Italian literature

Generally, I read more non-fiction than fiction, but due to my studies, profession and interests I have read some of Dante Alighieri, Italo Svevo and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Saw some plays by Pirandello and Fo, but never read any of their works. And from Umberto Eco I mainly read (all of) his books on semiotics; I tried to read In the Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum, but got stuck before the first 100 pages: too overwrought and too boring.

Funny thing is that the first two authors I was thinking of when reading the thread title were Alberto Moravia and Primo Levi. Of Moravia, Pasolini and Eco I've read more than just one work (also tried to read Moravia in Italian: Racconti surrealisti e satirici, but that was not easy...).

Many readings, Kees.

Yes, I've thought about Moravia and Levi...

Moravia has fallen in disgrace in Italy.

You're right. I forgot him!

Now he's on the list (Quasimodo is out)

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.

In Sostiene Pereira there is a critic of Salazar dictature.

^ 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.

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.