The Late Mattia Pascal


Book Description

Mattia Pascal endures a life of drudgery in a provincial town. Then, providentially, he discovers that he has been declared dead. Realizing he has a chance to start over, to do it right this time, he moves to a new city, adopts a new name, and a new course of life—only to find that this new existence is as insufferable as the old one. But when he returns to the world he left behind, it's too late: his job is gone, his wife has remarried. Mattia Pascal's fate is to live on as the ghost of the man he was. An explorer of identity and its mysteries, a connoisseur of black humor, Nobel Prize winner Luigi Pirandello is among the most teasing and profound of modern masters. The Late Mattia Pascal, here rendered into English by the outstanding translator William Weaver, offers an irresistible introduction to this great writer's work




The Late Mattia Pascal


Book Description

Mattia Pascal endures a life of drudgery in a provincial town. Then, providentially, he discovers that he has been declared dead. Realizing he has a chance to start over, to do it right this time, he moves to a new city, adopts a new name, and a new course of life—only to find that this new existence is as insufferable as the old one. But when he returns to the world he left behind, it's too late: his job is gone, his wife has remarried. Mattia Pascal's fate is to live on as the ghost of the man he was. An explorer of identity and its mysteries, a connoisseur of black humor, Nobel Prize winner Luigi Pirandello is among the most teasing and profound of modern masters. The Late Mattia Pascal, here rendered into English by the outstanding translator William Weaver, offers an irresistible introduction to this great writer's work




One, No One and One Hundred Thousand


Book Description

In Luigi Pirandello's thought-provoking novel, One, No One and One Hundred Thousand, the protagonist, Vitangelo Moscarda, undergoes a profound identity crisis after a casual remark from his wife. This sets him on a journey of self-discovery, questioning the nature of reality, identity, and the multifaceted perceptions others have of him. Through a series of philosophical musings and encounters with various characters, Moscarda grapples with the fragmented nature of the self and the illusions that shape our understanding of the world.




Stories for the Years


Book Description

Regarded as one of Europe’s great modernists, Pirandello was also a master storyteller, a fine observer of the drama of daily life with a remarkable sense of the crushing burdens of class, gender, and social conventions. Set in the author’s birthplace of Sicily, where the arid terrain and isolated villages map the fragile interior world of his characters, and in Rome, where modern life threatens centuries-old traditions, these original stories are sun baked with the deep lore of Italian folktales. In “The Jar,” a broken earthenware pot pits its owner, a quarrelsome landholder, against a clever inventor of a mysterious glue. “The Dearly Departed” tells the story of a young widow and her new husband on their honeymoon, haunted at every turn by the sly visage of the deceased. The scorned lover, the despondent widow, the intransigent bureaucrat, the wretched peasant—Pirandello’s characters expose the human condition in all its fatalism, injustice, and raw beauty. For lovers of Calvino and Pasolini, these picturesque stories preserve a memory of an Italy long gone, but one whose recurring concerns still speak to us today.




A View Of The Harbour


Book Description

INTRODUCED BY SARAH WATERS 'Every one of her books is a treat and this is my favourite, because of its wonderful cast of characters, and because of the deftness with which Taylor's narrative moves between them ... A wonderful writer' SARAH WATERS In the faded coastal village of Newby, everyone looks out for - and in on - each other, and beneath the deceptively sleepy exterior, passions run high. Beautiful divorcee Tory is secretly involved with her neighbour, Robert, while his wife Beth, Tory's best friend, is consumed by the worlds she creates in her novels, oblivious to the relationship developing next door. Their daughter Prudence is aware, however, and is appalled by the treachery she observes. Mrs Bracey, an invalid whose grasp on life is slipping, forever peers from her window, constantly prodding her daughters for news of the outside world. And Lily Wilson, a lonely young widow, is frightened of her own home. Into their lives steps Bertram, a retired naval officer with the unfortunate capacity to inflict lasting damage while trying to do good. 'Her stories remain with one, indelibly, as though they had been some turning-point in one's own experience' - ELIZABETH BOWEN 'Always intelligent, often subversive and never dull, Elizabeth Taylor is the thinking person's dangerous housewife. Her sophisticated prose combines elegance, icy wit and freshness in a stimulating cocktail' - VALERIE MARTIN 'A magnificent and underrated mid-20th-century writer, the missing link between Jane Austen and John Updike' - DAVID BADDIEL




Understanding Luigi Pirandello


Book Description

This is an introduction to the life and literary contributions of a Nobel Prize winner and one of Italy's most distinguished writers, Luigi Pirandello. It evaluates the significance of his influence on 20th century literature.




Her Husband


Book Description

One of the twentieth century's greatest literary artists and winner of the Nobel prize in 1934, Luigi Pirandello wrote the novel Her Husband in 1911, before he produced any of the well-known plays with which his name is most often associated today. Her Husband--translated here for the first time into English--is a profoundly entertaining work, by turns funny, bitingly satirical, and tinged with anguish. As important as any of the other works in Pirandello's oeuvre, it portrays the complexities of male/female relations in the context of a newly emerging, small but vocal Italian feminist movement. Evoking in vivid detail the literary world in Rome at the turn of the century, Her Husband tells the story of Silvia Roncella, a talented young female writer, and her husband Giustino Boggiolo. The novel opens with their arrival in Rome after having left their provincial southern Italian hometown following the success of Silvia's first novel, the rather humorously titled House of Dwarves. As his wife's self-appointed (and self-important) promoter, protector, counselor, and manager, Giustino becomes the primary target of Pirandello's satire. But the couple's relationship--and their dual career--is also complicated by a lively supporting cast of characters, including literary bohemians with avant-garde pretensions and would-be aristocratic esthetes who are all too aware of the newly acquired power of journalists and the publishing establishment to make or break their careers. Having based many of the characters--including Silvia and Giustino--on actual literary acquaintances of his, Pirandello reacted to the novel's controversial reception by not allowing it to be reprinted after the first printing sold out. Not until after his death were copies again made available in Italy. Readers will find Her Husband eerily evocative of the present in myriad ways--not the least of which is contemporary society's ongoing transformation wrought by the changing roles of men and women, wives and husbands.







Tales of Suicide


Book Description

Suicide, the act of killing oneself voluntarily and intentionally, is clearly one of the most important themes developed by Pirandello during his long literary career. Although he never focused on self-destruction as an end in itself, he made ample use of it to dramatise his tragic view of the human condition. Indeed, this theme recurs with astonishing frequency in his short stories, play and novels. It even appears sporadically in his poetry.




Luigi Pirandello


Book Description

Essays discuss the texts of Luigi Pirandello, one of the literary giants of this century and present an up-to-date re-evaluations of Pirandello's works, including his poetry, novels, short stories, plays, essays, letters, and memoirs.




Recent Books