to nothing every abuse (I viaggi, 88)].63 In terms of the ‘questione della lingua’, the interminable debate concerning a unified Italian language that, in the nineteenth century, acquired an intensified urgency in the face of political unification, Gadda’s opinion of a single language is entirely unfavourable. He ridicules all attempts to dictate a unitary linguistic form and describes the ideal of a ‘lessico eterno, immutabile, sempre eguale a se stesso, pulitissimo, decorosissimo’ [eternal, immutable and always self-same language, very neat and very proper] as the last psychosis of Alessandro Manzoni.64 Gadda isolates Manzoni’s preference for designating ‘cheese’ with the word ‘cacio’ instead of ‘formaggio’, a preference rendered absurd by the now prevalent use of ‘formaggio’: ‘voleva cacio, e cacio unicamente, per decreto catenaccio del ministro. Guai al formaggio!’ [he wanted cacio, and only cacio, by immediate ministerial decree. Woe betide formaggio! (SGF I, 1163). Ridiculing the very pretence of a unified and codified language, Gadda claims all historical, lexical and semantic variety for himself: I doppioni li voglio, tutti, per mania di possesso e per cupidigia di ricchezze: e voglio anche i triploni, e i quadruploni, sebbene il Re Cattolico non li abbia ancora monetati: e tutti i sinonimi, usati nelle loro variegate accezioni e sfumature, d’uso corrente, o d’uso raro rarissimo. Sicché dò palla nera alla proposta del sommo e venerato Alessandro, che vorebbe nientedimeno potare, ecc. ecc.: per unificare e codificare: [The big double letters, I want them all, because of a possessive mania and a greed for richness: and I want the big triples, and the big quadruples, even though the Catholic King has not yet minted them: and all the synonyms, used in their variegated meanings and nuances, common or rare, very rare. So I vote down the proposal of the supreme and venerated Alessandro, who would like to do nothing less than prune etc. etc. in order to unify and codify (I viaggi, 82)].

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It is in this light that Ingravallo’s final regret on unravelling the ‘groviglio’ of the crime can be paralleled with Gadda’s own rejection of Manzoni’s last psychosis. The unitary interpretation of a mystery solved imposes a definitive significance on a network of events that would otherwise remain open to an unlimited series of connections. In fact, the act of deduction seems to be equated with a normative linguistics when Gadda describes a police catalogue of the stolen jewels in which all the o’s appear as ‘ulceri d’una esattezza e d’una deliberatezza operativa’ (Pasticciaccio, 173) [ulcers of a precision and of an operative deliberateness (257)] In this same official document, the Signora Menegazzi finds herself in ‘definitivo possesso e pieno godimento di diritto e di fatto delle proprie zeta’ [definitive possession and full enjoyment, by right and by might, of her own z’s] but deprived of her ‘ga padana’ [Venetian g], a regionalism that has been ‘giulivamente commutata [...] in una ca centroitalica’ (Pasticciaccio, 173) [joyfully commuted into a central-Italian c (257)]. These official documents of the ‘implacabile amminstrazione’ (Pasticciaccio, 173) [implacable administration (257)], composed entirely in the neutral tones of a standardized Italian, suggest a type of linguistic monadology in which a Manzonian God has already prescribed the best of all possible words. It is this normative prospect that Gadda repudiates with his possessive greed, baroque or macaronic as the case may be, for even those words not yet minted. In order to address Gadda’s treatment of these linguistic and stylistic regimes, we must return to 1924 and the planned composition of Racconto italiano di ignoto del Novecento, a novel based in and on the chaos of post-war Italy.65 Centred on specific and contrasting character types, the work would have also incorporated a larger community of Italians representing not only their own uniqueness as Italians, but also universal characteristics common to all people (SVP, 395).66 More importantly, Gadda identifies his authorial voice with five tonal possibilities encompassing a logical and rationalist mode that is serious and cerebral, an apparently serious ironic and humorist mode, a serious and human humorist mode that plays on the facts rather than the means of expression, a tragic and emphatic mode and, finally, the fresh, mythic and Homeric mode of the cretin (SVP, 396).67 Gadda also considers dividing the novel into three sections which he calls the ‘Norm’, the ‘Abnormal’, and the comprehensive gaze on life (SVP, 415), a structure that replicates rather than interprets the ‘ingarbugliato intreccio’ [tangled plot] of reality (SVP, 460). Thus, the proposed work becomes a ‘romanzo psicopatico e caravaggesco’ [psychopathic and Caravaggesque novel (SVP, 411)].68 In effect, Gadda reaches what Bouchard terms a ‘representational impasse’ as he ‘intuits the future of a novel unwilling to confine existence in the rigidity of traditional form and discourse, but cannot yet commit to a corresponding writing practice’ (Bouchard, 2000, 88–89).69 This corresponding writing practice of heuristic words reveals itself in the Meditazione (Bouchard, 2000, 89). Here, Gadda posits a theory of language wherein words become as variable as the reality they hope to represent. Each word ‘deve essere dal poeta rivissuta nelle sue risonanze infinite’ [has to be relived by the poet in its infinite resonances (Meditazione, 230)].70 Those, on the other hand, who employ language ‘freddamente e antistoricamente astraendole dal vivente e vissuto e raggiunto contesto d’una lingua’ [coldly and anti-historically, extracting from the living and lived and

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existing context of a language (Meditazione, 230)] can, instead of creating poetry, function usefully as an ‘aiuto-telegrafista’ [assistant-telegraphist (Meditazione, 231)]. The word is no longer, then, a fixed entity, but is transformed with each use. This constitutive deformability of words is played out in the Pasticciaccio in the perpetual deformation of the Venetian name Menegazzi as it is spoken by Roman mouths: Sui loro labbri stupendi quel nome veneto risaliva l’etimo, puntava contro corrente, cioè contro l’erosione operata dagli anni. L’anafonèsi trivellava il def lusso col perforante vigore d’un’anguilla o di certi pesci anadromi che sanno chilometrare all’insù, su, su, su, fino a ribevere le linfe natali: fino alle montagne sorgive dello Jukon, o dell’Adda, o del Rio Negro andino. Dalle ultime translitterazioni dei registri parrochiali Ménego e a Ménico, a Domenico, Dominicus, al ‘possessivo di cui era tutto’. Certe fanciulle poco edotte di paragrafie ecclesiastiche v’intoppavano con qualche lor sabellico o tiburtino disagio, dopo due o tre conati sostavano al Menecacci, le crature ne’ lor giuochi lo strillavano ruzzando e i due agenti della squadra mobile [...] ebbero occasione di proferirlo, pure loro, con la più lodevole disinvoltura (Pasticciaccio, 39). [On their stupendous lips that Venetian name swam against the etymological current, that is against the linguistic erosion that had been at work for years. The anaphonesis pierced the undertow with the perforating vigor of an eel, or of certain anadromous fish which can cover miles upstream, up, up, until they drink in again their natal lymph, at the mountain sources of the Yukon, or the Adda, or the Andean Rio Negro. From the latest transliterations of the parish ledgers they returned to the faint guttural of the origins, from Menegaccio to Ménego, to Menico, to Domenico, Diminicus, and the ‘possessive which was of all’. Certain maidens stumbled over the name with the Sabellian or Tiberine awkwardness, after two or three heaves, they paused at Menecacci, the kids yelled it, as they rolled about in their games, and the two policemen of the squad [...] had frequent opportunity of pronouncing it, even they, with the most admirable nonchalance (Mess¸ 56–57)].

Words, then, become no more than momentary pauses in a cognitive and expressive f low and, as such, they change meaning in accordance with the change of habits and the rapid passage of time (I viaggi, 18). Each term has various meanings which Gadda, instead of handling separately in the interests of ‘buon gusto, impegno o necessità narrativa’ [good taste, diligence and narrative necessity], develops into what he terms, after Horace, an ‘impiego spastico’ [spastic use (I viaggi, 18)]. According to this practice, the author shreds and warps the very words he employs: ‘le strazia: la lor figura si deforma [...] come d’un elastico teso’ [he lacerates them: their shape is deformed [...] like a stretched elastic (I viaggi, 18)]. Words are never pure, never ‘virgin’, but are instead the ‘publicatissime’ [very public] words of the community (I viaggi, 18). Thus, the tools employed by the author sprout from a ‘sfondo preindividuale’ [preindividual backdrop], a fact that transforms the authorial adoption of a language into a collective work (I viaggi, 67)].71 It is this spastic language itself in f lux that Gadda employs to render his shifting reality of objects and bodies. In the opening sentence of his study, Roscioni identifies a writing by means of which Gadda renders objects in their very f luctuation: ‘[p]iuttosto che nominare gli oggetti e le cose, Gadda li sorprende

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nel loro farsi e testimonia della loro provvisoria esistenza’ [rather than naming objects and things, Gadda surprises them in their becoming and he testifies to their temporary existence (Roscioni, 3)]. Gadda himself illustrates this point when, writing on Neorealism in 1950, he explains that he has no interest in stable objects and events ‘chiusi nell’involucro di una loro pelle individua, sfericamente contornati nei loro apparenti confini’ [enclosed in the shell of their individual skin, spherically encircled with their apparent boundaries (I viaggi, 211)]. His interest lies instead in objects that exist in an ‘attesa di ciò che seguirà, o in un richiamo di quanto li ha preceduti e determinati’ [expectation of what will follow, or in a recollection of that which preceded and determined them (I viaggi, 211)]. Accordingly, he states that the type of realism practiced by the neorealists is devoid of tension and mystery and he describes their represented objects as the ‘morto corpo della realtà, il residuo fecale della storia’ [dead body of reality, the faecal residue of history (I viaggi, 212)]. Gadda employs a variety of strategies in his representation of these objects in temporal f lux, strategies that have been explored by a variety of critics. Bouchard argues productively for a parallel between Gadda’s tactics of description and the fragmentary techniques of the futurist ‘barocco tecnificato’ [technified baroque].72 Emilio Manzotti addresses the same tendencies when he distinguishes between two types of description which he defines as ‘description by alternative’ and ‘description by comment’.73 The first type in particular contributes to a textual instability as each object described opens wide, like a ‘representative kaleidoscope’ that refracts the ‘whole within the individual unit’, generating ‘not a finite, contingent or static description but a summation, a plurality of descriptions, a sort of description of unlimited potential’ (Manzotti, 62–63). In fact, each object that comes under scrutiny impresses not only its present state and relevance, but imposes just as strongly its past and its potential future. This is a process that Manzotti describes as a ‘kind of diachrony’ by means of which the ‘present condition of the object even in representation seems laden with its past and pregnant with its future’ (Manzotti, 61).74 To illustrate this property of Gadda’s style there is no better example than the passage from the Pasticciaccio where Brigadiere Pestalozzi locates the stolen jewels in the bedpan of Camilla Mattonari. The gems, poured out on a filthy bed, are resplendent, but their present state enfolds a possible past and a potential future, each as legible as the colour of the gem itself. Thus, for example, the ‘crocetta’ described below exists not only as the dark green stone held by the future Marshal Pestalozzi, but also encompasses a past in the womb of the earth and then in the hands of longdeceased Egyptian priests: una crocetta di pietra dura verde cupo, che i polpastrelli del futuro maresciallo non si tennero dall’assaporare, in giri e rigiri: un bel cilindretto verde nero lustro, da tirarne oroscopi i sacerdoti stronzi ad Egitto più che farneticazioni Pitagora dall’apotema del pentagono, piazzatisi da occaso a blaterare, a riguardar la vetta alle piramidi cotte: chicca misteriosofica, nelle antiche viscere del mondo celata, alle viscere del mondo carpita, un giorno, geometrizzata a magia (Pasticciaccio, 218–19). [a little cross of some semiprecious dark-green stone, which the fingertips of the future sergeant could not stop savoring, turning over and over: a handsome,

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shining little green-black cylinder for interpreting horoscopes by the shitty priests for Egypt more than Pythagoras drew ravings from the apothegm of the pentagon, standing towards the west to blather, to gaze at the tops of their baked pyramids: mysterioscophic candy, concealed in the ancient womb of the earth, seized from the earth’s womb, one day geometrized to magic (Mess, 320)].

