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by Lily Tuck


  2 Interview with Alain Elkann, Rome, January 2006.

  WORKS BY ELSA MORANTE

  Il gioco segreto (The Secret Game). Milan: Garzanti, 1941.

  Le bellissime avventure di Caterì dalla trecciolina e altre storie (The Marvelous Adventures of Cathy with the Long Tresses and Other Stories). Turin: Einaudi, 1942.

  —Republished as Le straordinarie avventure di Caterina (The Extraordinary Adventures of Catherine). Turin: Einaudi, 1959 and 2007.

  Menzogna e sortilegio. Turin: Einaudi, 1948.

  —In English, House of Liars, translated by Adrienne Foulke with the editorial assistance of Andrew Chiappe. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1951.

  L’isola di Arturo. Turin: Einaudi, 1957.

  —In English. Arturo’s Island, translated by Isabel Quigly. New York: Knopf, 1959.

  —Reissue, Hanover, N.H.: Steerforth Italia, 1998.

  Alibi (Alibi). Milan: Longanesi Editions (then called Domenico Landini), 1958.

  —Reprinted by Garzanti in 1990.

  —Lo scialle andaluso (The Andalusian Shawl). Turin: Einaudi, 1963.

  —Reprinted by Einaudi in 2007.

  Il mondo salvato dai ragazzini e altri poemi (The World Saved by Children and Other Poems). Turin: Einaudi, 1968.

  —Reprinted by Einaudi in 1971 and in 2006.

  La storia. Turin: Einaudi, 1974.

  —Reprinted by Einaudi in 1986 and in 2005.

  —In English, History: A Novel, translated by William Weaver. New York: Knopf, 1977.

  —Reissue, Hanover, N.H., Steerforth Italia: 2000.

  —Reissue, Zoland Books, an imprint of Steerforth Press, Hanover, N.H.: 2007.

  Aracoeli. Turin: Einaudi, 1982.

  —Reprinted by Einaudi in 2005.

  —In English, Aracoeli, translated by William Weaver. New York: Random House, 1984.

  Pro o contro la bomba atomica (For or Against the Atomic Bomb). Milan: Adelphi Edizioni, 1987.

  Diario 1938 (Diary 1938). Turin: Einaudi, 1989.

  —Reprinted by Einaudi in 2005.

  Racconti dimenticati (Forgotten Tales). Turin: Einaudi, 2002.

  —Reprinted by Einaudi in 2004.

  Elsa Morante Opere (Elsa Morante: Complete Works). Edited by Carlo Cecchi and Cesare Garboli. 2 vols. Milan: Mondadori, 1988 and 1990.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many people helped me write this book.

  Silvia Valisa, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California at Berkeley, answered my first query and set me on the right track with a long, passionate, informative e-mail, which was soon followed by the names of people I should contact as well as copies of Elsa Morante’s hard-to-find early published work. I am deeply grateful to Silvia for this initial as well as for her continual support, her enthusiasm for my project and her generosity in sharing her greatly superior expertise.

  My research assistant, the beautiful and talented Veronica Raimo, made persistent phone calls, set up interviews and accompanied me to them, translated and recorded texts, took me on a tour of the San Lorenzo and Testaccio districts of Rome and accompanied me to the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, where she charmed recalcitrant and uncooperative librarians into searching archives and producing documents. She also accompanied me to the State Archives in Turin, where again she charmed recalcitrant archivists into producing documents. Mille grazie, Veronica.

  I am most thankful to Giulia Ruggiero, who translated Morante’s early stories, Marcello Morante’s memoir and Cesare Garboli’s and Giorgio Agamben’s essays, and who generously and rapidly responded to my many, many queries. Also, to Paola Basirico, my teacher, who patiently tried to improve my mediocre Italian and who graciously allowed me to distract her from lessons in grammar with readings and discussions of stories by Morante, Moravia and Verga (her favorite).

  This book would not exist without Carlo Cecchi, Elsa Morante’s coexecutor, who at first was elusive. I telephoned him a dozen times before I realized that, not so surprisingly, there was, on the part of Elsa’s friends and relatives, a certain amount of resistance to me. After all, why would an American who did not speak fluent Italian want to write about Elsa Morante? Just as I was ready to give up, Carlo answered the phone and agreed to see me. To do so, I had to cross the width of Italy. On the day we were to meet for lunch, I was both lost and late (each time I called to say that I was still lost, I could hear increasing irritation creep into his voice). I will never forget how when finally I drove up to the door of his hotel and saw him—a handsome man, dressed entirely in black, a shock of white hair falling over his forehead, looking stern and impatient—my heart sank. Since then, we have spoken and seen each other several times and Carlo has been more than forthcoming and candid with his memories, as well as generous in giving me access to material and allowing me to use his photographs of Elsa. I hope that this account of the woman he so admired and loved will not disappoint him. I am immensely grateful and thank him with all my heart.

