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Italian literature
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Poll Question: Which writers have you read a book by?
Poll Choice Votes Poll Statistics
3 [7.89%]
0 [0.00%]
1 [2.63%]
0 [0.00%]
0 [0.00%]
0 [0.00%]
0 [0.00%]
0 [0.00%]
0 [0.00%]
2 [5.26%]
0 [0.00%]
0 [0.00%]
2 [5.26%]
0 [0.00%]
0 [0.00%]
0 [0.00%]
9 [23.68%]
2 [5.26%]
2 [5.26%]
1 [2.63%]
1 [2.63%]
12 [31.58%]
0 [0.00%]
0 [0.00%]
3 [7.89%]
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Hiram View Drop Down
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    Posted: June 04 2023 at 14:27
These in Finnish translations: 

Umberto Eco - The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum. Long ago, but I remember that I liked the Name of the Rose (I also saw the film around the same time and found it very much inferior) and didn't understand Foucault's Pendulum. Maybe I'll revisit them some time. 

Italo Calvino - The Cloven Viscount, The Baron in the Trees and Cosmicomics. All brilliant and I'm going to try and read more by him. 

Giovanni Guareschi -  some of his Don Camillo books when I was a kid/pre-teen. They were good fun back then and I remember enjoying the films as well. 

I've started Dante's Divine Comedy and Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, but never finished them and likely never will. I'm sure I've read some short stories by Luigi Pirandello, but can't remember their names. 
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Originally posted by jamesbaldwin jamesbaldwin wrote:

Originally posted by BaldJean BaldJean wrote:

from the list Eco, Dante and Pirandello, but how about Primo Levi?

Oh, yes, I didnt know He is famous abroad.

My fave is "La Tregua".

Peter Hammill wrote a song about him called "Primo on the Parapet"


A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta
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jamesbaldwin View Drop Down
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Originally posted by BaldJean BaldJean wrote:

from the list Eco, Dante and Pirandello, but how about Primo Levi?

Oh, yes, I didnt know He is famous abroad.

My fave is "La Tregua".
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from the list Eco, Dante and Pirandello, but how about Primo Levi?


A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta
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jamesbaldwin View Drop Down
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Points: 5983 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jamesbaldwin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 08 2023 at 12:50
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Originally posted by suitkees suitkees wrote:

^ I know you said that... And I don't know what has been translated into English (or Portuguese, for that matter), but Heretical Empericism is, and that is a serious recommendation, knowing your love for and research on cinema, poetry, screenplays, art...! Really, this is a must read for you, I think.


Hi,

On the deck now. Thx

Talking about Tabucchi
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jamesbaldwin View Drop Down
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Originally posted by Meltdowner Meltdowner wrote:

Originally posted by jamesbaldwin jamesbaldwin wrote:

Same question: do you know Antonio Tabucchi?
I had never heard of him.


 


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Meltdowner View Drop Down
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Points: 10232 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Meltdowner Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 08 2023 at 11:10
Originally posted by jamesbaldwin jamesbaldwin wrote:

Same question: do you know Antonio Tabucchi?
I had never heard of him.
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suitkees View Drop Down
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^ I see that some copies are sold for a big price in US $... But when I look for second hand (or sometimes new) and reasonably priced books I go to Abebooks... There are some decently priced over there now.

The razamataz is a pain in the bum
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moshkito View Drop Down
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Points: 17497 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote moshkito Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 08 2023 at 08:16
Originally posted by suitkees suitkees wrote:

^ I know you said that... And I don't know what has been translated into English (or Portuguese, for that matter), but Heretical Empericism is, and that is a serious recommendation, knowing your love for and research on cinema, poetry, screenplays, art...! Really, this is a must read for you, I think.


Now to find a copy ... so far not good luck although I did find a PDF but not sure how much they wanted for it ... didn't have time to look at it.

I may try to read some other stuff first.
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jamesbaldwin View Drop Down
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Originally posted by Meltdowner Meltdowner wrote:

I read books by Italo Svevo, Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco (I'm currently reading Diario Minimo), all of them in Portuguese.