The jewels, and all other represented objects or bodies, expand outward beyond the material borders of their present physical body, state or place. In short, the object moves back and forth in a temporal slippage that comes to define it. It is precisely this characteristic dynamic that draws us toward the ethical heart of Gadda’s style. Bouchard and Manzotti’s respective identifications of a process of fragmentation and kaleidoscopic plurality isolate a dynamic of multiplication. Rather than unveiling the essence of the object described, this dynamic actually succeeds in thwarting any and all efforts to define the character, function and essence of objects and bodies. As such, Gadda’s descriptions might be paralleled with Robbe-Grillet’s concept of ‘pure description’, a descriptive practice that negates the function of an object in order to posit its pure presence.75 While in Tozzi’s texts this parallel with Robbe-Grillet evoked objects terrifying in their insistent and alien presence, for Gadda pure description revolves around forging a regime of objects whose practical function remains obfuscated. The signal f lag waved by Camilla Mattonari belongs in this category as it is described not in terms of its function, but on the grounds of its pure appearance; it becomes then ‘una specie de stennarello p’allargà la sfoja, ma involtato in d’una pezza rossa e verde: e in quel momento più verde che rossa’ (Pasticciaccio, 208) [a kind of rolling pin for preparing pasta in the home, but wrapped in a red and green cloth: and at that moment more green than red (306)]. This description parallels the perception of our waking selves when, deprived of our ‘totale e integratrice ragione’ [total and integrating reason], the shapes of reality appear as ‘strani sistemi, di cui non ci spieghiamo il perché lì per lì’ [strange systems whose meaning we cannot then and there explain (Meditazione, 224)].76 This is the level of description on which objects stupefy instrumental logic, as perception does not reveal their function but, as Deleuze explains in his discussion of RobbeGrillet, returns to the object in order to replace it with description (Deleuze, 1989, 44).77 This is a process that multiplies the original object by passing it through circuits of descriptive obliteration and recreation, circuits that, in turn, generate a proliferation of levels of reality (Deleuze, 1989, 46). In obliterating, recreating and multiplying the levels of reality, Gadda’s language becomes the ‘specchio del totale essere, e del totale pensiero’ [mirror of total being and of total thought (I viaggi, 82)]. As it accesses the proliferation and multiplication of a descriptive regime that moves the object from function to pure presence, it enters the order of singularity precisely because it unveils the object or the body in its unsystematized unfathomability. Moreover, the linguistic components of this writing practice also attain the status of singularity as they become unsubstitutable elements ethically opposed to a general order of resemblances and equivalences, an order in which Manzoni’s ‘cacio’ can be and is substituted for all other terms on the grounds of the resemblance of their signified. In refusing the instrumentalization of

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practical signification, Gadda posits his irreplaceable words, his non-minted doubles, quadruples and synonyms, as the words of singular essence. Only these words, belonging to the unformed and oniric ‘fiume profondo’ [deep river] that Gonzalo opposes to the organizing principle of character (Cognizione, 70; Acquainted¸ 82), can correspond to the pure and self-present materiality of bodies and objects. This is an order of writing that seeks to liberate Ferguson’s de-individuated body-as-shadow and it is, of course, the same impersonal power beyond the individuated bodyimage that Deleuze identified in the aforementioned dying character in Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend. Somewhere between life and death, this character embodies a pure and singular life, the same singularity that Gadda’s style strives to attain. A crucial component of Gadda’s stylistic impetus toward impersonalized singularity revolves around a strategic and highly self-conscious insertion of the authorial self into the text. This, however, is a paradoxical insertion that affirms a distinct and even immodest gaddian stylistic mastery and, at the same time, performs, often playfully, an erasure and fragmentation of the authorial self. This posture is exemplified in the final chapter of the Pasticciaccio. When Ingravallo slides out of bed in the morning, he inadvertently wakes the tenant who lives on the f loor beneath him with the thump he makes as he hits the f loor: ‘Scivolava di culo duro e soleva cader di sponda dal letto, ta-tùm, come un contadino, sui calcagni’ (Pasticciaccio, 246) [He slipped, hard-assed, and used to fall from the side of the bed, ker-plonk, like a peasant, on his heels (362)]. What is most interesting about this detail is that the unfortunate neighbour, the ‘nevrastenico ingegnere del piano sotto’ (Pasticciaccio, 247) [neurasthenic engineer on the f loor below (362)], is a figure for the author, himself a tormented engineer, whose absence is playfully underlined. Yet this is an absence made present to us and, in fact, we are treated to the customary mastery of expression in the description of Ingravallo’s morning ritual where he dons his beast-like slippers, yawns repeatedly and he squints his watery eyes in a manner that recalls the action of an oyster vendor who squeezes lemon halves over his wares (Pasticciaccio, 247; Mess, 363). In this and similar moments,78 Gadda underscores his own self-conscious performance of a fragmentation or erasure of his person. While this practice is evidently the technique of a literary master parading his skills, it is also part of a strategy that implicates the question of gendered bodies. Indeed, Gadda’s game of authorial presence and absence ref lects a highly self-conscious engagement with the ethics of representation itself. Aware that his construction of the female bodies of Liliana and Elisabetta, and of feminized bodies in general, parallels in large measure the corporeal management that he denounces, Gadda destabilizes his own authorial power, a power that is gendered male. Certainly not a form of écriture feminine, Gadda’s process corresponds with the brutality of the matricides themselves, both in terms of its action on feminized bodies and its ethical density. As he warps or shreds his lexical components, he dismantles the stability of a standardized or codified linguistic regime that is easily comparable with the illusory self-same identity that so consumed his female bourgeois characters. As such, he seeks to reduce his terms to the level of the depersonalized and singular material body. At this point, we might return to the aforementioned parallel with Robbe-Grillet’s

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pure description and suggest that the object that Gadda self-consciously resists instrumentalizing in terms of its practical or narrative function is the feminized body itself. In this light, Gadda’s pure description and his temporally proliferating objects ref lect an ethical engagement with material corporeality. In performing a reluctance to rationalize bodies, Gadda’s art broaches the question of the dignity of the embodied subject, male or female. Yet, this question of dignity is underscored by means of an authorial and male penetration of those same feminized bodies and, as such, it is the offence to embodied dignity that defines Gadda’s texts and his writing. As Gadda’s stylistic practice draws away from a regime of linguistic equivalence in order to affirm against Manzoni that cacio is simply not formaggio, it also vociferously denies the parallel between women and property to state that Liliana Balducci is not the aforementioned coffer of jewels that her aunts would equate with her (Pasticciaccio, 78; Mess, 115). Thus, Gadda’s game of authorial absence becomes a theatrical liberation of a writing that is conceived as a literary space in which singular language speaks independently of a speaking subject, and, more importantly, what is spoken is a universalized feminine body. Notes to Chapter 4 1. The novel was subsequently published in 1963 by Einaudi. A second, revised edition containing previously unpublished material appeared in 1970. 2. Though Gadda had initially committed to writing a series of six crime stories for Bonsanti, he failed to deliver the promised material and the Pasticciaccio was published in 1946 in five instalments. It was not until 1957 that a revised version of the Pasticciaccio was published by Garzanti. 3. The conclusion is ambiguous to say the least. While the instalments, particularly the fourth, published in Letteratura, point to Virginia, one of the series of girls that Liliana takes into her home, as the guilty party, the 1957 publication in novel form eliminates the bulk of those details that suggest her guilt and retains an open conclusion. Despite this ambiguity, Gadda argues that the novel is complete because, as the book closes, Ingravallo realizes who the guilty party is. Per favore, mi lasci nell’ombra: interviste 1950–1972 (Milan: Adelphi, 1993), pp. 171–72. For a detailed analysis of the evolution of the Pasticciaccio, see Alba Andreini, ‘Towards a Biographical Study of Gadda’s Novel of Entanglements: The Intricate History of the Pasticciaccio’, in Gadda: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. by Manuela Bertone and Robert S. Dombroski (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), pp. 242–60. 4. Gadda, La cognizione del dolore (Milan: Garzanti, 2000), p. 128. Further references will be paren­ thetical. The English version comes from William Weaver’s translation, Acquainted with Grief (New York: George Braziller, 1969), p. 154. All translations of La cognizione will be taken from this edition and references will be parenthetical. 5. Though Gonzalo’s consumption of the sea creature is an episode of dense significance, I cite it only in order to contrast this consuming Gonzalo with the later ascetic one. Thus, I largely ignore the stylistic and thematic density of the moment. Gonzalo’s attitude here is one of an aggressive egotism, a fact that Federica Pedriali underlines when she highlights the parallels that Gadda establishes in Eros e priapo between the development of the ego and the appetites, Pedriali, ‘The Mark of Cain: Mourning and Dissimulation in the Works of Carlo Emilio Gadda’, in Bertone and Dombroski, 1997, pp. 149–50. 6. For Carla Benedetti, Gonzalo’s affirmation of his own property and the accompanying desire for an exclusive possession of his mother ref lects the reality of a subject who, suffering from a Freudian ‘original loss of the object’, sees ‘only objects that are not meant for him’, Benedetti, ‘The Enigma of Grief: An Expressionism against the Self ’, in Bertone and Dombroski, 1997, p. 161, emphasis in original.