  For granting interviews, I want to thank Adriana Asti; Alfonso Berardinelli; Bernardo Bertolucci; Ginevra Bompiani; Alain Elkann; Dacia Maraini; Allen Midgette, a newfound friend (thanks to Bernardo Bertolucci) who knew both Elsa and Bill Morrow well; Daniele Morante; Maria Morante; and Paolo Morante. I especially want to thank Patrizia Cavalli with whom I spent several afternoons, including a memorable one sorting through a suitcase filled with photographs.

  For their cooperation and help, my thanks also go to Toni Maraini and Alberto Cau at the Fondo Moravia; Mauro Bersani at Einaudi; Luigi Bernabó; Marco Cassini at Minimum Fax; Dr. Margherita Breccia Fratadocchi at the Rare Books and Manuscript Room, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma; Dr. Marsaglia at the State Archives in Turin; Danielle Sigler at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin; and finally to Flora Ghezzo, assistant professor at Columbia University, who graciously agreed to speak to me about nineteenth-and twentieth-century Italian women writers.

  My special thanks to the American Academy in Rome for thrice providing a beautiful roof over my head, and to Adele Chatfield-Taylor, Carmela Franklin, Dana Prescott, and Pina Pasquantonio. I would also like to thank the gatekeeper, Norman Robertson, for cheer, directions and transportation, and, in particular, Romano Migliarino, who notwithstanding the fact that we were late and lost, drove me ten hours to Iesi and back. I also want to thank Terzo Giovanni of Procida for the gift of a lemon.

  For their friendship and advice, I am grateful to JoAnne Akalaitis, Anselma dell’Olio, Paul Elie, Louisa Ermelino, Molly Haskell, Shirley Hazzard, Susan Minot, Renata Propper, Maria Tucci, Lu-Ann Walther and Beverley Zabriskie. For still more friendship, advice and for a close reading and rereading of these pages, I am very much indebted to Michelle Huneven and Frances Kiernan. Most of all, I want to express my enormous gratitude to Trent Duffy for his keen-eyed fact checking and masterly editing of this book. As always I thank Georges and Anne Borchardt, my guardian angels and friends. Finally, I thank Terry Karten and Julia Felsenthal.

  SEARCHABLE TERMS

  Note: Entries in this index, carried over verbatim from the print edition of this title, are unlikely to correspond to the pagination of any given e-book reader. However, entries in this index, and other terms, may be easily located by using the search feature of your e-book reader.

  abandoned children, in EM’s fiction, 34

  absent father, in EM’s fiction, 74, 204, 205, 208

  Accatone (film), 155

  Accursed and Blessed (Marcello Morante), 13–14, 28, 29

  Achilles (type), 61, 127

  “Addio” (Morante), 171

  Afrique-Action, 132–33

  Agamben, Giorgio, 155, 160, 165, 210

  Agostino (Moravia), 58

  Alain-Fournier (Henri Alban Fournier), 122

  Aleramo, Sibilla, 81–82

  Alfred A. Knopf (publishing house), 177, 193, 194

  Alibi (Morante), 149–53

  “Alibi” (Morante), 150–51

  “Alla favola” (Morante), 151–52
/>   Alter, Robert, 193

  Amidei, Sergio, 95, 96

  Anacapri, Italy, 57–58, 226

  Andalusian Shawl, The (Morante), 67, 140–41, 218

  “Andalusian Shawl, The” (Morante), 140

  anti-Fascists, 54, 61, 62

  Antonioni, Michelangelo, 102, 103

  “anxiety of influence,” 122–23

  Aracoeli (Morante), 20, 197, 200, 202–10, 211

  Ardeatine Caves, 68

  Arturo’s Island (Morante), 4, 26, 109, 112–13, 116–27, 134, 140, 181, 203, 206, 220, 223

  critical reaction to, 122, 125–26

  EM’s affair with Visconti mirrored in, 123

  U.S. edition of, 124–26

  Ashes of Gramsci, The (Pasolini), 148–49

  Asti, Adriana, 104, 106–7, 160

  “Avventura” (Morante), 150

  Badoglio, Pietro, 62, 68

  Balbo, Felice, 84

  Baldini, Gabriele, 155

  Baudelaire, Charles, 27, 200

  Beck, Julian, 157–58

  Bedford, Sybille, 90

  Before the Revolution (film), 130, 167

  Bellezza, Dario, 160

  Bellini, Giovanni, 197

  Bellissima (film), 103

  Bellissime avventure di Caterì dalla trecciolina e altre storie, Le (Morante), 27, 57