Same question: do you know Antonio Tabucchi?
Amos Goldberg (professor of Genocide Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem): Yes, it's genocide. It's so difficult and painful to admit it, but we can no longer avoid this conclusion.
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Points: 10232 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Meltdowner Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 08 2023 at 04:24
I read books by Italo Svevo, Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco (I'm currently reading Diario Minimo), all of them in Portuguese.
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moshkito View Drop Down
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Points: 17497 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote moshkito Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 07 2023 at 14:12
Originally posted by suitkees suitkees wrote:

^ I know you said that... And I don't know what has been translated into English (or Portuguese, for that matter), but Heretical Empericism is, and that is a serious recommendation, knowing your love for and research on cinema, poetry, screenplays, art...! Really, this is a must read for you, I think.


Hi,

On the deck now. Thx
Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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suitkees View Drop Down
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Points: 9050 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote suitkees Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 07 2023 at 09:09
^ I know you said that... And I don't know what has been translated into English (or Portuguese, for that matter), but Heretical Empericism is, and that is a serious recommendation, knowing your love for and research on cinema, poetry, screenplays, art...! Really, this is a must read for you, I think.

Edited by suitkees - May 07 2023 at 09:10

The razamataz is a pain in the bum
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moshkito View Drop Down
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Points: 17497 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote moshkito Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 07 2023 at 08:15
Originally posted by suitkees suitkees wrote:

Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Pasolini's inclusion seems a bit strange, as in many ways, that was more a film, than it was a book as far as I know.

You have some catching up to do, Pedro. He was quite a prolific writer. I only read two of his novels (Una vita violenta and Il sogno di una cosa; I read them in French) and some of his poetry, but I have to recommend you (moral obligation for you as critic and poet yourself) to read his essays on literature, cinema, the screenplay, film grammar, technology... especially the bundle Heretical Empericism. Get it and read it, he wrote it for you!


Hi,

As I said ... "as far as I knew" ... but again, I have always thought that PPP was the first to think/state that cinema was the new form of "literature", and in my funny/weird way of looking at films via the director's eye, it shows.

I have the print out for Pasolini on Pasolini from my days in school. I'll read it again.
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Lewian View Drop Down
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Points: 14691 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Lewian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 07 2023 at 06:33
I enjoyed all by Calvino immensely, but all of it was pretty short, short story collections etc., or a concept collection like "Le citta invisibili" (which I read in German). I read Pirandello "Uno nessuno e centomila" but that was in a too early stage of my Italian learning. I thought I learn a lot when reading something too difficult which is true but I may have missed quite a bit of the book. All the Gialli (crime stories) entertained me very well. I liked The Name of the Rose but had difficulties with some other Eco I tried. Probably my favourite Italian book is Salvemini's Le origine del fascismo in Italia, but that's a history book so doesn't really fit here.

I should by the way say that I'm a German living in Italy and read also as an exercise in language, sorry for showing off a bit, I'm not that well read overall. Or rather, as can be seen from the above, more often than not I prefer history books over literature.



Edited by Lewian - May 07 2023 at 06:38
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Lewian View Drop Down
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Eco, Pirandello (*), Guareschi, Fo (*), Calvino (*). A little bit of Dante (*, still too difficult). Others: Gaetano Salvemini (*), Macchiavelli, Luciano de Crescenzo (*), Gialli by Antonio Manzini (*), Camilleri (*), Alessandro Robecchi (*), Gianrico Carofiglio (*). Some of these may not exactly count as "literature". (*): In Italian.

Oh, and Tabucchi, I had read Sostiene Pereira in German but had forgotten that the author is Italian.

Chances are I'd like Svevo's La conscienza di Zeno. Somehow I never get round to that one, probably I should buy it (there should be at any time an Italian book to read for me).


Edited by Lewian - May 07 2023 at 06:40
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suitkees View Drop Down
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Points: 9050 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote suitkees Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 07 2023 at 05:54
^ I read them both more than 30 years ago, but yes, I enjoyed them. My memories of Una vita violenta (translated in Dutch!) are overtaken by the film adaptation (not made by himself...) and I might reread Il sogno di una cose soon again (have it in French).
Empirismo eretico also exists in a Dutch translation, which was - at least a moral - obligation to read for us as film students.

