It was a very hot July day. Riccetto, who was to receive first communion and confirmation, had already got up at five. the first sentence of Life boys. I am transcribing it from the book published by Garzanti who has lived in my house since 1955. the second edition: in June, the first was in April. Naturally, my father bought the book, who was not a man of letters; and I, who was only twelve years old, was unable to read such a book. Still, I eagerly began to leaf through it, then to read it. THEI can tell you that it struck me very much, I never forgot it, and I have always known that my whole life has been accompanied by the name of its author, Pasolini, who has become fateful. But what does fateful mean? Does it mean resonant? Does it mean that it brings about a turning point? Here, just a turning point, no: but that a name, or a presence, changes the landscape in which it is born, determines it; and that this landscape in turn, whether he liked it or not, contributes to modifying the book itself. Before Pasolini was not there; now Pasolini is there.
The difference with the authors of the same importance, if not greater, is that this name does not only concern people who are interested in art: literature, theater, cinema. It concerns everyone, even those who have only heard the name of the Friulian writer. In other words, it means that Pasolini was not only an artist, he became (he also wanted to become) a character, he wanted to belong to public life, to influence it. In one way or another, in a more or less long time, he certainly succeeded. Today we are even uncertain whether he was more an author or a character. I think of a man who looks like him, Oscar Wilde. Probably some or many, at least in Italy, know Deepbut how many have read his masterpieces, Lady Windermere’s fan O The importance of being Earnest? How much is it represented in our theaters? On the other hand, we all perceive that Oscar Wilde’s scandalous life was an unrepeatable event, which certainly had a not insignificant influence on the way of life of the English, and not just the English.
Today it is difficult to think of Pasolini distinguishing his work from his life; And even more difficult to distinguish what is considerable within that work and what is negligible. In a succinct way not to say hastily just what I would like to do, citing as my personal defense the long coexistence and knowledge of everything this man did.
The narrator, the novelist
We started with Life boysfollowed two years later A violent life: and although they are among his best known works (for the world of the Roman suburbs that he portrayed there and for the use of the dialect) I think they are two antiquated books, almost illegible. But Pasolini had begun as a lyrical narrator and ended up as a pure writer: you can stop reading my love e Petroleum, his capital work? When I read Petroleum I converted, I was tired of it, I returned to him, I loved him – far beyond his any will to denounce bad public affairs.
The poet
No interest (my wrong) for early works, those in dialect. Read and reread The ashes of Gramsci e The religion of my time. Then I stopped picking up those two books and discovered a visceral passion for Transhumanize and organize. Why? I believe because in his having abandoned all will of lyricism in this book there is the trace of a sacrifice: how much of lyricism remains excruciating. I am a reader wounded by those two lines: Ouch, dog, standing on the edge of Via Prenestina / looking here and there before crossing the road.
The essayist
Occasionally some readers belatedly acknowledge the excellence of his reviews, collected in Descriptions descriptions. Right! But how to neglect Passion and ideology of 1960? How can we forget some of the essays collected there, from La lingua della poesia to La libert stylistica? How can we neglect the ten pages on Gadda, at the forefront of recognizing the stature of that great writer? But as an essayist there was not only the literate Pasolini. Much more incisive was Pasolini, a critic of the society of his time: from the articles in the Corriere della Sera to the numerous books that collect them: putting them in sequence they show a kind of intellectual of which in the 1960s and 1970s there were other examples, but none of this power, both analytical and icastic. No one is so against the tide, no one is so resolute. I didn’t like him when he wrote the poem of Valle Giulia, I didn’t like him. But today? How not to give him at least a little reason? How can we fail to share, at least a little, that poem which bent so brazenly towards prose?
Theater
I saw the first show taken from one of his texts: it was Affabulazione, Vittorio Gassman was the protagonist. I didn’t like it. I think I would still dislike anyone who staged it. But when Mario Missiroli staged Orgy with Laura Betti – how not to welcome in that nudity, which we saw so aggressive, a violence that affected all of us and that no one had had the courage to recognize?