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7. This reference to a post-war return indicates the figure of a dead brother who, throughout Gadda’s fiction, constitutes a haunting suggestion of the mother’s preference for the dead son over the living one. Pedriali addresses this figure of the brother and argues that Gadda’s protagonists are marked by a sign of Cain that adds the crime of fratricide to the violence against the mother, Pedriali, in Bertone and Dombroski, 1997, pp. 132–58. 8. Gadda, Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana (Milan: Garzanti, 2000), p. 3. Further references will be parenthetical. The English text comes from William Weaver’s translation, That Awful Mess on Via Merulana (New York: New York Review Books, 2007), p. 3. Further references will be parenthetical. 9. The Pasticciaccio presents a similar though less extreme version of this amorphous peasant configuration of material identity in the form of the raw sensuality and criminality of the young women associated with Zamira. Indeed, confronted with Assunta’s charms, Ingravallo is reminded of the arrogant sexuality of Virginia, the ‘sfolgorante nipote dell’altra volta’ (Pasticciaccio, p. 8) [dazzling niece of the previous visit (Mess, p. 11)]. 10. The poorer people refer to the palazzo as ‘er palazzo dell’oro. Perché tutto er casamento insino ar tetto era come imbottito de quer metallo’ (Pasticciaccio, p. 7) [palace of gold. Because it was as if the whole place right up to the roof were crammed with that precious metal (Mess, p. 9)]. 11. Ellen Nerenberg, Prison Terms (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), p. 163, italics in original. 12. Ingravallo connects the date with the feast of the Epiphany and feels that the focus on the Christ-Child might have intensified Liliana’s existing melancholy surrounding her own failure to reproduce (Pasticciaccio, p. 92; Mess, p. 137). 13. Gadda’s familiarity with Weininger can be traced to the pages of Racconto italiano di ignoto del Novecento, begun in 1924: ‘Forse a noi appare di essere solamente maschi, ma in realtà, nei misteriosi fondi della natura, siamo semplicemente dei ‘polarizzati’ e ‘potenzialmente’ possiamo essere l’uno e l’altro [...] Dilucidare questo argomento con la lettura di Weininger, che comprerò’ [Maybe we seem to be exclusively male, but in reality, in the mysterious depths of nature, we are simply ‘polarized’ and potentially we can be one or the other [...] Clarify this question with Weininger, which I will buy. Gadda, Opere. Scritti vari e postumi (Milan: Garzanti, 1993), p. 463, Though Sbragia brief ly references Weininger (Sbragia, 1996, p. 162), critics have largely overlooked this parallel. In addressing the misogyny of Eros e priapo, Peter Hains­worth, for instance, describes a Gaddian reasoning that is of ‘Freudian derivation’ and that stresses Fascism’s exploitation of ‘irrational, half-conscious desires’ in a manner similar to Wil­helm Reich. Hainsworth, ‘Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Gadda’, Bertone and Dombroski, 1997, p. 226 14. Gadda’s attempts to fudge the truth about his adherence to Fascism created confusion surrounding the date of composition of this work. In a 1968 interview with Dacia Maraini, Gadda falsely claimed to have written Eros and priapo in 1928 and stated that in 1934 he had begun to reject fascism: ‘Solo nel ’34 ho capito cos’era il fascismo e come mi ripugnasse. Prima non me n’ero mai occupato. Le camicie nere mi davano fastidio anche prima, ma era un fastidio e basta. D’altronde il libro Eros e Priapo l’ho scritto nel ’28 e mostra tutta la mia insofferenza per il regime. Ma solo nel ’34, con la guerra etiopica, ho capito veramente cos’era il fascismo. E ne ho avvertito tutto il pericolo’ [Only in ‘34 did I understand what Fascism was and how it disgusted me. Before I had not given it much thought. The Blackshirts irritated me even before, but it was an irritation and nothing more. Besides I wrote Eros and Priapo in ’28 and it shows my intolerance for the regime. But only in ’34, with the Ethiopian War, did I really understand what Fascism was. And I comprehended its full danger (Gadda, interviste, p. 168)]. The work was actually composed from 1944 to 1945. Gadda, Opere. Saggi, giornali, favole II (Milan: Garzanti, 1992), p. 993. Hainsworth addresses Gadda’s attempted falsification of his own fascist past and describes the interview with Maraini as ‘generally mendacious and bizarrely neurotic’, in Bertone and Dombroski, 1997, p. 221. Though Sbragia claims that Gadda expressed ‘open dissent with the regime’ in the late thirties and early forties, he too identifies the dishonesty with which the author attempted to ‘backdate the rupture to earlier times’ (Sbragia, 1996, p. 170). Dombroski also underscores Gadda’s falsifications; Dombroski, ‘Gadda: fascismo e psicanalisi’, in L’esistenza ubbidiente. Letterati italiani sotto il fascismo (Naples: Guida, 1984), pp. 91–114.

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15. Barbara Spackman opens Fascist Virilities with these lines from Eros e priapo and she helpfully provides the above translation; Spackman, Fascist Virilities: Rhetoric, Ideology and Social Fantasy in Italy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), p. 1. All further translations from Eros e priapo are my own. 16. Hainsworth sees the hyperbolic nature of Gadda’s name-calling as an unstable ‘childish game’ that is ‘contaminated with at least some of the features he lays at Mussolini’s door’, in Bertone and Dombroski, 1997, p. 229. 17. Given this overlap between the supposed erotic inclination of womankind and their stated procreative duty to the fascist state, a certain ambiguity emerges in Gadda’s discourse. In essence, his critique of women reiterates central tenets of the fascist doctrine he targets. Whether or not this is a self-conscious strategy on the part of Gadda is difficult to establish with any degree of certainty. Hainsworth addresses this absurd overlap in Bertone and Dombroski, 1997, p. 231. 18. La cognizione has also been considered in terms of a fascist critique. In the aforementioned interview with Maraini, Gadda suggests a parallel between the nightwatchmen and the fascists (Gadda, interviste, p. 171). Hainsworth, however, writes that ‘such a reading is hard to justify’ as the organization critiques administrative corruption and can be connected with the realities facing soldiers after World War I; Hainsworth, in Bertone and Dombroski, 1997 (pp. 223–24). Hainsworth also dates Gadda’s anti-fascism to 1943 (p. 225). 19. We also find Ingravallo’s repetition of the thesis on feminine echolalia presented in Eros e priapo: ‘ ‘a personalità femminile, tipicamente centrogravitata sugli ovarii, in tanto si distingue dalla maschile, in quanto l’attività stessa della corteccia, int’ ’o cervello d’ ’a femmena, si manifesta in un apprendimento, e in un rifacimento, d’ ’o ragionamento dell’elemento maschile [...] o addirittura in una riedizione ecolalica delle parole messe in circolo dall’uomo ch’essa ci ha rispetto’ (Pasticciaccio, p. 94) [The female personality, typically gravity-centered on the ovaries, is distinguished from the male insofar as the very activity of the cortex, the old gray matter, of the female, is revealed in a comprehension, and in a revision, of the reasoning of the male element [...] or even in an echolalic re-edition of the words circulated by the man she has respected (Mess, p. 139)]. We might also note Gadda’s discussion of the female soul, granted officially to womankind by the Council of Mainz in 589 (Pasticciaccio, p. 94; SGF II, p. 251). 20. Gadda’s fictional ‘caso Pirroficoni’ is inspired by the factual case of Gino Girolimoni (1889–1961) who in 1927 was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the serial rape and death of a number of Roman children. Though ultimately not guilty of the crimes, Girolimoni was hounded by the press and his reputation was destroyed. 21. Even at his most misogynistic Gadda claims that his theories of femininity do not necessarily describe all women, but rather a feminine tendency of which men too can be guilty. While this is evident in the previous citation from Racconto italiano, it should also be stated that, at several points in Eros e priapo, Gadda attributes the supposedly feminine characteristics to men as, for example, in the following: ‘Simili alle femine, poi, sono dimolti omini assetati di dottrine, vogliosi non altro che prosternarsi a un enunciatore di dottrine, libidinosi ripeterne la formula dalla autorità d’un caprone grosso’ [Like women, many men are thirsty for doctrine, desirous of nothing other than prostrating themselves before a speaker of doctrine, lusting to repeat the formula with the authority of a great billy-goat (SGF II, 255)]. Weininger makes the same point: ‘male and female [...] must be considered only as types, and that the existing individuals, upon whose qualities there has been so much controversy, are mixtures of the types in different proportions’ (Weininger, p. 80). 22. Meditazione milanese was written in 1928 and published posthumously in 1974. My citations are drawn from Meditazione milanese (Milan: Garzanti, 2002). 23. This stance is reiterated in 1949 when Gadda lauds the scientific fields that have exposed the concept of the self as an absurd idol or ‘imagine-feticcio d’un io che persiste’ [image-fetish of an I that persists. Gadda, I viaggi la morte (Milan: Garzanti, 2001), p. 10]. 24. Bouchard also describes Gadda’s ethical project in terms of an undoing of the ‘violence of reductive structures of opposition and finality’ (Bouchard, 2000, p. 91). Guido Lucchini describes Gadda’s position on subjective individuation as follows: ‘Individuation is a transient, precarious, mostly illusive process, and above all an intrinsically evil one’; Lucchini, ‘Gadda’s Freud’, in Bertone and Dombroski, 1997, p. 177