  Bellocchio, Piergiorgio, 160

  Berardinelli, Alfonso, 160, 199, 213, 215, 224

  Bergman, Ingrid, 96–97

  Berliner Ensemble, 166

  Berlinguer, Enrico, 187, 200

  Bertolucci, Attilio, 101

  Bertolucci, Bernardo, 94, 101–2, 104, 107, 130, 166, 167, 171, 191

  Betrothed, The (Manzoni), 134

  “Betrothed, The” (Morante), 32

  Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, 225

  Bicycle Thief (film), 90

  “Bitter Honeymoon” (Moravia), 58–60

  Blackshirts, 31, 62

  Bloom, Harold, 122

  Bompiani, Ginevra, 44, 102, 160, 165, 206, 210–11, 213, 215

  Botteghe Oscure, 140

  Bragaglia, Carlo Ludovico, 62–63, 66

  Brancati, Vitaliano, 54

  Brennan, Maeve, 86–87

  Büchner, Georg, 158

  Caetani, Marguerite Chapin, 140

  Cahiers (Weil), 147

  Cahiers du Sud, 177

  Calderón de la Barca, Pedro, 37

  Calvino, Italo, 30, 84, 133

  Cantata della fiaba estrema (Henze), 151

  “Canzone degli F[elici]. P[oci]. e degli I[nfelici]. M[olti]. La” (Morante), 172

  “Canzoni popolari” (Morante), 175

  Capa, Robert, 176

  Capogrossi, Giuseppe, 40, 54

  Capri, 57–58, 61, 85, 111–12

  Capuana, Luigi, 35

  Caravaggio, Michelangelo da, 221

  Carocci, Alberto, 105

  Carrera, Antonio (pseud.), 32–33

  Corriere della Sera, 28–29, 188

  Caruso (cat), 100–101, 210–11

  Cassola, Carlo, 133

  Catholic Church, 91, 187–88

  Cavalli, Patrizia, 98, 160, 180, 187, 213

  EM’s clothes kept by, 143

  on EM’s relationship with

  Moravia, 99

  EM’s support for poetry of, 144–45

  on EM’s truth-telling obsession, 165

  and recording of EM reading, 155–56

  Cecchi, Carlo, 180, 211

  and death of EM, 218, 219

  on EM at Villa Margherita, 215–16

  with EM in Venice, 166–67

  and EM’s Spanish trip, 197–98

  first meeting of EM and, 158–60

  Morrow’s paintings owned by, 136

  Cecchi d’Amico, Suso, 103

  Ceneri di Gramsci, Le (Pasolini), 148–49

  Cervantes, Miguel de, 74, 133, 134

  Chanel, Coco, 103

  characters, pathology of, in EM’s fiction, 35, 76, 77, 183, 204, 205–6

  Chekhov, Anton, 56, 133, 134

  Cherchi, Grazia, 160

  Chiari, Walter, 103

  children, in EM’s fiction, 123

  Christian Democratic Party, 91, 92, 187, 200

  Christ Stopped at Eboli (Levi), 90

  Cinema Barberini, 94

  Ciociara, La (Moravia), 40, 64n, 66–67

  Civinini, Guelfo, 28–29

  Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 151

  Commune of Rome libraries, 224

  Communist Party, 22, 61, 70, 91, 92, 187–88, 202

  concentration camps, 54

  Conformist, The (Moravia), 40

  Conjugal Love (Moravia), 40, 45

  Conversion of St. Paul, The (Caravaggio), 221

  Coppens, Willy, 32, 50

  Corso, Gregory, 132, 171

  cristiani, 175

  Croce e delizia (Penna), 149

  crones:

