Roberto Salsano, Avanguardia e tradizione.
Daly, Selena
Roberto Salsano, Avanguardia e tradizione. Saggi su Mario Verdone,
Firenze: Franco Cesati Editore, 2007. Pp. 155.
Mario Verdone is best known as a critic of the avant-garde
movements of the twentieth century, especially Futurism. While not
ignoring this aspect of his career, Salsano's primary concern is to
redress the lack of attention paid to Verdone's literary works,
which include prose, poetry, theatre, and radio plays. Thus, the book is
divided into two sections: the first dealing with Verdone, the author,
and the second with Verdone, the critic. The book begins with a short
note by Verdone himself, in which he describes his career as a critic
and a writer, identifying his first meeting with Filippo Tommaso
Marinetti in 1935 as "l'incontro fatale" (9).
Throughout the whole of the first section, Salsano draws links
between Verdone's writings and literature of the Italian
avant-garde, most often Futurism. The first chapter of section one,
"Mario Verdone scrittore," presents an analysis of Citta
dell'uomo, published in 1941, a piece which, according to Salsano,
rejects any kind of classification of structure or genre. Though it
received a favourable review from Alberto Savinio upon publication, the
work fell into obscurity and so Salsano wishes to confirm "la
singolarita letteraria" (13) of the text. The city of the title is
Siena and the author refers to the influence of Federigo Tozzi on
Verdone. He also draws a number of links with Futurism, stating that the
work preserves "qualcosa dell'ideale futurista" (20). The
second chapter considers Bruciavano le colline, a one-act play written
in 1944, during the German occupation of Siena. Salsano also relates
elements of this work to movements of the avant-garde. The play
describes Count Pietro's desire to celebrate carnevale, despite the
war raging around them. Salsano interprets the gaiety of the
celebrations, presented as a counterpoint to the war, as an overturning
of the Futurist exhortation to glorify warfare and combat. (29) Pietro
is identified as a raisonneur (30) and related to that type of character
found in the plays of Pirandello and Rosso di San Secondo. In the third
chapter, Salsano identifies "la piazza" and "il
viaggio" (35) as two important elements of Verdone's prose and
explores the "realismo magico" of two collections of short
stories, La piazza magica (1984) and Raoul e altre storie (1998),
associating aspects of his prose to the Futurist concept of the
meraviglioso. Il mito del viaggio, published in 1997, the subject of
chapter four, gathers together pieces written between the 1940s and the
1990s, and follows on nicely from the previous chapter. Salsano
describes Il mito del viaggio as a "documento umano" (43) and
a "tentativo teorico" (44). In the fifth chapter, two of
Verdone's radio plays are explored, while the final chapter of the
first section concerns Verdone's poetic writings, from the 1980s to
2000s. This last chapter offers an illuminating analysis of
Verdone's poetry, relating it to both his non-fiction work and to
aspects of Futurist theory. His use of antithesis and oxymoron are
commented upon, as is a technique that approaches a kind of
"montaggio" (66). In various poems, Verdone directly
references the Futurist concepts of "aeropoesia" (73) and
"paroliberismo" (75), but Salsano also isolates an echo of
Marinetti's theory of synthetic theatre in Verdone's use of
the haiku. (75)
The second section, "Teoria e storia del Futurismo in
Verdone," comprises only two chapters, and less than twenty pages
(compared to the 65 of the first section). The first of the two chapters
concerns solely Verdone's Avventure teatrali del Novecento,
published in 1999. This essay has already been published in a journal as
a review. It reads very much like a review and appears to have scarcely
been changed prior to publication in this volume. Given the breadth of
Verdone's critical publication, it seems a pity to concentrate a
whole chapter of this short second section on just one volume. Salsano
praises the "aspetto documentario" (82) of Avventure teatrali
del Novecento and also its second section, "Altri percorsi,"
which offers analysis of authors such as Pirandello, Tozzi, Lucini and
Bontempelli. The final chapter of Salsano's volume, "Arte
totale e drammaturgia del Novecento," is broader and offers an
excellent overview of some aspects of Verdone's critical works
right up to 2007. Salsano writes, in a kind of summing up, that "la
sua opera [di Verdone] si colloca tra dottrina e gusto, professionalita
e umanita." (99) The doctrine refers to his wideranging knowledge
of theatre and performance, while his "gusto" and humanity are
related to his personal experience of and direct contact with many of
the figures he wrote about. These concluding comments, however, seem
almost tacked on to the end of this last chapter. One is left wondering
what these two chapters really add to Salsano's volume and whether
it might have been better to dedicate the book to Verdone's
literary production alone.
The majority of the essays published in this volume have already
appeared in various journals and most of those included here were only
"piu o meno ritoccati" (155) with regard to their previous
outings. While the essays, especially those in the first section, are
excellent individual pieces of scholarship, the whole volume seems to be
lacking cohesion, and might have benefited from an introductory or a
concluding chapter. The volume also offers a comprehensive bibliography
of Verdone's publications and an appendix including some of the
literary works Salsano discusses. These elements are both valuable
additions to the book. This is both an interesting and worthwhile
volume, although the target audience is specialized. It will be of
interest to academics working in the area of Futurism and avant-garde
Italian studies in cinema and theatre, who, though familiar with
Verdone's critical work, will more than likely not be conversant with his work as a dramatist and author in his own right.
Selena Daly, University College Dublin