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Abstract
Tommaso Landolfi’s Racconto d’autunno (1947) has often been interpreted by scholars as a (peculiar) Resistance narrative. However, although the novella proceeds from a historical situation, one typical of Resistance novels, it suddenly becomes an undefinable kind of Gothic tale that questions the notion of “liberation” and sheds light on some of the Liberation’s more controversial episodes. Specifically, Landolfi recounts a traumatic episode from the final phase of the war that, at the time, had not yet entered official accounts: the mass rapes and killings that followed the Battle of Monte Cassino (May-June 1944). I argue that Racconto d’autunno employs Gothic fiction and its deceptive strategies to convey the feeling of displacement induced by traumatic war events. The interplay between the natural and supernatural powerfully illustrates the destabilization of the civilian population caused by the war. I demonstrate this by comparing passages from the novella with victims’ oral testimonies of the war, collected by the historian Tommaso Baris. Finally, this article challenges readings of Landolfi’s fiction as predominantly ironic and playful and encourages a deeper historical and cultural contextualization of his works, one that highlights their complex relations to the reality they are immersed in.
Notes on Contributor
Paola Roccella is Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Warwick. She obtained a PhD in Italian Studies (2018) with a thesis on oblique forms of political engagement in Landolfi's writing. Her research interests concern twentieth-century fantastic modalities and their responsiveness to cultural and political scenarios. She has written ‘Landolfi e gli usi dello Zibaldone di Leopardi nel Novecento’ (Contemporanea, forthcoming 2021) and she is currently working on a monograph entitled Tommaso Landolfi in Context: History, Fiction and Politics.
Notes
1 The first edition of Racconto d’autunno was published in 1947 by Vallecchi (Florence), and a second one by the same publisher appeared in 1963. It was subsequently republished by Rizzoli in 1975 and 1990, with an introduction by Carlo Bo. Currently, the rights to Landolfi’s works are owned by Adelphi, which has been publishing most of the author’s oeuvre. (Racconto d’autunno has been printed twice by Adelphi, in 1995 and 2005.) I will henceforth quote Racconto d’autunno from the last edition (Landolfi, Citation2005). In terms of the context in which the novella was produced, see the testimony of Idolina Landolfi (Citation1987) and Giovanna Ghetti Abruzzi (Citation1979, 24).
2 “Si era faccia a faccia, alla pari, carichi di storie da raccontare, ognuno aveva avuto la sua, ognuno aveva vissuto vite irregolari drammatiche avventurose” (Calvino, Citation2012, vi).
3 See, among others, Pin’s movements through the mountainous environment in Calvino’s Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno (1947); Johnny’s wanderings across the woods of Langhe in Beppe Fenoglio’s Il partigiano Johnny (1968); Milton’s lonely trip through the hills around Alba, Mango e Santo Stefano Belbo in Fenoglio’s Una questione privata (1963); and the anxious walk taken by a lonely soldier across a minefield in the mountains in the short story “Campo di mine,” in Italo Calvino’s L’ultimo viene il corvo (1949).
4 Although Landolfi’s Racconto d’autunno has often been defined a “novel” on account of its length and rhythm, it is closer to the form of the novella. My choice of the term is connected to Landolfi’s deep knowledge of the nineteenth-century tradition of novelle and his deliberate imitation of the genre. Not only does Landolfi recuperate many of its motifs; he also makes use of its narrative and formal components.
5 For instance, Keala Jewell maintains: “In the plot of Landolfi’s novel, the protagonist has already made his decision to resist Fascism but one day finds himself cut off from his comrades at arms” (Jewell, Citation2007, 998–999). The same scholar elsewhere defines the protagonist as “a partisan fighting the Axis powers who is separated from his cohort” (Jewell, Citation2010, 2). The back cover of the English translation by Joachim Neugroschel summarizes Racconto d’autunno as the story of “a fugitive partisan” who “accidentally finds shelter in an eerie mansion ruled by an aging aristocrat.” (An Autumn Story, 1989); Raffaele Manica claims: ‘Racconto d’autunno sarebbe un romanzo breve, un racconto lungo, una memoria di fatti […] sulla Resistenza’ (Manica, Citation1996, 38–39). An exception is Alberto Traldi, who includes Racconto d’autunno among the novels that tell stories of “evaders.”See Traldi, Fascism and Fiction (Citation1987, 337–38).
6 According to Eco, the presence of blank spaces is, in fiction, a specific mechanism of interpretive collaboration on the part of the reader. Their existence is part of the very nature of literary texts. They call for an additional contribution on the part of the reader in order to work properly. Moreover, a literary text leaves the reader with a good deal of interpretation still to do, even if it suggests is a univocal interpretation (Eco, Citation2013, 52). Such interpretative collaboration is a characteristic of Landolfi’s writing, as is stressed by Ghetti Abruzzi: “Landolfi lascia al lettore ogni diritto e libertà di interpretazione, proprio per indicare una condizione naturale dell’arte contemporanea, cioè la sua difficoltà ed oscurità, in quanto essa deve considerarsi una enorme dilatazione delle possibilità estetiche” (Ghetti Abruzzi, Citation1979, 40).
