Book Review
Moscardino by Enrico Pea is a lyrical book about a grandfather seen from the distant eyes of a grandson. It is the first book of the author’s three volume fictional autobiography. Moscardino tells the story of three brothers, one the narrator calls Grumpy because, well, the name fits. The other is an abbee with hand placement issues. The last brother, the grandfather, falls in love and wins the beautiful maid, Cleofe, from the hill country. It is Cleofe’s presence that triggers the madness and pent up passion just under the surface in the household.
The slim book is poetic and should be read slowly. Its imagery swirls throughout the story leaving not so much a linear tale but an atmosphere of quiet insanity. The story jumps in time which frustrated me at first until I realized I was trying to make a sequential tale out of a story that was atmospheric. The changes from third person to first person startled me, as when all of the sudden Cleofe is the narrator for a few pages. But I realized I understood the characters better by holding them loosely, not over-thinking the book. In the end, I was left with a vision and sense of the characters and their lives, not from action as much as envisioning the imagery and emotions.
The sense of place wasn’t limited to the household, the reader also gains an indelible impression of the hills of Lunigiana in Italy. I couldn’t find it on a map, but I have a sense of the community as it existed before WWII.
I enjoyed the book for the thinking and visualizing it caused as I read it, especially once I stopped trying to force it into something its not. It was published in Italy in 1922 and described as experimental writing. Eighty years later, it might not qualify as experimental, but it certainly contains the flavor of writing that meanders beautifully without a specific destination.
Translation
After reading Enrico Pea’s Moscardino, Ezra Pound declared in his Rome radio cast “that Italy has a writer, and it is sometime since I told anybody that ANY country on earth had a writer.” Ezra Pound wrote Enrico Pea asking for permission to translate Moscardino without any prospects for a publishing arrangement. Moscardino uses beautiful language. Having a poet translate the book keep its lyrical quality. The preface written by Pea gives a peek into the author-translator working experience:
[Pound] would not let me take the brown case that swayed in his left hand. Inside the cafe, when he opened it on the marble-topped table, the half-moon of a typewriter’s bars made its appearance. The metal clips held a sheet of paper on the roller, and on it were already listed words in the Versilia dialect that occurred in Moscardino. On these we set to work immediately. As I explained their meaning, Pound typed the English equivalent beside each word.
Unfortunately for Pea, Ezra Pound also used his Rome radio addresses to denigrate the Allies and Jews while also praising Mussolini. Hence, Pound’s literary recommendations were useless and Moscardino wasn’t published in English until 1955.
Archipelago Books
Archipelago Books published Moscardino. It is a non-profit publishing house that translates classic and contemporary world literature. Their mission is to expand the cultural horizons and understanding of Americans by bringing world literature to the American public. In 2008, Archipelago Books won Three Percent’s Best Translation of the Year for Tranquility by Attila Bartis. Archipelago Books was very generous in sending copies of books to Claire and I, so we’ll be writing about a few more Archipelago books before the summer is over.
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I thought your comments on the book appropriate and insightful. Lunigiana is a valley of the Magra River between Liguria and Tuscany. It’s named after the Roman city Luni, the ruins of which are near La Spezia and Sarzana. Luni wine is also very good. In the last sentence of the review I believe it should be “me”, not “I”. Best wishes, MB
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