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25. Pierpaolo Antonello paints a clear portrait of Gadda as an anti-idealist imbued with the scientfic culture of the end of the nineteenth century, exemplified by such thinkers as Enrico Morselli, Lombroso and Darwin, ‘autori per i quali ogni processo psichico doveva radicarsi nelle funzioni del vivente’ [authors for whom every psychical process was rooted in the functions of the living being]. As such, Antonello describes a Gaddian philosophy that is ‘monistica, anti-cartesiana e anti-idealistica di non separazione fra materia e spirito’ [monistic, anti-Cartesian and antiidealistic and based on the non-separation of matter and spirit]; Antonello, ‘Opinò Cartesio: Monismo cognitivo e materia pensante in Gadda’, Edinburgh Journal of Gadda Studies, 3 (2003) [accessed 2 June 2011]. Antonello also cites Federico Bertoni’s categorical description of Gadda’s philosophy as follows: ‘La sua teoria non presuppone un dualismo ontologico, una bifrazione del reale in un ordine “basso” (piano del fenomeno, dell’apparenza, della superficie, della sensibilità) e in un ordine “alto” (piano del noumeno, dell’essenza, della profondità, dell’intelletto’ [his theory does not presuppose an ontological dualism, a bifraction of reality into a ‘lower’ order (plane of the phenomena, of appearance, of surface, of sensibility) and a ‘higher’ order (plane of the noumena, of essence, of depth, of intellect)]; Bertoni, La verità sospetta. Gadda e l’invenzione della realtà (Turin: Einaudi, 2001), p. 103. 26. Though Bouchard describes Elisabetta and Gonzalo as ‘emblems of the pain caused by attempts to frame the meandering of being’ (Bouchard, 2000, p. 106), Gonzalo’s construction of self differs from that of his mother. While Elisabetta cultivates the feminine ‘costanza imperterrita, quella felice ignoranza dell’abisso’ (Cognizione, p. 125) [unperturbed constancy, that happy ignorance of the abyss (Acquainted, p. 151)], Gonzalo suffers as, despite his self-segregation, he understands that the monad is permeable. Moreover, he shuns the prospects of reproduction, as evidenced in his donation of his wedding suit (Cognizione, p. 35). His mother recalls his cheering of the rooster who, he claimed, was better than the fathers of Keltiké because he generated no children (Cognizione, p. 126). This obliteration of his own future is coupled with a destruction of his legacy as he smashes his father’s watch and portrait (Cognizione, p. 52). 27. Gonzalo also echoes Gadda’s own discussion of an ethics of heuresis when he claims that the subject pronoun amounts to the worst narcissism of humanity, as the individual seeks selfpreservation over the common good. Sbragia describes this ‘evil’ as the ‘grotesque hypertrophy of the part over the whole’ (Sbragia, 1996, p. 43). 28. This is the body of relation that feels distant events: ‘Se una libellula vola a Tokio, innesca una catena di reazioni che raggiungono a me’ [if a dragonf ly f lies in Tokyo, it triggers a chain reaction that reaches me (I viaggi, p. 234)]. Sbragia underscores the image of the dragonf ly and its resonance with what, in later developments in chaos theory, became known as ‘the butterf ly effect’ (Sbragia, 1996, p. 186). 29. I would underscore Gadda’s use of the term ‘homo oeconomicus’ as this concept, inaugurated in the work of John Stuart Mill, denotes a self-interested and rational being. This understanding of man derives, for Elias, from the idea of the self-contained homo clausus (Elias, 1978, p. 249). 30. In 1924 Gadda enrolled in the Accademia Scientifico-letteraria to study philosophy. He proceeded to take all the exams required for the degree in philosophy but never managed to finish his thesis on Leibniz’s Nouveaux Essais. 31. Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, ed. and trans. by Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 1989), p. 221. 32. Sbragia cites Lucchini’s identification of Gadda’s ‘association of good with the real and evil with the unreal’ with the time spent studying Spinoza under Piero Martinetti (Sbragia, p. 33). 33. Sbragia describes a Gaddian dislocation of the self-contained monad of the Leibnizian system ‘in favor of the system, a more permeable and open-ended universal building block’ (Sbragia, p. 31). Bouchard identifies an open monadology ‘whose extension is unchecked by the Leibnitzian central monad’ and, citing Jacqueline Risset’s essay ‘Carlo Emilio Gadda ou la philosophie à l’envers’, Bouchard explains that Gadda’s philosophy ‘reverses’ traditional philosophy because ‘it can never become a system, precisely because it strives towards the impossibility — of the system itself ’ (Bouchard, 2000, p. 92). 34. Stefano Giovanardi describes Gadda’s f luctuating reality of systems as follows: ‘ogni elemento di un sistema è invece a sua volta sistema, sicché qualsiasi oggetto di conoscenza si presenterà come

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un grumo di sistemi in movimento’ [every element of a system is in turn system, so that any object of knowledge presents itself as a grume of systems in movement], Giovanardi, ‘La “grama sostanza” nel sistema letterario di Gadda’, in Gadda: progettualità e scrittura, ed. by Marcello Carlino, Aldo Mastropasqua and Francesco Muzzioli (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1987), pp. 75–80 (p. 76). 35. Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979), p. 22. Moreover, Whitehead writes that the ‘actual occasion’ is not a substantial entity, but a monadic creature ‘constituted by its totality of relationships’ (Whitehead, p. 80). Measuring his actual entity of relation against the a priori stability of the Kantian subject, Whitehead explains that while ‘[f ]or Kant, the world emerges from the subject’, his own philosophy posited a subject that ‘emerges from the world’ (Whitehead, p. 88). 36. Robert Dombroski, Creative Entanglements (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1999), p. 46. Saccone acknowledges Gadda’s avoidance of an erroneous faith in a separation between theory and practice, between the object and the subject of knowledge, an illusory faith that lies at the base of the epistemological method, Conclusioni anticipate su alcuni racconti e romanzi del Novecento (Naples: Liguori, 1988), p. 164. 37. Rodica Diaconescu-Blumenfeld, Born Illiterate: Gender and Representation in Gadda’s Pasticciaccio (Leicester: Troubador, 1999), p. 6, p. 17. Margaret Baker also acknowledges the ambiguities of Gadda’s depictions of women as she includes the ‘less interesting and more stereotyped positive images’ of female characters such as Maria Ripamonti and the cerebrally vigorous Adalgisa in her study of the author’s more physically repulsive female characters, Baker, ‘The Women Characters of Carlo Emilio Gadda’, in Visions and Revisions: Women in Italian Culture, ed. by Mirna Ciccioni and Nicole Prunster (Providence: Berg, 1993), pp. 53–69 (p. 67). She concludes that women are a ‘vehicle through which Gadda offers criticism of the distortion of the social and private rights and values that he observed within his own experience’ (Baker, p. 69). 38. Liliana’s maternal relationship with Virginia also involves a homoerotic and, therefore, incestuous component. In this case, though, the instigator seems to be the aggressively sexualized Virginia who caresses Liliana to the point of violence: ‘basso basso, in un tono di ardore anche più soffocato: “Ve vojo bene: bene, te vojo: ma una vorta o l’antra me te magno”: e le strizzava il polso, e glie lo storceva, fissandola: je lo storceva come in una morsa, bocca contro bocca, de sentisse er fiato der respiro in bocca, l’una co l’artra, zinne contro zinne’ (Pasticciaccio, p. 125) [in a low, low voice, in an even more stif led tone of ardor: ‘I love you, love you, love you; one of these days I’m going to just eat you up’: and she grasped her wrist, and twisted it, staring at her: she twisted it like a vise, mouth to mouth, till each could breathe the other’s breath, tit to tit (Mess, p. 185)]. 39. Van der Linde identifies in Gadda’s construction of femininity in the Pasticciaccio a strategy to demolish the ‘notion of a “pure” rationality which can be used objectively as a tool for rendering the world transparent by a subject situated outside and above the phenomena he investigates’, Van der Linde, ‘The Body in the Labyrinth: Detection, Rationality and the Feminine in Gadda’s Pasticciaccio’, American Journal of Italian Studies, 21.57 (1998), 26–40 (p. 39). He employs Heideggerian terminology as he identifies a detective drawn toward the ineffable ‘leibende Leben’ of the ‘constant becoming’ embodied in these seductive feminine characters (Van der Linde, p. 39). 40. Diaconescu-Blumenfeld also highlights Liliana’s almost total silence and, writing that ‘throughout the novel, she barely speaks at all’, she identifies this silence with a construction of woman as ‘the trope of mystery’ continually subjected to the interpretive activity of male others, chief amongst whom is Ingravallo: ‘from slight yet telling clues, he intuits, he puts together a case, he forms a theory’ (Diaconescu-Blumenfeld, p. 21). 41. Dombroski also associates this metamorphosis with a social identity that has ‘now fallen prey’ to ‘more fundamental systems’ (Dombroski, 1999, p. 94). 42. Gadda makes this point in the Meditazione: ‘Io ho continuamente insistito sulla convergenza del massimo numero possibile o pensabile di relazioni necessarie a dare il bene, cioè la più reale realtà: ora l’assassinio difetta di un gran numero di relazioni, p.e. la morte violenta della vittima (poniamo sia una moglie infedele) non redime il male per cui è punita. E così molte altre relazioni che scorgerete da voi pongono il veto alla realtà o bene dell’assassinio. Esso è chimera,

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fantasia, cosa sbagliata e non realtà. (D’altronde anche l’errore della moglie era chimera, fantasia, cosa sbagliata e non realtà)’ [I have continuously insisted on the convergence of the maximum number possible or thinkable of relations as necessary for the good, or the most real reality: now the murderer is seriously deficient in relations, for example, the violent death of the victim (let’s suppose it is an unfaithful wife) does not compensate for the evil for which she is punished. And similarly many other relations that you yourselves will notice veto the reality or good of the murderer. He is a chimera, a fantasy, an erroneous thing or non-reality (On the other hand, the wife’s mistake was also chimera, fantasy, erroneous thing and non-reality) (Meditazione, p. 77)]. 43. Gerhard Van der Linde writes that Ingravallo becomes an accomplice of sorts of the murderer because, as a result of the murderer’s work, he is now permitted to indulge the attraction for Liliana that he was previously obliged to repress (Van der Linde, p. 32). 44. Nerenberg insists on the commonality of blood to all women and writes that Liliana and Zamira are bound to their respective communities of women by blood and, in particular, by menstrual blood (Nerenberg, p. 168). She also underlines Zamira’s obsession with the menstrual cycle of her girls, which becomes a measure of time in her world (Nerenberg, p. 169). 45. Diaconescu-Blumenfeld identifies a similar process as Ingravallo imagines Liliana’s experience of her own death: ‘in his mind, he sees, sees even (he imagines) into her seeing, sees into the fierce gaze of the murderer that becomes one with his own. He lays claim to her living fear, astonishment, sight, as it becomes that dead thing, the thought of the other. Thus, all the while, in parallel psychic moves, the detective himself victimizes Liliana Balducci’ (DiaconescuBlumenfeld, p. 22). 46. Roscioni, La disarmonia prestabilita (Turin: Einaudi, 1995), p. 60. Manuela Bertone describes a narrative in which the story moves forward by law of inertia on the heels of the criminal events presented in the opening chapters, but in which the novel, on the other hand, leaps continuously backwards in order to trace causes that are increasingly remote, ‘L’incompiutezza “necessaria”: Carlo Emilio Gadda tra finitezza e non-finito’, Romance Languages Annual, 2 (1990), 182–88 (p. 185). 47. La cognizione del dolore offers a more ambiguous portrait of the law. On the one hand, it presents the narcissistic fury of Gonzalo as he rages against the principle of legal equality of all: ‘I ventisette milioni di bipedi... miei eguali davanti alle leggi del Maradagàl’ (Cognizione, p. 79) [the twenty-seven million bipeds... my equals before the laws of Maradagàl (Acquainted, p. 94)]. Gonzalo is also driven into a rage by the fact that Giuseppe is legally owed a salary (Cognizione, p. 143). On the other hand, the generalized abuse committed by the Nistituos is contrasted with Gonzalo’s biologically inherited legal ideal and he finds it difficult to recognize ‘la specie della legge in un abuso o in un arbitrio, tanto più, anche, in una soperchieria’ (Cognizione, p. 88) [the species of the law in an abuse or an arbitrary act, even more, also, in an imposition (Acquainted, p. 105)]. 48. A further example sees Pestalozzi abuse the law when he invents a legal article to threaten Camilla Mattonari (Pasticciaccio, p. 213). 49. Tzvetan Todorov, The Poetics of Prose (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977), p. 44. 50. Maurizio De Benedictis makes this point: ‘La “piega” della ragazza [...] sembra evocare una somiglianza riguardo alla zona intima, coperta appena dalle mutadine, della donna assassinata’ [the fold of the girl [...] seems to suggest a resemblance to the intimate parts, barely covered by underwear, of the murdered woman; De Benedictis, La piega nera: groviglio stilistico ed enigma della femminilità in C.E. Gadda (Anzio: De Rubeis, 1991), p. 144]. 51. Deleuze, Difference and Repetition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994) p. 1. 52. Cited in Daniel W. Smith, ‘Introduction’, Deleuze, Essays Critical and Clinical, 1997, p. xiii. 53. It is worth repeating that Angeloni’s eyes are also described as he suffers at the hands of the legal system (Pasticciaccio p. 32; Mess, p. 47) 54. Pier Paolo Pasolini, Saggi sulla letteratura e sull’arte, vol. 2 (Milan: Mondadori, 1999), p. 2401. My translation cannot render the wordplay of Pasolini’s original where ‘gattino’ or ‘little cat’ is echoed in ‘Gaddino’ or ‘little Gadda’. Sbragia describes the process identified by Pasolini as one in which ‘[s]ubjectivity is both tormentor and victim in a melancholic ritual of self-mutilation’ (Sbragia, 1996, p. 17). 55. This progressivist doctrine is explicitly present in the ideology of Gonzalo’s parents who, beyond