7 When it first appeared in Italian in 1988, Contini’s work was naturally drawn into the debate occasioned only a few years earlier by anthologies such as Calvino’s Racconti fantastici dell’Ottocento (1983) and Ghidetti and Lattaruolo’s Notturno italiano. It was interpreted as an anthology of the fantastic, while its original significance was forgotten. As Beatrice Sica shows (2013), Contini’s intention was to propose a model of Italian surrealism to oppose to the predominant one coming from France. Also Barsacchi has attempted to interpret Contini’s refusal to use the term “fantastic” in the anthology: “Non sappiamo se Contini evitasse intenzionalmente la parola ‘fantastico’: ma certo ben sapeva quanto gli autori raccolti […] fossero lontani—ad eccezione di certe cose di Landolfi—dai temi e dalle atmosfere del ‘conte fantastique’ fiorito nell’Ottocento” (Barsacchi, Citation1982, 68).
8 These are revealed in the text by subtle references to Fascist symbols and value systems. See, for instance, Jewell’s ecocritical reading of La pietra lunare as problematizing Fascist biopolitics (Jewell, Citation2014, 59).
9 On political readings of Gothic and fantastic fiction, see in particular: David Punter (Citation1996); Rosemary Jackson (Citation2003); Irène Bessière (Citation1974).
10 Landolfi’s models include various authors, from German Romanticism to Russian authors influenced by fantastic literature, such as Puškin and Gogol, and to the British Gothic. Landolfi’s predilection for foreign authors (mainly German and Russian) was undoubtedly a nonconformist choice during the years of Fascism. But even when, after the liberation, American literary models started to gain hegemony in the Italian literary scene, Landolfi’s model remained original and unconventional. “Landolfi si muove verso le grandi esperienze europee in polemica con la cultura ufficiale del regime, e cerca non tanto i propri modelli, quanto le indicazioni di fondo degli scrittori più tormentati come Kafka, Puskin, Gogol, lontano dalle esperienze di scrittori coetanei che riconoscevano, invece, i propri modelli italiani soprattutto in Verga e in Svevo, o nella letteratura americana dove reperivano un grande esempio di arte realistica e democratica” (Ghetti Abruzzi, Citation1979, 34).
11 Jackson uses the term ‘fantasy’ to name a vast domain including the marvelous, the uncanny, horror and science fiction.
12 The manor recalls Landolfi’s tenancy in Pico Farnese. Its memory is also present in other texts, such as “Settimana di sole” (Dialogo dei massimi sistemi) and La pietra lunare.
13 “Essa era posta su una specie di minuscolo altipiano, sto per dire ballatoio, d’ogni parte circondato da groppe o colli, che la montagna formava in quel luogo, ove confluivano due o tre massicce pendici” (15).
14 “Giunsi a piè della facciata principale: essa si ergeva livida nell’aria bruna e aveva davanti un vasto terrazzo, cui si accedeva per una doppia rampa e su cui si apriva la grande porta. […] Sul piano della terrazza, intravidi ciuffi d’ortica o altre erbacce, che crescevano di fra le commessure del lastricato: accanto al portone, il muro aveva perduto un largo pezzo d’intonaco” (16).
15 The descriptions of the exteriors of the two manors also have elements in common. ‘The house’s “principle feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity. The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves” (Poe, Citation2006, 112). A page from the autobiographic LA BIERE DU PECHEUR (1953) confirms the identification between the two manors in Landolfi’s imagination. There Landolfi maps the future of the semi-decaying abode in Pico Farnese onto the ending of Poe’s short story: ‘Oggi pioveva forte e insistente, non solo fuori, ma dentro da molte parti. […] Questa pioggia […] scommetteva pietra per pietra quanto resta di questa vecchia casa. La quale un giorno non lontano si fenderà a mezzo e lentamente rovinerà seppellendo il suo solitario abitatore; e di tra la fenditura si sarà mostrata una luna rossa; insomma, come della casa di Roderigo Usher. Ebbene? Non è bello che io muoia con lei, o lei con me?’ (T. Landolfi, Citation1991, 668).
16 ‘Considerate altresì, in generale, la speciale disposizione dei vani nella casa, l’uno dentro l’altro, e dunque i continui e già accennati mutamenti di direzione e orientazione cui si era costretti nell’attraversarla’ (59).
17 The theme of the living portrait is a common cliché in Gothic literature from Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) to Gogol’s The Portrait (1835), Poe’s “The Oval Portrait” (1842), and Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) (De Cristofaro, Citation2006, 51–65).
18 Shakespeare’s plays are full of ghosts, suspense, fearful moments and cultural anxieties which many writers in the Gothic mode have since imitated, adapted and appropriated. See Drakakis and Townshend (Citation2008).
