Fleeting Rome In Search of La Dolce Vita Carlo Levi Translated by Antony Shugaar John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
Carlo Levi (1902 1972), writer, painter and politician, was one of the great Italian talents of the twentieth century. He was interned in the South of Italy as an anti-fascist during the Second World War, where he wrote his masterpiece, Cristo si é fermato a Eboli (Christ Stopped at Eboli). The work was subsequently turned into a film and became recognized as one of the great works of twentieth-century literature. Subsequent works have included a wide range of fiction and non-fiction, including L Orologio (1950), Le parole sono pietre (1955), Le mille patrie, Lo specchio and Scritti di critica d arte. From 1963 to 1972 he was Senator of the Republic.
Fleeting Rome In Search of La Dolce Vita Carlo Levi Translated by Antony Shugaar John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
This edition published in 2005 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, England Phone (+44) 1243 779777 Original edition published in Italian by Donzelli Editore, Rome. Original edition copyright Donzelli Editore, Roma 2002. All rights reserved. English language edition published by arrangement with Eulama Literary Agency, Rome, Italy. English language translation copyright John Wiley and Sons Ltd. First published in the UK in July 2004. E-mail (for orders and customer service enquires): cs-books@wiley.co.uk Visit our Home Page on www.wiley.co.uk or www.wiley.com All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except under the terms of the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1P 0LP, UK, without the permission in writing of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher should be addressed to the Permissions Department John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, England, or e-mailed to permreq@wiley.co.uk, or faxed to (44) 1243 770620. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the Publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Other Wiley Editorial Offices John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA Jossey-Bass, 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741, USA Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH, Pappellaee 3, D-69469 Weinheim, Germany John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd, 33 Park Road, Milton, Queensland, 4064, Australia John Wiley & Sons (Asia) Pte Ltd, 2 Clementi Loop #02-01, Jin Xing Distripark, Singapore 129809 John Wiley & Sons Canada Ltd, 22 Worcester Road, Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada, M9W 1L1 Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the US Library of Congress British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0-47087184-9 Typeset in 9.5/14 pt Arrus by Sparks, Oxford www.sparks.co.uk Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall This book is printed on acid-free paper responsibly manufactured from sustainable forestry in which at least two trees are planted for each one used for paper production. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents Preface Introduction: Eternal and Fleeting Translator s Note vii xiii xxxv I The People of Rome 1 II The Solitude of Rome 25 III The Two-Cent Coin 31 IV Sunday Stroll 37 V The Helicopter 43 VI Apparitions in Rome 51 VII The Duty of the Comet 57 VIII Elegy to the Mid-August Holidays 65 IX Hyperbolic Tourism 71 X Killing Time 77 XI Points of View 83 XII The Power of the Poor 89 XIII Brigands and Peasants 95 XIV Plants and Seeds 103 XV The Steps of Rome 111 XVI The Empty Cities 119
CONTENTS XVII Girls and Trees 125 XVIII A Dawn in Rome 131 XIX Summer Journey 137 XX The New Moon 143 XXI San Lorenzo and San Paolo 149 XXII A Child in Flight 155 XXIII After the Party 163 XXIV Substance and Chance 171 XXV Clothes Moths 179 XXVI Japanese Toys 187 XXVII Football and Men of Letters 193 XXVIII The Drainage Ditch and the Measles 199 XXIX A Boy Steals a Car Radio in the Piazza Navona 205 XXX The Labyrinth 213 XXXI City of Brothers 219 XXXII Summer Dissolves in Mists 227 XXXIII Fleeting Rome 233 Notes to the Text 237 Basic Chronology of Carlo Levi s Life 259 Index 275 vi
Preface By Gigliola De Donato and Luisa Montevecchi Carlo Levi s varied and prolific literary career (political, social and ethnological, artistic, and critical essays, travel writing and reporting), which ranged broadly over a wide array of subjects (from popular culture to news reporting, from personal and family reminiscences to topical observations on events, occurrences, personalities, and protagonists of history in the making), is for the most part preserved in his personal archive, the site. We have relied upon this as the source of material in this volume, which has been selected from the mass of writings that Levi either chose not to organize or never had the time to organize. A preliminary classification of Carlo Levi s papers has already been undertaken by his friend and partner in life, Linuccia Saba and, however pragmatic the criteria may have been, toward the end of the 1970s, the reorganization was by and large complete. This initial organization arranged Carlo Levi s papers into four main sections: 1) correspondence; 2) documents; 3) photographic archive; 4) exhibition catalogues. vii
PREFACE It is only now, however, following a period in which the collection of papers was entrusted to the skilled care of the Archivio Centrale dello Stato (Italy s Central State Archives) and thanks to the careful reorganization carried out by Doctor Margherita Martelli and Doctor Luisa Montevecchi under the supervision of the new director, Professor Paola Carucci, that the Fondo Carlo Levi (Carlo Levi Collection) is now fully available to those who are interested in pursuing a more complete understanding of the literary, civil, and artistic work of this author. Making use of the reorganization carried out by the Central State Archives, we have selected various types of writing on that basis. All the same, they have been obliged to discriminate carefully, establishing distinctions within the categories, taking care to identify, among the varied interests of the Turin-born intellectual, often coexisting in a single essay, not only the specific subjects of the various essays, but also the interference or interdependence of other interests within a given subject matter. In other words, we did not limit ourselves to the general criterion of content, but also focused on the modality of the writing, the tone and the inflection. Dividing the essays into sections may seem like a clinical, even surgical undertaking, but we were convinced that it was necessary to provide a structure to the multiform richness of Levi s world, the circularity of his ideas and images, often existing side-by-side in a rhapsodic navigation of memory or thought. We found that the only valid criteria would be ones whereby we could offer an image of the author in all the modulations of his singular keyboard. Only the reader can say if we have been successful. The Introduction to the individual essays, and the Notes to the Text, may offer a useful guide in reading. viii
