> Could anybody suggest Italian authors who have written novels or
> short stories in the areas of crime? The time span is not terribly
> significant, although I would be interested in 1850 onwards.
> Are any of them available in English translation?
> Grazie per la collaborazione,
> Nicoletta
>
> ***************************************************
> Nicoletta McGowan
The greatest, obviously, is Carlo Emilio Gadda's Quer pasticciaccio brutto
de via Merulana, published in 1957 (though begun, probably, in '46). The
novel can be found in the Garzanti edition of the works, and also in a hard
to find "Garzanti scuola" edition with useful (but not always
accurate) notes and a separate and very nice introductory volume.
Gaddaıs work in English-speaking countries has not been a success, and he
remains relatively unknown here even within the academy. The main reason is
either the lack or shortcomings of existing translations. Only two of
Gaddaıs works have appeared in English: That Awful Mess on Via Merulana,
William Weaverıs 1965 version of the Pasticciaccio , and, in 1968,
Acquainted with Grief (Weaverıs title for the 1963 La cognizione del
dolore).
I have been working on a new, annotated version of the Pasticciaccio for a
few years, and am now half done. I've had great help from Prof. Robert
Dombroski (at CUNY Graduate Center) and Prof. Emilio Manzotti (at the
Universite' de Geneve). I also submitted, for my Ph.D., an introduction to
this new translation, describing Gaddaıs use of Italian. I demonstrate why
Weaverıs version of the Pasticciaccio is inadequate, and outlines principles
of translation. It also explains features of Gaddaıs writing which appear to
defy adequate translation.
The English in the 1965 translation of the novel regularly tends towards the
very linguistic medietas Gadda takes every possible step to avoid. The
version offered here remedies the extremely heavy losses of formal features
which make reading the Weaver translation an experience so distant from that
of reading Gaddaıs original Italian. It also offers extensive commentary in
the form of linear notes.
The importance of the linguistic elaboration, indisputable in Gadda, are of
primary concern to the translator. Much effort is being made, in the present
version, to preserve the diatypes (lexical variety) of the original, where
possible.
Given the impossibility of translating into another language the aura
parlativa peculiar to an environment, the translator must, however, try to
conserve, in some way, the heterogeneity of registers that the introduction
of colloquialisms and dialects represents. The dialects in the novel are
never adopted for mere naturalistic verisimilitude, but blended into a more
general "macaronism" which affects the narration at the minimal and maximal
levels of syntax, morphology and vocabulary.
Current scholarship has resulted in a nearly complete re-interpretation and
re-evaluation of Gaddaıs masterpiece. The publication, from 1988-93, of
Gaddaıs complete works in a reliable edition makes it possible, for the
first time, to verify intertextual references throughout. This new
translation is a small part of the renewed understanding of this great
literary work.
Dr. Robert de Lucca
Romance Studies
Duke Univ.
--
Robert de Lucca
Dept. Romance Studies
Duke University
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