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their philanthropy, maintain that which is necessary ‘alla vita, al progresso, alla felicità dei figli’ (Cognizione, p. 130) [for the life, the progress, the happiness of their sons (Acquainted, p. 157)]. 56. Gadda’s description of the erratic course taken by a lightning strike might be paralleled with the deformability of the clouds. The lightning is a ‘palla ovale [...] preso da un bieco furore’ [oval ball [...] seized by a mad fury], that winds and unwinds as a ‘gomitolo e controgomitolo di orbite ellittiche’ (Cognizione, p. 25) [skein and counterskein of elliptical orbits (Acquainted, p. 24)]. Officials initially reconstruct the itinerary of the strike but are then obliged to acknowledge the limits of their efforts: ‘furono le perizie stesse a intorbidar le acque [...] a un tal segno da rendere impensabile ogni configurazione di percorrenza’ (Cognizione, p. 26) [it was the experts themselves that muddied the waters [...] to such a degree that any outline of the route became unthinkable (Acquainted, p. 25)]. 57. Diaconescu-Blumenfeld identifies these clouds with Ines Cionini and, by extension, with Liliana (Diaconescu-Blumenfeld, p. 27). 58. Italo Calvino, ‘Molteplicità’ in Lezioni americane (Milan: Mondadori, 2002), p. 117. 59. Pier Paolo Pasolini, Empirismo eretico (Milan: Garzanti, 1995), p. 7. 60. Cesare Segre, ‘La tradizione macaronica da Folengo a Gadda (e oltre)’, in Semiotica filologica (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1979), pp. 173–74. Francesco Paolo Botti refers to the author’s desire to witness and echo the ‘interferenza e la conf littualità di universi e codici sociali contrapposti’ [interference and conf lict between opposing universes and social codes]; Botti, Gadda o la filologia dell’apocalisse (Naples: Liguori, 1996), p. 28. 61. In his study, Dombroski identifies as essential features of Gadda’s baroque the author’s ‘strategies of deception and complexity’, his combination of high and low culture ‘aimed at arousing the senses and provoking the mind’, and the ‘melancholy oriented towards death and ruin’ (Dombroski, 1999, pp. ix-x). 62. This citation is drawn from an imagined dialogue between Gadda and his editor entitled ‘L’editore chiede venia del recupero chiamando in causa l’autore’. The dialogue is reproduced in the Garzanti edition of La cognizione del dolore, pp. 197–203. 63. Botti writes that Gadda attributes to his macaronic poetic ‘una portata critica, demistificatrice; affida un valore di contestazione nei confronti delle imposizioni comunicative dei sistemi egemoni’ [critical and demystifying capacity; he entrusts it with the value of a contestation with respect to the communicative foundations of the hegemonic systems (Botti, p. 28)]. 64. Gadda, Opere. Saggi, giornali, favole, vol. I (Milan: Garzanti, 1991), p. 1163. 65. Racconto italiano di ignoto del Novecento was begun in 1924 with the hope of winning a literary prize, the premio Mondadori. The incomplete novel remains a collection of individual ‘studies’ or ‘novelistic prose pieces’ and theoretical observations on the organization of the novel as genre. The novel is included in Gadda, Opere. Scritti vari e postumi (Milan: Garzanti, 1993). 66. Gadda expresses his intention to include a tragic type A, ‘tipo maschio, volitivo intelligentissimo’ [male type, strong-willed and very intelligent], a type B ‘debole, impotente a tenere la sua posizione di combattimento’ [weak, unable to maintain his combative position] who represents individual degeneration (SVP, pp. 397–98). 67. He also ponders the problem of an authorial point of view, wondering whether the novel should be narrated from the perspective of an interiority or from without. The former method generates a lyricism filtered through the characters themselves, while the latter filters this lyricism through the figure of the author (SVP, p. 461). 68. This impracticable amalgamation of authorial tones, styles and points of view leads him to fear accusations of ‘variabilità, eterogeneità, mancanza di fusione, mancanza di armonia’ [variability, heterogeneity, lack of coherence, lack of harmony (SVP, p. 461)]. 69. Dombroski describes a structure that invalidates the possibility of a formal synthesis of a multifaceted reality in which ‘there are as many worlds as there are living beings’ (Dombroski, 1999, p. 48). For Bouchard, this is a ‘colliding superimposition of discourse and counterdiscourse, thesis and antithesis, point and counterpoint’ (Bouchard, 2000, p. 88). 70. Roscioni describes this as a writing that gives life to a language that ‘esprime la successiva stratificazione e la multiforme interferenza dei fatti’ [expresses the successive stratification and the multiform interference of facts (Roscioni, p. 11)]. 71. It is this same collective process that prompts Sbragia to claim that the narrator of the Pasticciaccio

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is ‘linguistic confusion and promiscuity itself ’ (Sbragia, 1996, p. 148). This plurality of voices re-immerses words, as Roscioni has indicated, in the whirling f low of language in order to evoke their twenty-three meanings (Roscioni, p. 17). 72. Bouchard, ‘(Re)Considering Gadda and Futurism’, Italica, 79, 1 (2002), 23–43. 73. Emilio Manzotti, ‘Description ‘by Alternatives’ and Description ‘with Comment’: Some Characteristic Procedures of Gadda’s Writing’, in Bertone and Dombroski, 1997, pp. 61–95. 74. It is this temporal plurality that allows Roscioni to describe Gadda’s prose as a metonymic process in which the ‘modalità dell’oggetto è pensata come qualcosa che si svolge, che si realizza attualmente’ [modality of the object is seen as something that develops, that realizes itself in the present (Roscioni, p. 16)]. Because every gem and every object carries innumerable meanings, the objects become ‘punti da cui partono (o, piuttosto, in cui convergono) raggi infiniti’ [points from which infinite rays depart or, rather in which infinite rays converge (Roscioni, pp. 7–8)]. 75. I would refer back to my earlier example of the unoccupied chair that no longer exists simply to underline the absence of the person who should occupy it, but now exists as pure form, RobbeGrillet, 1989, p. 20. 76. Gadda’s use of the transition from slumber to wakefulness cannot but call to mind Proust’s description of the sleeper who, while asleep, embraces an immense stream of time, sliding easily from one period to another: ‘When a man is asleep, he has in a circle around him the chain of the hours, the sequence of the years, the order of the heavenly host. Instinctively, when he awakes, he looks to these and reads off his own position on the earth’s surface and the amount of time that has elapsed during his slumbers; but this ordered procession is apt to grow confused, and to break its ranks’, Proust, Swann’s Way (London: Penguin Classics, 1997), p. 11. 77. Elsewhere, Deleuze identifies this quality as a trait of the baroque story in which, typically, ‘description replaces the object, the concept becomes narrative’, Deleuze, The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1993), p. 127. 78. I would also mention the description of Liliana Balducci’s body where, as indicated above, the references to Faiti and Cengio refer to the wartime death of Gadda’s own brother (Pasticciaccio, p. 47). In this moment of undisputed expressive mastery, Gadda inserts himself in order to point paradoxically to his own fragmentation and absence.

Conclusion v

Italian Giraffes, Italian Bodies The greater part of my analysis has positioned Svevo, Tozzi and Gadda on an international and principally European stage of modernism where, as I have argued in the preceding chapters, their ostensible strangeness within an Italian critical context dissolves in a literary production preoccupied with reclaiming the validity of a subjective human embodiment from the supposed objectivity of the scientific and sociological discourses of modernity. In this same context, the three authors perform a cultural, social and ethical revalidation of an apparently incapable or arrhythmic, hypersensitive, or gendered embodiment. This performance of embodiment interrogates the perceived epistemological crisis triggered by the inhuman accuracy and scope of a widespread technological revolution that, to paraphrase Marx and Engels, sweeps away all that is fixed and solid. Yet the writing of these literary ‘giraffes’ must also be reinserted within a specifically Italian social and cultural context stretching from the post-unitary Liberal State to the period of Fascism. I turn, in this final chapter, to the particularity of an Italian context in order to ask, in essence, what is to be gained by introducing the notoriously broad category of modernism into the delineated and precise mix of Italian literarycritical terminology. In order to determine the critical and cultural benefits or advantages of positing an Italian modernism, we must first attempt to understand how and why the Italian critical orthodoxy resisted the label for so very long. While Futurism has long been considered as an undisputed part of the modernist avant-garde, Italian literary models and practices contemporary to the futurist moment have not always been paralleled with, or located within, larger European and international artistic tendencies. The Italian literary sphere certainly differs from that which characterized the majority of other western nations caught up in the tumultuous experience of social and technological modernity. Yet, while a case can no doubt be made for the unique character of each and every nation’s experience of the advent of modernity, the Italian case is easily distinguished by the fact that the widespread industrialization evident in other nations was retarded or, in some areas, entirely absent. Furthermore, this period of belated industrial modernization coincides with the unification and consolidation of the Italian State. Thus, while the French modernist, for instance, moved through an industrial and urban space that was, from a cultural perspective, incontestably French, the hypothetical Italian modernist was faced with a nascent nation characterized not just by a socio-economic disparity between its urban centres (located, for the most part, in the north) and its largely agricultural regions, but also by the absence of an established and unitary national culture.

