>............ following natural rather than unnatural (i.e. moralising)
impulses. To which
> I would say: fuck "nature" (this is perhaps why I am also not an
> animal-lover). Or: you believe in *that* crock of Romantic shit?
>
>

One should probably try to prize both the intellectual (rational)and
emotional (irrational) sides
of literature (novel, poetry, theatre)  and film.

It seems here that a total misunderstanding is originating as to whom among
us is a supporter
of Sade's (im)morality and to whom is not (waving the flag of political
correctness, which in some occasions
can result as
Romantic as anything else.)
Geraldine quoted the past discussion around "La vita e' bella", which I was
attacking", as I still do,
for using in a sentimentalized manner the setting of the Holocaust in the
second part.

I spoke at UCL last May about this and had strong reactions, since the
audience is always
divided into two phalanges (as we are now), those who support the reasons of
art
and those who claim the rights of individuals and historical reliability
(stay close to the actual facts
of the documents).

I do not think that these two phalanges keep the same ideological positions
in every single occasion.
For instance, I , who object strongly to Benigni's use of history in a
fantasized romantic way, I am prepared to accept Pasolini's film "Salo', or
the 120 days of Sodoma". I find easier to cope with the violent and
parodistic treatment
made by Pasolini (who was a genius unlike Benigni, who is not) of the crimes
in the puppet republic of Salo', than to
digest Benigni's tasteless honeyed holliwoodian exploitation of Auschwitz.
Benigni's tear-joker mode of directing does not use these painful  topics to
accuse, but solely to make his point about education, fatherhood, love
ect.(and win , in doing so, the sympathy and approval of the audience - and
with it , of course, an Oscar) while Pasolini used De Sade's themes to
accuse the fascist officers in Salo'. And matter of fact, he become after
that even more unpopular than he ever was (strangely enough, he was
assassinated only a few months later the film had been censored).

For me it is more important Pasolini's act of accusation than Benigni's
display of "good sentiments".
I do no find him reliable as a narrator. I do find Pasolini , Dostoevskij,
and De sade more reliable ones,
since they expose in the first place themselves. They risk to be unpleasant
and to disturb. They do not want to embellish our horrors.
The massage is not necessarily : "Do imitate me, since I am naughty."
Actually, could be the opposite.
They often hurt with the dismisurate passions of their characters the limits
of decency imposed by our social conventions.
These are the cries of individuals fighting for their liberty; the problems
here shifts from the sociological-historical to a metaphysical one. In
Dostoevskij 's novels one finds the worse of society: assassinations,
crimini passionali, rapes, madness, perversion.
But he does that to condemn (by showing what it is like) both the individual
seen as anarchical and egotistical, and society , which make people forget
the links with other individuals by devoiding social interactions of every
compassionate feelings for the others and force them to compete.

Actually, I am convinced that one learns infinitely more from what is
presented as
morally unacceptable (since it makes inner good  nature revolt ).
Pinocchio (the naughty boy who becomes a donkey and deserts school and runs
away from home and abandon his poor old father teaches more to little
Italian school children than all the positive heroes of the world.
This is called negative dialectic Pinocchio is decent literature for
children, even though he continuously misbehave.
(It sets a model of how one should not be like - by showing how naughty
children are inclined to be if let to their discretion-
therefore it also shows the need of the cricket, the father, the mother, the
school, the existence of the cat and the fox, of Mangiafuoco and of the land
of the eternal playfulness, the all-devouring Whale, eccetera eccetera.)
Pinocchio has nothing to do with supporting the
bad reasons of nature (as Dom and Geraldine say).

Can't De Sade be read in the same way? In the light of a negative dialectic?
Be seen as quintessential of the theme of desperate loneliness, of the
self-flagellating self, (Pinocchio is flagellated too when he becomes a
donkey)?
I wonder,
(this is too long, I am trying to desert my duty of translating that
novel....)

Erminia


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