  in Diary 1938, 47–48

  in EM’s fiction, 48, 73

  Cross and a Delight, A (Penna), 149

  Crucifixion of St. Peter, The (Caravaggio), 221

  Dante (Dante Alighieri), 37, 214

  David, Michel, 74–75, 79–80

  Death of a Salesman (Miller), 103

  Debenedetti, Giacomo, 36, 40, 132, 224

  De Feo, Sandro, 54

  De Gasperi, Alcide, 92

  de Grazia, Alfred, 69–70

  De Laurentiis, Dino, 94

  Deputy, The (Hochhuth), 158

  De Sica, Vittorio, 90, 94, 95

  Diary 1938 (Morante), 31–32, 37–51, 208

  babies in, 49–50

  crones in, 47–48

  death in, 49

  EM’s family in, 46–47

  Kafka in, 49

  Moravia in, 39, 40–44, 45–46, 49

  sexual desire in, 38–39

  sexually precocious girls in, 48–49

  as source for later fiction, 38

  Diritti della Scuola, I, 33

  “Domestiche” (Morante), 34

  Donna, Una (Aleramo), 81–82

  “Donna Amalia” (Morante), 140–41

  Donne senza nome (film), 95–96

  Don Quixote (Cervantes), 74

  Don Quixote (type), 61, 127

  Dos Passos, John, 181

  Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 98, 183

  “Dream and Life” (Irma Morante), 29

  Edwards, William, 161, 162

  Einaudi, Giulio, 57, 139–40

  Einaudi, Ida, 216

  Einaudi (publishing house), 38n, 83, 145

  El Almendral, Spain, 197, 203, 206

  Elkann, Alain, 55, 226

  Elsa Morante: Complete Works, 2, 224

  Elsa’s Room (exhibition catalogue), 225

  Emmer, Luciano, 95

  Espresso, L’, 169

  Evening at Colonus, The (Morante), 171

  family, in EM’s fiction, 35

  Fascism, Fascists, 31, 175

  Moravia on, 61–62, 92

  “Fidanzati, I” (Morante), 32

  First Edition Society, 195–96

  “First in Her Class” (Morante), 34

  Foa, Vittorio, 169

  Fofi, Goffredo, 160, 213

  Fontana, Luca, 176

  “For or against the Atomic

  Bomb” (Morante), 170

  Freud, Sigmund, 38

  Game of Gentlemen, 25

  game-playing, 25–26, 102, 147, 165, 215

  Garboli, Cesare, 122, 136n, 224

  on “The Andalusian Shawl,” 140

  on EM’s aging, 179–80

  on EM’s character, 141, 217

  on EM’s literary reputation, 223

  EM’s philosophical argument with, 173–74

  on EM’s poetry, 149

  on History, 185n, 194

  on House of Liars, 82–83

  Garibaldi, Anita, 20

  Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 19, 21

  Garolla, Federico, 224

  Germany Year Zero (film), 90

  Ginsberg, Allen, 1
32, 171

  Ginzburg, Natalia, 81, 82–83, 85, 107, 130–31, 133, 155

  on editing House of Liars, 83–84

  History reviewed by, 188

  Gioco segreto, Il (Morante), 35, 140

  “Gioco segreto, Il” (Morante), 26, 141

  Giorgione da Castelfranco, 197

  Girotti, Massimo, 103

  Giuseppe (cat), 112

  Gonzaga, Donna Maria Guerrieri, 8, 15

  Irma’s demands on, 27–28

  “Good-bye” (Morante), 171

  Gospel According to St. Matthew, The (film), 154–55

  Gramsci, Antonio, 181

  Grand Meaulnes, Le (Alain-Fournier), 122

  Graziosi, Paolo, 160

  Graziosi, Stella, 160, 218

  Great Depression, 31

  Greenburger, Sanford, 85

  Guttuso, Renato, 54

  Hamlet (type), 61, 127

  Hartman, Peter, 157, 159, 160, 166

  Henze, Hans Werner, 150–51

  History (Morante), 2, 17, 68–69, 134, 138, 175–77, 179, 180–87, 214, 223

  critical reaction to, 188–90, 193–94

  EM’s introduction to First Edition Society edition of, 195–96

  Garboli on, 185n, 194

  RAI broadcast of, 224

  U.S. publication of, 192–94

  Hitler, Adolf, 31, 53

  Hochhuth, Rolf, 158

  Hofmann, Paul, 177

  Holocaust, 54

  Homer, 134, 177–78

  homosexuals, homosexuality:

  EM’s attraction to, 161–62

  of Pasolini, 146, 154

  Horst, Horst P., 103

  House of Liars (Morante), 38, 48, 58, 66, 73–87, 122, 140, 151, 181, 220

  critical response to, 80, 86–87, 97

  Garboli on, 82–83

  U.S. edition of, 85–86

 

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