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Much of the literary production of the late nineteenth century is occupied with the project suggested by Massimo D’Azeglio’s frequently cited reference to the need to ‘make Italians’, a project that remained unfinished and, arguably, unfinishable, despite the political unification of the country in 1861. Accordingly, we find the intellectual and artistic ranks of Italian society turning, in large part, to the construction of a national culture.1 At the forefront of this body of intellectuals stands Francesco De Sanctis, whose Storia della letteratura italiana [History of Italian Literature (1870–1871)] constitutes a type of cultural Bildungsroman of the emerging Italian State.2 Moreover, texts such as Edmondo De Amicis’s Cuore (1886) illustrate a strategic adaptation of the novel of education designed to instil principles of patriotic duty in Italy’s youth.3 The post-unitary literary canon encompasses a mix of Carducci’s neo-classicism and Verga’s naturalism. If Carducci’s literary model embodies formal harmony and the ideals of secular nationalism, Verga’s naturalistic method is informed by the scientism of the positivist tradition. These two figures, then, ref lect the ‘ideological ground’ of post-unitary Italy which, for Somigli and Moroni, consists of a ‘combination of anticlericalism, atheism, and positivism’ (Moroni and Somigli, 2004, 15). Carducci’s neo-classical literary model and its enormous inf luence on subsequent literary production constitutes a presence, moreover, that renders the Italian case unique within Europe. Thus Somigli and Moroni write that neither D’Annunzio nor Croce, the philosopher of ‘militant idealism’, could imagine ‘literary modernity outside the context of Classicism’ (Moroni and Somigli, 2004, 16–17). For this reason, Somigli, Moroni and many others describe the final decade of the nineteenth century as one of ‘post-carduccian’ literary models and practices (Moroni and Somigli, 2004, 17). A self-consciously novel and experimentally innovative literature of Italian modernity emerged in the first decade of the twentieth century. However, rather than embracing the all-encompassing label of modernism, Italian critics referred to literary groupings and trends such as decadentismo, frammentismo, futurismo, and so on. Not only does this critical precision leave writers such as Tozzi, Svevo and Gadda entirely beyond classification, it also institutes a type of partition between, on the one hand, ‘decadent’ authors such as Fogazzaro, Pascoli and D’Annunzio and, on the other, the formal or stylistic experimentalism of literary groups such as the crepuscolari, the vociani and the futurists.4 Moreover, these critical labels also sever early twentieth-century experimentalism from the concept of a post-war ‘ritorno all’ordine’ [return to order] exemplified in a variety of artistic movements and most notably by the intellectuals associated with the literary journal La Ronda (1919–1923).5 Indeed, the advent of Fascism signals a further shift to a period of cultural production marked by increasing censorship and what Somigli and Moroni describe as fascist ‘cultural protectionism’, a cultural policy that weakened or dissolved ‘the ties linking Italian modernism to its European counterparts’ (Moroni and Somigli, 2004, 13). It is, then, this critical specificity that is, at least in part, responsible for obfuscating the fact that these modern Italian literary tendencies and practices constitute a response, albeit varied, to a shared social and economic reality.6 Returning to the main thrust of my argument, the reality in which all of these movements are embedded is precisely that of the widespread transformations

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brought about by the advent of modernity and intensely felt on, in and by the human body. This, I repeat, is an experience that, in the Italian context, is heightened by a belated industrialization and intensive construction of the national culture. Thus, whether the artist moves in the largely rural space of Tozzi’s Sienese provinces or the urban centre of Svevo’s Trieste, the project of national and socio-industrial modernity remains at the forefront of the social and the intellectual consciousness. This project of nation formation, it should be underlined, is an intimately corporeal project intent on the making and management of Italian bodies, a point made convincingly by Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg in The Pinocchio Effect: On Making Italians, 1860–1920.7 Diagnosing an Italian fusion of the Foucauldian sovereign and disciplinary regimes of power (Stewart-Steinberg, 10), Stewart-Steinberg illustrates this compromise by means of the metaphor of Pinocchio who, as a puppet without strings, represents both the ‘universe of the master puppeteer or the King’ and the ‘universe where that King is dead and where power must be exerted in the form of an inner mechanics or of what Foucault has called the disciplinary economy of the body’ (Stewart-Steinberg, 52). It is the transitional figure of Pinocchio that ref lects the national ‘project of reforming the bodies of Italian schoolchildren’ (StewartSteinberg, 52). This is a programme intended, Stewart-Steinberg elaborates, to counter the distinctively Italian tendency toward ‘scioltezza’ or looseness, a term used by Pasquale Turiello to indicate an ‘elasticity of both mind and body’ (StewartSteinberg, 31). For Turiello, then, the project of moulding a nation of Italians must incorporate this quality in an education that steers the elasticity of body and mind by means of a ‘vigorous push’ that is imprinted on the subsequent ‘free’ movements (cited in Stewart-Steinberg, 32).8 Though bodily management may define the post-unitary moment of national construction, this corporeal programme is intensified in the aestheticized political arena of Italian Fascism, the period of Gadda’s writing. Here mass assemblies, public gymnastics displays and state organizations designed to sculpt a militarized Italian youth acquire an overtly propagandistic function by offering the public spectacle of muscular and synchronized bodies subordinated to the collective organism of the state. Moreover, it is in this same arena that the organic social metaphor reaches wholly paradoxical proportions as modern visions of a collective body compete with an archaic or mythical imaginary. On the one hand, it is true that Fascism, like Nazism, partakes fully of the legacy of a scientific, medical and technological modernity transformed into an instrument of social engineering.9 Yet it must also be pointed out that these ‘scientific’ discourses barely conceal the contradictory irrationality of a regime preoccupied with images of militaristic virility and fertile femininity, images that are at once modern and archaic. Both Nazism and Italian Fascism illustrate this contradiction in their simultaneous embrace of a progressivist emphasis on technologized urban modernity and a reactionary doctrine of an archaic and agricultural ideal of social and gender organization.10 Yet, in both its modern and profoundly anti-modern images of the national collectivity, fascist Italy stressed the ideological and practical manipulation of a biological materiality turned to serve the good of the larger social body. It is this enduring political rationalization of the material body, coupled, of course,

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with an industrial instrumentalization of the labouring human organism, that is to a large extent masked by the insistent specificity of Italian critical discourse. Moreover, this critical specificity also cloaks the multiple points of convergence between the Italian literary production of the period stretching from approximately 1890 to the final years of the fascist regime, and a European or international modernist moment preoccupied with the subjective validity of the embodied experience of modernity. Though not bound together within a literary-critical category, Svevo, Tozzi and Gadda, all born in the late nineteenth century, share a self-conscious experience of the rupture between old and new, a rupture that lacerates an embodied human, simultaneously subject and object of a modernization that augments and fragments his or her corporeal abilities and epistemological authority. This shift to modernity is the constitutive grounding of their work and, arguably, the work of all artists of Italian modernity whose responses to a given social and economic configuration need not be formally or stylistically homogeneous in order to be considered collectively; the broad scope of the modernist label has surely taught us at least that. Notwithstanding the ideological and stylistic variety of their thought and writing, Svevo, Gadda and Tozzi are modernist thinkers and writers. Together, then, but in diverse tones and styles, they interrogate the nascent configurations of a social and technological modernity that is simultaneously international and Italian. Svevo’s challenge is cultural and ideological. He inserts his arrhythmic Triestine body into the canons of Italian cultural stability and, at the same time, contests the active body of capitalist industry with a hypersensitive body defined by its potentiality. Similarly, Tozzi employs a model of inaction in his denunciation of the social and economic models of modern capitalist Italy. He opposes a body of schizophrenic hypersensitivity to a paternal figure whose relationship to the world is one of exploitative colonization. Gadda is very much a thinker of the project of modernity and his complex ethics interrogates those bourgeois social and judicial ideologies of Italian modernity in order to posit the singularity of the embodied subject. In their writing, these literary ‘giraffes’ posit an Italian modernism founded on a conceptual and stylistic exploration of the space of subjective embodiment, a modernism that must be compared with the literature of the period produced beyond the Italian borders. Perhaps our task now as readers of modern Italian literature is to seek out other modernist ‘giraffes’ so that we might diminish that ‘isolamento culturale’ [cultural isolation] under which, according to Italo Calvino, Italy has laboured for centuries.11 Any and all future identification of literary ‘giraffes’ might further unlock the classificatory enclosures of Italian literary-critical tradition and, in so doing, forge a more open zoological space defined by its modernist heterogeneity. Notes to the Conclusion 1. Somigli and Moroni describe this post-unification period as one contingent on the ‘evolution from the heroic and idealistic values of the Risorgimento to the constitution of a culture suitable to the new state’, Moroni and Somigli, 2004, p. 13. 2. Remo Ceserani makes this point and describes the work as the ‘best Italian Bildungsroman of the century (its subject being the education not of a single individual but of an entire nation)’,

