Pirandello

[nut-job]

Luigi Pirandello is a writer that is often discussed but which I had never read, aside from a few trifles. I decided to remedy this by reading one of his well known Novels, the title of which is generally translated as "The Late Mattia Pascal." It is a story of a man who is oppress by misfortunes in life. When he goes off on a little trip a suicide is found in a nearby mill run and mistakenly identified as him. He has won some money in a casino and decides to take advantage of the situation and run off to start a new life. When that proves unsatisfactory he tries to return to his old life, but finds that impossible as well. I gather that this is supposed to be a metaphor for man's existential predicament. It tries hard to be profound but isn't, and isn't a brilliantly told story either. Not the worst book I've read, but far far from the best.

[Corlyss_D]

It tries hard to be profound but isn't, and isn't a brilliantly told story either.

That's kind o' how I view the faux anguish at the center of existentialism.

[Adair]

I wish that the anguish of best Existentialist literature were faux, but I don't think it is. In America, we have just learned to not take anything seriously and to dismiss anguish. A defense mechanism of a decaying, ever-emptier society, no doubt. I love Pirandello's plays, and Camus and Sartre, too. The plot of this novel reminds me of a novel by a great American Existentialist, Richard Wright. It is called The Outsider.

[John F]

I didn't even know that Pirandello wrote novels. He's famous for his plays, of course, and "Six Characters in Search of an Author" is a classic of modern theatre, while "Henry IV" is occasionally revived as a vehicle for a star actor (I saw Rex Harrison in it) and "Right You Are if You Think You Are" gets an occasional outing too. I don't read many novels these days, but the questions of identity and reality on which Pirandello's plays turn - as also in "The Late Mattia Pascal," from what nut-job says - have always been intriguing and thought-provoking for me, and it wound seem for others as well since his plays have held the stage since the 1920s. It wasn't for nothing that Pirandello received the Nobel Prize in literature.