The cinema
I don’t know if he was the first writer to become a director. Yet what a great director he was! When he came out The good night by Mauro Bolognini and we discovered that Pasolini’s name was in the screenplay, didn’t we think that he could have been behind the camera himself? And when, soon after, we saw Beggar e Mom Rome, did we not think that what in similar novels (about young people from the Roman suburbs) he had succeeded in part, as if it were a miracle he had succeeded with those two films? And when immediately afterwards he came out The Gospel according to Matthew Didn’t we think, as it really was and how it continues to happen, that we would continue to see that film forever? At the opposite time end, Sal-Sade a film that is always difficult, perhaps unpleasant, too out of the ordinary to be accepted by everyone. But Sal-Sade the most important film on Italian fascism – or rather on fascism as a cultural, psychological, physical dimension that concerns the human being – and it remains so.
I want to conclude with a photo they sent me today a few hours before writing this summary. a photo taken in Rome, in via Mariano da Santo, corner with via del Pigneto – three hundred meters from the Casilina ring road. The profile of Pasolini’s face is engraved there and there are four lines: Do not deceive yourself: passion / never gets forgiveness. / I do not forgive you either, / I live with passion. Who will have ever written them? Couldn’t one of us have written them? Any Roman citizen, without a name? Not the design (the sign) of what concerns everyone, the sign of the indelible? Like, I mean, the testimonies collected by Roberto Galaverni in a forthcoming book for Mondadori. Is called PPP Poems for Pasolini. a book no less surprising than the anonymous profile. There are anthologized poems written by Pasolini’s greatest contemporary poets: rivals and friends, friends and enemies. Five are by Dario Bellezza. Quattro by Attilio Bertolucci. Quattro by Franco Fortini. Three by Eugenio Montale. Three by Andrea Zanzotto. Three by Elsa Morante. Two by Edoardo Sanguineti. Two by Giorgio Caproni. Two by Maria Luisa Spaziani. A poem by Biagio Marin. Of the names contained in this book I have only mentioned a few. But could we have imagined so much?
The series: the first volume on newsstands on 5 March
Pier Paolo Pasolini was born on March 5, 1922: on Saturday 5, on the day he would have turned one hundred, Corriere celebrates him with the release of a new series on newsstands, created in collaboration with Garzanti and Guanda. The works of Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975) will make up a library of 21 books, enriched by prefaces or author’s introductions, with the covers featuring original engravings created for the occasion by the XxY studio (each volume will be on sale € 8 , 90 plus the cost of the newspaper). A necklace that offers a broad look at an author of astounding versatility. It begins with the narrative that reveals a contemporary voice, often uncomfortable: Saturday 5, the first volume will be Life boyswith a text by Emanuele Trevi (who dedicated his fictional essay to Pasolini’s death Something written, Ponte alle Grazie) and the preface by Vincenzo Cerami; Saturday 12 March continues with A violent life, with a preface by Giuseppe De Roberto. Among the narrative evidence in the series, too The dream of a thinga, on newsstands on 9 April with a preface by Edoardo Albinati. Another trend, that of the social and political criticism of the editorial historians published in the Corriere and other newspapers, the Corsair writings published in volume shortly before his death, in 1975, which anticipated reflections that are still rough today: the book, with the introduction by Paolo Di Stefano, will be on newsstands on March 19; other pamphlets in the Lutheran letters, on newsstands April 2 with a preface by Guido Crainz. A committed intellectual, Pasolini transformed experience into writing in The smell of India, travel diary with Alberto Moravia and Elsa Morante: will be on newsstands on March 26, with a preface by Giorgio Pressburger. It continues on April 16, with the poem de The ashes of Gramsci, with a preface by Giuseppe Leonelli. And again, cinema: many appearances in the series, starting with the novel Theorem, born from the subject of the film: with a preface by Attilio Bertolucci, will be on newsstands on 23 April. And the theater: with the introduction by Franco Cordelli, Porcile will be on newsstands on 18 June. (ida bozzi)
February 21, 2022 (change February 21, 2022 | 20:23)
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