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Ceserani, ‘Italy and Modernity: Peculiarities and Contradictions’, in Moroni and Somigli, 2004, p. 47. 3. Ceserani describes these ideological principles as ‘the ethics of sacrifice, obedience, and solidarity, the importance of education and work, admiration for the individual acts of heroism, and respect for the authorities’, Ceserani, in Moroni and Somigli, 2004, p. 49. 4. The critical history of decadentismo is a complex one, charted with clarity by Mario Moroni from the work in the 1890s of such critics as Vittorio Pica and Arturo Graf through Croce’s idealist interrogation of the moral value of decadent works and, finally, to Georg Lukács’s Marxist condemnation of the subjectivism of contemporary art; ‘Sensuous Maladies: The Construction of Italian Decadentismo’, in Moroni and Somigli, 2004, pp. 65–85. In the period subsequent to Croce and Lukács, critical analyses of decadentism, in particular Walter Binni’s La poetica del decadentismo italiano (1936), have sought to reclaim the term from Croce’s inf luentially negative perspective by focusing on the formal and thematic originality of those writers associated with the decadent label. Arcangelo Leone De Castris identifies decadentism not just with the work of D’Annunzio but also includes Svevo and Pirandello in the category, as is evident in the subtitle of his work, Il decadentismo italiano: Svevo, Pirandello, D’Annunzio (Bari: De Donato, 1974). 5. It is this return to a formal and ideological order founded on the separation of art from a social and political dimension that spawned what Somigli and Moroni describe as a transition from the ‘antagonistic and anarchistic mode of modernism’ exemplified in the futurist moment to the ‘traditionalist modernism’ of the Italian 1920s (Moroni and Somigli, 2004, p. 22). 6. This point is also made by Somigli and Moroni (Moroni and Somigli, 2004, p. 5). In dealing specifically with the decadent label, they write that it ‘parcels Italian literature at the turn of the century in such a way that it erases the complex relationship, between the pre- and the post-war period’ (Moroni and Somigli, 2004, p. 9). Moreover, it is the ‘relative neutrality’ in the Italian context of the modernist label that, they argue, might allow for a re-evaluation of the relations between the various artistic and cultural practices of the period (Moroni and Somigli, 2004, p. 4). 7. Ferguson also supports this connection when he parallels the intensifying history of manners and bodily self-discipline with the history of state formation (Ferguson, 2000, p. 48). 8. Stewart-Steinberg explores this ideal and its problematic implementation in the gymnastics movement. Though, Minister for Education De Sanctis made physical education compulsory, the application of this 1878 law was not uniform as two distinct schools of thought existed within Italy. Stewart-Steinberg describes these schools as the militaristic ‘German’ method that advocated focused muscular enhancement and group formation and, secondly, the holistic ‘Swedish’ method that stressed ‘natural’ movements ideally performed outdoors (StewartSteinberg, p. 157). 9. Though Nazi Germany embraced from its inception a racialist discourse in which an Aryan Reich was menaced by the Jew amongst others, the early racial discourse of Italian Fascism drew on eugenics and demographics. Thus, while the Nazis sterilized or annihilated unwanted population, Italian fascism, prior to 1938, focused on what Robert Gordon describes as a ‘ “negative” eugenics’ designed to ‘improve external factors such as diet, sanitation, the wellbeing of mothers, through states incentives and regulation’, Robert S. C. Gordon, ‘Race’, in The Oxford Handbook of Fascism, ed. by R. J. B. Bosworth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 296–316 (p. 303). 10. The Third Reich coupled its doctrine of ‘Blood and Soil’ with a modern machine of social engineering, while Italian Fascism worked to modernize industrial production as it reclaimed land for an anti-modern return to mythical agricultural and peasant origins. 11. Italo Calvino, Una pietra sopra (Turin: Einaudi, 1995), p. 144. Calvino attributes this cultural isolation to the plethora of codes within an Italian language that is so complex as to be virtually untranslatable.

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Index ❖ Adorno, Theodor W. 6, 13 nn. 32 & 33 Agamben, Giorgio 25–26, 36 n. 54, 50, 69, 82–83, 88, 110 n. 22, 111 n. 38 Anderson, Loredana 110 n. 12 animals and animality 1, 9, 18, 20, 29–30, 48–50, 71 nn. 24, 25 & 27, 77, 87–90, 94–97, 100, 104, 109, 110 n. 25, 111 n. 38, 113 nn. 57, 58 & 59, 141 Antonello, Pierpaolo 154 n. 25 Ara, Angelo 62–63, 73 n. 53 Arbasino, Alberto 12 n. 18 Armstrong, Tim 7, 13 n. 41, 14, 20, 25, 27, 35 n. 36, 38 n. 80, 109 Baker, Margaret 155 n. 37 Baldacci, Luigi 85, 89–90, 95, 101–02, 108, 110 n. 28, 111 n. 30, 112 n. 45, 113 n. 65, 114 n. 75 & 77, 115 n. 80, 82 & 83, 116 n. 93 Banfield, Ann 27, 37 n. 61 Barilli, Renato 70 n. 20, 71 n. 31, 74 n. 70 Bazlen, Roberto 2, 62, 73 n. 54 Beard, George Miller 28, 35, nn. 35 & 37 Beckett, Samuel 25, 36 n. 52, 66 Benjamin, Walter 8, 19–20, 22, 24, 35 nn. 34 & 43 Bergson, Henri 26, 28, 36 nn. 55 & 57, 37 nn. 63 & 64, 67, 128 Berman, Marshall 7, 13 n. 39 Bertone, Manuela 151 n. 3, 156 n. 46 Bertoni, Federico 154 n. 25 Biasin, Gian-Paolo 70 nn. 13 & 15 Blum, Cinzia Sartini 38 n. 79 Borgese, Giuseppe Antonio 3, 11 n. 12, 101, 109 n. 2 Botti, Francesco Paolo 157 nn. 60 & 63 Bouchard, Norma 75 n. 76, 131, 144, 146, 148–49, 153 n. 24, 154 nn. 26 & 33, 157 n. 69, 158 n. 72 Bradbury, Malcolm 6–7, 13 n. 36 Calinescu, Matei 5, 13 n. 31 Calvino, Italo 10, 143–44, 157 n. 58, 162, 163 n. 11 Carla Benedetti 151 n. 6 Catenazzi, Flavio 64–65, 74 nn. 65 & 66 Cesarini, Paolo 101, 109 n. 6 Ceserani, Remo 162 n. 2, 163 n. 3 Comte, Auguste 15–16, 33 nn. 10 & 11 Contini, Gabriella 70 n. 13, 72 n. 47 Contini, Gianfranco 4, 12 n. 23, 64, 74 nn. 62 & 65, 144 Crary, Jonathan 6, 13 n. 38 Crémieux, Benjamin 2–3, 11 n. 4

Danius, Sara 7, 13 n. 30, 19–20, 27–28, 32, 37 n. 64, 58 Darwin, Charles 7, 15, 33 n. 6, 154 n. 25 Darwinism and Svevo 49, 51, 70 n. 20, 71 n. 31, 74 n. 70 De Benedictis, Maurizio 156 n. 50 De Lucca, Robert 102–03, 115 n. 84 Debenedetti, Giacomo 3–5, 11 nn. 10, 14 & 15, 64, 74 n. 69, 90, 95–96, 101–02, 109 n. 4, 111 nn. 31 & 36, 114 nn. 77, 78 & 79, 115 n. 85 Deleuze, Gilles 26, 28, 36 nn. 54, 55, 56, 58 & 59, 65–67, 69, 72 n. 40, 108, 139, 149–50, 156 nn. 51 & 52, 158 n. 77 Deleuze and Félix Guattari 53–56, 59–60, 62–63, 69, 71 n. 25, 72 nn. 40 & 41, 73 nn. 50 & 57, 74 n. 68 Descartes (and Cartesianism) 17, 25, 33 n. 3, 131, 144, 154 n. 25 Devoto, Giacomo 64–65, 74 nn. 62, 65 & 67 Diaconescu-Blumenfeld, Rodica 134, 155 nn. 37 & 40, 156 n. 45, 157 n. 57 dialect 9, 12 n. 25, 62, 64, 66, 68, 74 nn. 64 & 66, 116 n. 97, 136–37, 144 disgust 9, 12 n. 25, 84–89, 95, 97–99, 111 nn. 29 & 35, 112 n. 51, 122 Dombroski, Robert S. 133, 135, 151 n. 3, 152 n. 14, 155 nn. 36 & 41, 157 nn. 61 & 69 Elden, Stuart 97, 113 n. 62 Elias, Norbert 17, 34 nn. 22 & 23, 119, 154 n. 29 Engels, Friedrich 18–19, 22, 34 n. 26, 35 n. 31, 159 Eysteinsson, Astradur 6, 13 n. 37 fascism 10, 11 n. 11, 126–30, 143, 152 nn. 13 & 14, 153 nn. 15, 17 & 18, 159–62, 163 nn. 9 & 10 Ferguson, Harvie 17, 23, 29, 34 n. 21, 35 n. 38, 44–45, 131–32, 139, 150, 163 n. 7 Finzi, Sergio 58, 67, 73 n. 48 Foucault, Michel 8, 17–18, 34 nn. 24, 25 & 30, 73 n. 54, 161 Freccero, John 70 nn. 13 & 14, 73 n. 47 Freud, Sigmund 7, 14, 33 n. 1, 35 n. 46, 54, 151 n. 6, 152 n. 13, 153 n. 24 Futurism 5, 12 n. 29, 24, 30–31, 36 n. 50, 37 nn. 73 & 78, 38 n. 79, 148, 158 n. 72, 159–60, 163 n. 5 Gadda, Carlo Emilio: La cognizione del dolore 10, 117–26, 131–32, 134–35, 140–42, 144–45, 150–51, 153 n. 18, 154 nn. 26 & 27, 156 nn. 47 & 55, 157 nn. 56 & 62

174

Index

Eros e priapo 10, 127–29, 151 n. 5, 152 nn. 13 & 14, 153 nn. 15, 19 & 21 Meditazione milanese 10, 131–33, 137, 146–47, 149, 153 n. 22, 155 n. 42 Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana 10, 117–18, 120–22, 124–30, 134–43, 146–51, 151 nn. 2 & 3, 152 nn. 8, 9, 10 & 12, 153 n. 19, 155 nn. 37–40, 156 nn. 43, 44, 45, 48 & 53, 157 nn. 57 & 71, 158 n. 78 I viaggi la morte 132, 145, 147–49, 153 n. 23, 154 n. 28 Genco, Giuseppe 64, 66, 69 n. 6, 70 nn. 13 & 22, 71 n. 30, 73 n. 51, 74 nn. 64 & 70 Gilman, Sander 34 nn. 14, 15 & 36 Gioanola, Elio 98–99, 113 nn. 65 & 66, 114 nn. 67 & 69 Giovanardi, Stefano 154 n. 34 Hainsworth, Peter 152 nn. 13 & 14, 153 nn. 16, 17 & 18 Heidegger, Martin 9, 83, 96–97, 104, 113 nn. 61 & 62, 155 n. 39 Horkheimer, Max 6, 13 n. 32 Horn, David G. 17, 34 n. 17 Huyssen, Andreas 6, 13 nn. 33 & 34, 23, 30, 36 n. 47, 37 n. 72 hypersensitivity 8–10, 24–25, 27, 30, 39, 41–44, 50, 76–77, 91, 98, 100, 102, 108–09, 113 n. 66, 119, 123, 159, 162 infirmity 8, 16, 20–21, 24, 28–30, 39–41, 44–48, 50, 52–53, 55, 57, 60–61, 70 nn. 13 & 17, 72 n. 47, 83–85, 88, 111 n. 33, 114 n. 73, 119 Izenberg, Gerald 35 n. 41 James, Henry 30, 37 n. 76 James, William 4, 9, 80–83, 95–97, 100, 102, 110 nn. 12, 13, 14, 24, 25 & 26, 112 n. 49, 113 n. 60 Joyce, James 2, 5, 7, 10, 11 n. 6, 12 n. 25, 27, 37 n. 62, 101, 114 n. 79 Kafka, Franz 5, 10, 12 n. 29, 25, 29–30, 36 n. 53, 66, 73 n. 57, 101–02, 113 n. 66, 114 n. 79 Kenner, Hugh 30, 37 n. 69 Kristeva, Julia 9, 87–88, 97–98, 111 n. 35 Larbaud, Valery 2 law 10, 17, 118, 137–39, 141–42, 156 nn. 47, 48 & 53 Le Bon, Gustave 22–23, 35 n. 45, 128 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 132–33, 154 nn. 30, 31 & 33 Levinas, Emmanuel 9, 82–84, 110 n. 23 Lewis, Percy Wyndham 30–31, 37 nn. 69 & 74, 38 n. 81 Lombroso, Cesare 16–17, 21, 34 nn. 16–19, 36 n. 48, 154 n. 25 Lucchini, Guido 153 n. 24, 154 n. 32 Lunn, Eugene 5–6, 12 n. 27, 13 n. 35, 24