PREFACE These criteria have led to the outline set forth in the Plan of the Work. In reference to the classification of the essays, we should make a further distinction: while travel writing, essays in historical and political thought, essays on theory, and literary and art criticism are all objectively unified by the specific subject matter of each, the other essays, prompted by specific occasions, have been classified according to their internal thematic homogeneity (writings about Rome, writings about Italy, writings on reflections or recollections, writings inspired by the animal world). All of these writings are now published in book form for the first time, but other unpublished material can be found. Firstly the Fondo Manoscritti di Autori Moderni e Contemporanei (Collection of Manuscripts by Modern and Contemporary Authors) at the University of Pavia, established by Maria Corti; secondly, especially for letters and private papers, the Fondo delle Carte di Famiglia (Collection of Family Papers) in Carlo Levi s family home, now owned by his nephew Professor Giovanni Levi, at Via Bezzecca 11 in Turin; and thirdly, in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, the manuscript of Cristo si è fermato a Eboli (Christ Stopped at Eboli) is preserved. In particular, it has been impossible to publish the vast collection of poems, which would have required the integration of two distinct collections, preserved in the Fondazione Carlo Levi (Carlo Levi Foundation) in Rome, and in the Fondo Manoscritti (Manuscript Collection) at Pavia, not yet available or ready for publication. We should add, finally, that several of his private letters state that he was considering making a book out of certain pieces of his journalism (not all of which are published in book form). We ix
PREFACE are referring to his reports from India and China, some of his investigations in southern Italy, and his pieces on Rome and Italy.* The fact remains that Levi never did undertake any work towards the publication of the rich array of materials in his Collection. His rapid metaliterary references seem to us to be highly eloquent, and of course we have taken them into account, following his unintentional suggestions; but we have gone beyond them, of course, in our selection of publishable material, we have gone in search of what were evidently the landmarks in his progress as an artist and a writer. That is to say, we have selected the organic and original aspects of his theoretical thought and his artistic career, in his most vital moments and in moments of transition toward other fields of endeavour, taking care primarily to gather all the richness and complexity of his cultural, artistic, and civil interests, and avoiding, where possible, overemphasis and repetition. It goes without saying that it was not our intention to produce an unabridged edition of the writings, and only time will tell whether such an edition is needed. Our ambition was to offer these writings to the educated reader, enjoyable as individual texts, but also useful as substrate and as general context. We also hoped and primarily focused on the younger generations, so starved of past and tradition, in order to allow them to discover the rich fabric of thought and study, passion and struggle, that lies beneath so many of the problems of the present day. It was necessary to select in such a way as to remain faithful to the features of Carlo Levi s versatile personality, which was also cohesive and harmonious, endowed with a magnetic positivity, a constructive faith in humanity, in a cyclical capacity for rebirth, x * See C. Levi and L. Saba, Carissimo Puck. Lettere d amore e d amicizia, edited by S. D Amaro, Mancosu, Rome, 1994. (According to the Library of Congress, it is Lettere d amore e di vita.)
PREFACE even above and beyond the random elements of historical experience and the harshest moments of the crisis of modernity. We have done our best to bring forth, through a wide-ranging exploration of his work, a complete and organic portrayal of the elements of a world in formation: his path as a writer and artist, his particular trajectory through the reality of our time, characterized unfailingly by a determined civic and political engagement. The various forms of expression of his idioms and the multiplicity of his interests did nothing to keep him from endowing us with Levi s unified and consistent view of the world. It is this richness that we wish to show the new generations. xi
Introduction Eternal and Fleeting by Giulio Ferroni L orologio (The Watch), by Carlo Levi, in the impassioned clarity with which it recounts the last days of the government of Ferruccio Parri and examines the collapse of the azionista* approach that seemed to have gathered momentum from the Resistance, is one of the few books of the twentieth century in which you can palpably feel the breathing of history, the air and colour of a specific time, revealed spontaneously by the deeds and motions of the people, by the physical substance of the settings and material objects, and by what the people feel, in body and mind, in relation to these settings and objects. Levi s writing has the gift, nowadays sadly too often overlooked, of succeeding in giving a sense of life extending over time, of a space throbbing with presences, hopes, feelings, disappointments: and in L orologio this time and this space are the time and space of Rome, a crowded, restive Rome, slothful and tumultuous, in disarray and riddled with glaring flashes, noises, and silences. L orologio is like a novel, * [Translator s note. A proponent of the anti-fascist, pro-reform Partito d Azione ( Action Party ) founded in 1942.] xiii