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Originally posted by suitkees suitkees wrote:

Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Pasolini's inclusion seems a bit strange, as in many ways, that was more a film, than it was a book as far as I know.

You have some catching up to do, Pedro. He was quite a prolific writer. I only read two of his novels (Una vita violenta and Il sogno di una cosa; I read them in French) and some of his poetry, but I have to recommend you (moral obligation for you as critic and poet yourself) to read his essays on literature, cinema, the screenplay, film grammar, technology... especially the bundle Heretical Empericism. Get it and read it, he wrote it for you!

Oh, do you like Una vita violenta and Il sogno di una cosa?

I've not read them (not even Empirismo eretico: while I am familiar with Scritti corsari)
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jamesbaldwin View Drop Down
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Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Hi,

Something like this was always the biggest problem around our house of Portuguese, Brazilian and Spanish Literature with over 30K books in that realm alone.

It's hard to look at all the rest of the material, and we found that about 20% of what dad had was not indexed anywhere, and some graduate students started the process, only to have it cutoff later, after dad passed away ... the new fascist in charge said they did not want to waste money, and that specified that the rest of the "literature" was, as Castaneda once said ... "you know what ________ do with paper?

I've read Eco, Dante, Boccaccio, and a couple more that are not listed, and I don't even feel comfortable voting. Pasolini's inclusion seems a bit strange, as in many ways, that was more a film, than it was a book as far as I know. But, I think it suggests more that he thought that cinema, was the new "literature" ... and not that his work would be considered instead of a film that is very difficult for foreign audiences to see.

Sadly, if you do this to a lot of literature the world over, you will get similar results ... however, in my book and from what I have seen, this is the saddest side and facet of many an university and their studies. Too much emphasis on what is "big" and a disregard for anything else. The 20th century has shown us that things were not like that at all ... and yet, here we are doing the same thing as the history as taught by many academics all over the world.

I always thought ... respect the art ... not the history and its "academics". I still live by that.

Pedro, 

Pasolini was essentially a poet. He started by writing poetry in his native language, Friulian, which is very different from Italian. He also won one of the most famous Italian literary prizes. Then he moved to Rome and started a long work on the Roman dialect, with which he wrote his first two novels, which are in the vein of neorealism: "Ragazzi di vita" and "Una vita violenta". The first was censored for obscenity (Pasolini was on trial for obscenity for many of his works). At the same time he began his work as a literary critic and film director, he said he wanted to transpose the vision of a poet into movies. 

However, you are right saying that Pasolini is famous abroad mainly for his films. Even in Italy critics recognise that his activity as a film director is perhaps better than his activity as a poet (as a writer of fiction he is not considered among the greatest, but he made the history of neo-realism with Ragazzi di vita).

PS Do you know Antonio Tabucchi? He is the greatest Italian scholar of Portuguese literature. He lived in Lisbon and translated many Portuguese works into Italian, he was the editor of Fernando Pessoa's Book of Disquiet, he established the order of the various fragments. He is the author of two wonderful novels located in Portugal: "Sostiene Pereira" and "La testa perduta di Damasceno Monteiro".

In Sostiene Pereira there is a critic of Salazar dictature.
Amos Goldberg (professor of Genocide Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem): Yes, it's genocide. It's so difficult and painful to admit it, but we can no longer avoid this conclusion.
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suitkees View Drop Down
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Points: 9050 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote suitkees Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 07 2023 at 04:11
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Pasolini's inclusion seems a bit strange, as in many ways, that was more a film, than it was a book as far as I know.

You have some catching up to do, Pedro. He was quite a prolific writer. I only read two of his novels (Una vita violenta and Il sogno di una cosa; I read them in French) and some of his poetry, but I have to recommend you (moral obligation for you as critic and poet yourself) to read his essays on literature, cinema, the screenplay, film grammar, technology... especially the bundle Heretical Empericism. Get it and read it, he wrote it for you!


Edited by suitkees - May 07 2023 at 04:15

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