Luperini, Romano 90–91, 102, 106, 108, 112 nn. 41, 42, 44, 49 & 50, 113 n. 65, 114 nn. 68 & 77, 115 n. 83, 116 n. 97 Luti, Giorgio 66, 74 n. 70 Magris, Claudio 52, 55, 57, 62–64, 68, 72 nn. 38 & 45, 73 n. 53 Malocsay, Jan Paul 66, 75 n. 73 Mann, Thomas 7, 29, 37 n. 67 Manzotti, Emilio 148–49, 158 n. 73 Marchi, Marco 12 n. 17, 109 nn. 1 & 4, 110 n. 12, 111 n. 29 Marey, Étienne-Jules 20, 28, 37 n. 64, 141 Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso 24, 30–31, 36 n. 50, 47 n. 73, 38 n. 79 Martini, Martina 11 n. 13, 12 n. 17, 110 nn. 12 & 25 Marx, Karl 7–8, 18–19, 34 nn. 26 & 27, 35 n. 31, 42, 159, 163 n. 4 Maude, Ulrika 7, 13 n. 40, 19–20, 24 Maxia, Sandro 88, 90, 99, 101–02, 111 n. 37, 112 n. 46, 114 n. 73, 116 n. 92 McFarlane, James 6–7, 13 n. 36 McNish, Jill L. 83, 110 n. 26 Melville, Herman 25–26, 36 n. 54, 39, 69 Minghelli, Giuliana 49, 66, 70 n. 13, 71 nn. 25, 28, 29 & 34, 73 nn. 54 & 57, 74 nn. 70 & 71 modernism 1, 5–8, 10, 12 nn. 26 & 29, 13 nn. 30, 33, 34 & 35, 14, 23–32, 36 nn. 47, 49 & 55, 37 nn. 69–73, 75 & 76, 38 nn. 79–82, 39, 57–58, 66–68, 72 n. 40, 73 n. 54, 75 n. 74, 76, 81, 90–91, 102–03, 108–09, 113 n. 66, 117, 123, 144, 159–62, 163 nn. 5 & 6 modernity: and human sensorium 7–8, 14, 18–21, 24–28, 90–95, 97–100, 102–09 and human labour 5–8, 13 n. 30, 34 & 41, 14–15, 17–18, 33 n. 9, 34 nn. 28, 29 & 30, 41–43, 49–51, 69 n. 6, 76, 89–90, 161–62, 163 n. 10 urban space 7–8, 18–25, 28, 30, 35 nn. 41 & 42, 36 nn. 48 & 49, 37 n. 70, 41–42, 69, n. 5, 79, 87, 93, 111 n. 34, 114 n. 70, 118, 121, 123, 128, 159, 161 Moe, Nelson 97, 113 nn. 63 & 64 Montale, Eugenio 2, 11 n. 7, 64 Moroni, Mario 12 n. 26, 160, 162 nn. 1 & 2, 163 nn. 3–6 Mullin, Katherine 21, 35 n. 40, 37 n. 70 music 45–46, 57–61, 66–68, 70 n. 14, 72 n. 47, 73 n. 50, 77, 81, 93, 115 n. 85, 121 Musil, Robert 5, 24–25, 36 n. 51 Nerenberg, Ellen 126, 152 n. 11, 156 n. 44 Nietzsche, Friedrich 31, 36 n. 55, 37 nn. 77 & 78, 72 n. 40 Nordau, Max 8, 19, 21, 31, 35 n. 33 Nussbaum, Martha 83–84, 87, 89, 110 n. 27 Nye, Robert A. 16, 34 n. 15

Index Pasolini, Pier Paolo 12 n. 18, 141, 144, 156 n. 54, 157 n. 59 Patton, Paul 36 n. 55, 72 n. 40 peasantry 10, 77, 81, 87–88, 95, 117–19, 120–25, 129, 133, 150, 152 n. 9, 163 n. 10 Pedriali, Federica 120, 151 n. 5, 152 n. 7 Petroni, Franco 4, 11 n. 16, 91, 96, 102, 107, 109 n. 4, 112 nn. 46 & 47, 113 nn. 54 & 59, 115 nn. 81, 82, 83 & 90, 116 nn. 91, 92, 93 & 95 positivism 15–17, 33 nn. 10, 11, 34 n. 17, 66, 77 n. 72, 84, 90, 125, 141–42, 160 potentiality 8–9, 24–26, 29–30, 39, 50–53, 55, 57, 66, 69, 89, 162 Proust, Marcel 5, 7, 10, 25, 27–28, 66–67, 158 n. 76 Raggi, Antigono 21, 69 n. 7 Rilke, Rainer Maria 29, 37 n. 68 Robbe-Grillet, Alain 26, 37 n. 60, 67, 75 n. 75, 108–09, 149–50, 158 n. 75 Robinson, Richard 11 n. 11 Roscioni, Gian Carlo 138, 144, 147–48, 156 n. 46, 157 nn. 70 & 71, 158 n. 74 Rossi, Aldo 112 n. 49 Russo, Luigi 11 n. 12, 110 n. 28, 112 n. 49 Saccone, Eduardo 47, 49, 56, 69 n. 8, 70 nn. 13, 17, 19 & 23, 71 n. 29, 72 nn. 35, 36 & 46, 90, 93, 103, 110 n. 21, 113 n. 53, 114 n. 77, 115 nn. 85 & 87, 155 n. 36 Santner, Eric 35 n. 46 Savelli, Giulio 66, 72 n. 47 Sbragia, Albert 12 n. 25, 125, 152 nn. 13 & 14, 154 nn. 27, 28, 32 & 33, 156 n. 54, 157 n. 71 Schopenhauer, Arthur 51, 71 nn. 29, 31 & 32, 74 n. 70 Scott, Bonnie Kime 30, 37 n. 70, 38 n. 81 Segre, Cesare 144, 157 n. 60 sexuality and sexology 21–23, 30–31, 34 n. 24, 35 nn. 40, 41 & 46, 37 n. 75, 38 n. 79, 43, 52, 56, 73 n. 56, 82, 89–92, 94, 100, 110 n. 18, 112 n. 50, 120–21, 124, 127–28, 130–31, 133–36, 140, 152 n. 9, 155 n. 38 shame 9, 77, 81–84, 87–89, 110 n. 26 Sheppard, Richard 5, 12 n. 29 Simmel, Georg 8, 19, 22, 35 nn. 32 & 42 Somigli, Luca 12 n. 26, 160, 162 nn. 1 & 2, 163 nn. 3–6 Spackman, Barbara 153 n. 15 Stewart-Steinberg, Suzanne 21, 34 n. 13, 161, 163 n. 8 Stracuzzi, Riccardo 22 n. 18, 12 n. 25 Svevo, Italo: ‘La corruzione dell’anima’ 48, 70 nn. 20 & 21, 71 nn. 24, 26 & 27

175

La coscienza di Zeno 2, 5, 8–9, 11 nn. 2 & 11, 40–41, 44–47, 51–63, 65–69, 69 n. 3, 70 nn. 13, 14 & 18, 72 nn. 37, 39, 43, 44 & 47, 73 nn. 52 & 56, 75 nn. 74, 75 & 76 Senilità 2, 8–9, 11 n. 2, 40–49, 51–52, 58, 62, 66–67, 69 n. 2, 70 nn. 10, 11, 15, 17 & 23, 72 nn. 35, 36 & 37, 74 nn. 67 & 72 ‘L’uomo e la teoria darwiniana’ 49–50, 70 n. 20 Una vita 2, 8–9, 11 n. 2, 39–42, 44–45, 47–48, 50–51, 61–62, 66–67, 69 n. 1, 71 nn. 29, 30 & 34, 72 n. 37, 74 n. 70 Taylor, Frederick Winslow 18, 34 n. 28 Todorov, Tzvetan 139, 156 n. 49 Tozzi, Federigo: Adele 9, 76, 79, 81–82, 84–85, 89, 91–92, 95–96, 98–99, 101, 104, 109 n. 1, 110 nn. 11, 15 & 25, 111 n. 40, 112 n. 51, 113 n. 56, 114 n. 70 Bestie 9, 77, 79–81, 86, 96–97, 100–01, 103, 107, 109 n. 4, 111 n. 34, 112 n. 48, 113 n. 58, 113 nn. 63 & 64, 114 n. 78 Con gli occhi chiusi 3, 9, 11 n. 14, 77–82, 84–86, 89–91, 95, 98–99, 101, 103–04, 106–08, 109 n. 3, 110 nn. 17 & 18, 112 n. 41, 114 nn. 68, 76 & 77, 115 nn. 83, 88 & 90, 116 nn. 92 & 94 Gli egoisti 9, 77–82, 84, 87, 93, 100–01, 109 nn. 7 & 10, 114 nn. 74, 76 & 77, 115 n. 85 Il podere 9, 77–79, 81–82, 84–86, 90, 92–93, 99, 101, 104–09, 109 n. 5, 110 nn. 19 & 21, 111 nn. 29, 39 & 40, 112 nn. 45, 46, 47, 49 & 52, 113 n. 57, 114 n. 75 & 77, 115 n. 89, 116 n. 91 Ricordi di un impiegato 9, 76–79, 81–82, 84, 86, 88–89, 91–92, 98–99, 101, 104, 109 n. 2, 111 nn. 32 & 34, 112 n. 43 Tre croci 9, 77–79, 81–82, 86–87, 90, 93–94, 99–101, 107, 109 n. 6, 110 n. 20, 111 n. 40, 114 nn. 76 & 77, 115 n. 89, 116 nn. 91 & 92 Trieste and Triestine culture 3, 5–7, 9, 11 n. 11, 39, 41, 60–64, 66, 68–69, 69 n.5, 73 nn. 53, 54, 55 & 57, 161–62 Van der Linde, Gerhard 155 n. 39, 156 n. 43 Verbaro, Caterina 74 nn. 70 & 72 Villa, Renzo 16–17, 34 n. 19 Weininger, Otto 8, 10, 22–23, 31, 35 n. 46, 73 n. 56, 117, 127–30, 152 n. 13, 153 n. 21 Whitehead, Alfred North 133, 155 n. 35 Williams, Raymond 36 n. 49 Wilson, Elizabeth 22, 35 n. 44, 36 n. 48 Woolf, Virginia 27–30, 37 nn. 65, 66 & 75