19 “As she lived peerless/ So her dead likeness, I do well believe/ Excels whatever yet you looked upon/ Or hand of man hath done; therefore I keep it/ Lonely, apart. But here it is. Prepare/ To see the life as lively mocked as ever/ Still sleep mocked death: behold, and say/’tis well” (Shakespeare, Citation2009, 113).
20 The trope of the double was central in late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century Gothic fiction, from Matthew Lewis’ figure of Father Ambrosio (from The Monk, of 1796) and E. T. A. Hoffman’s Monk Medardus and his alter ego Count Viktorin (from The Devil’s Elixirs, 1814) to Mary Shelley’s creature, the monstrous externalization of its creator’s own psyche (Frankenstein, 1818, 1831). According to Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank, the theme of the double (Doppelgänger) originates in “the dialectic between the drives of narcissistic self-preservation and of mortal aggression.” The double, then, would express the pathological fear of the loss of the self, ultimately the fear of death (Webber, Citation1996, p. 31).
21 On Manzoni and the Gothic, see Bricchi (Citation1995); on Lucia’s name, see La Valva (Citation1993).
22 The character is actually unnamed throughout the whole novella, called by the narrator “un vecchio,” “uomo,” “l’ospite,” and so on. When the narrator asks him about his name, he replies: “a che vi servirebbe il mio nome?” (33). However, on one occasion, in chapter XI, the narrator claims: “rammentai infatti vagamente d'aver veduto, nel giardino di Renzo davanti alla casa, due o tre di tali cespi” (77). Landolfi never clarifies if the protagonist attributes this name to the character, or if it is in fact the old man’s real name.
23 “Alla forza centripeta del tiranno del castello (luogo immobile e stagnante, spazio di MORTE) si oppone quella centrifuga dell’eroe e dell’eroina verso l’esterno, in una dinamica – resa più significativamente ardua e qualche volta impossibile – verso la VITA” (Billi, Citation1986, 35).
24 According to Viktor Shklovsky, defamiliarization is the technique of presenting objects and events in an unfamiliar way, in order to enhance their perception: “Habitualization devours work, clothes, furniture, one's wife, and the fear of war. If the whole complex lives of many people go on unconsciously, then such lives are as if they had never been. And art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stony. The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar’, to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged. Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object: the object is not important” (Shklovsky, Citation1997, 4).
25 See especially Winter (Citation1992). The “black monster,” D.L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf argue, “is often a case of ‘empire writing back to the centre’” (Citation2004, 17).
26 Interview to Giovannina M., countrywoman, Esperia, 12 September 1999 (Baris, Citation2003, 95).
27 Interview to Angela C. (Baris, Citation2003, 100).
28 The image of the raped and dying house also recurs in other writings by Landolfi, particularly in ‘Quattro casce’, in Ombre (1954) and in Il tradimento (1977).
29 Several episodes of Racconto d’autunno may be interpreted in the light of Freud’s essay of 1919, including Lucia’s undergoing an epileptic fit, the theme of the double, and the phenomena of unintended repetition (with the protagonist occasionally finding himself back in the same place while exploring the manor). First and foremost, the choice itself of setting the whole novella in a (supposedly haunted) house goes in the same direction as Freud’s interpretation of the uncanny, whose German equivalent, das Unheimliche, etymologically stresses its connection with the ‘house/home’ (Heim).
30 See also Giovanna Ghetti Abruzzi (Citation1979, 24): ‘La casa era stata occupata, prima, per gli alloggiamenti tedeschi, e la razziarono in seguito le truppe di colore degli Alleati. Fu certo un vero sacrilegio per Pasquale Landolfi, il padre di Tommaso, che la considerava un sacrario della giovane moglie perduta. Ma il senso del sacrilegio colpì anche Tommaso, che più di una volta trova l’occasione per ricordarlo nei suoi scritti’ and Leonardo Cecchini (Citation2001, 102): ‘Durante la Guerra, Pico (a pochi chilometri da Cassino) fu a lungo al centro di aspri combattimenti, il palazzo dei Landolfi fu bombardato e danneggiato; servì poi da rifugio agli sfollati e da sede del commando prima delle truppe tedesche e poi degli alleati i quali lo saccheggiarono degli arredi e dei libri più preziosi della vasta biblioteca. È del trauma che la “profanazione” della casa natale suscita in lui che parla Landolfi quando, nelle ultime righe del racconto, il protagonista descrive lo stato in cui gli appare l’antica dimora al suo primo ritorno dopo la morte di Lucia’.
31 “The value of information does not survive the moment in which it was new. It lives only at that moment; it has to surrender to it completely and explain itself to it without losing any time. A story is different. It does not expend itself. It preserves and concentrates its strength and is capable of releasing it even after a long time. […] The chronicler is the history teller” (Benjamin, Citation2000, 81, 82, 85).