2023-10-07 21:22:06
by ANTONIO CARIOTI
Born in Parma in 1928, he began as a crime reporter. Elegant and ironic, he was a correspondent for the Corriere della Sera and a lucid observer of society
The trained eye of the expert chronicler of humanity, the subtle sense of humor, the pen light and benevolent even in derision. These are the three main qualities that made Luca Goldoni from Emilia – who passed away on Saturday 7 October at the age of 95 at the hospice in Casalecchio di Reno (Bologna), where he had been hospitalized in recent days due to worsening health conditions – not just a an excellent journalist, but also and above all an amazingly successful writer, with over three million copies of his books sold in total, specialized in making fun of the customs (and bad customs) of Italians.
It was irresistible, precisely because it was polite, the way he made fun of the clichés and stock phrases of everyday chatter, which in fact give the title to the majority of his books. Some examples scattered among those, very numerous, published by Mondadori: Esclusi i presente (1973), I have no words (1978), If I return to birth (1981). But the same slightly mocking streak was displayed by Goldoni in recounting the characters of the past in his biographies, packaged in a style that in some ways recalled the history books of Indro Montanelli, but with greater indulgence and bonhomie. compared to his more severe Tuscan colleague.
Born in Parma on 23 February 1928, Goldoni began working as a crime reporter as a young man. First for the newspaper of his city of origin, the Gazzetta di Parma, and then for Il Resto del Carlino of Bologna, a newspaper for which he later became a leading correspondent on major international events: the anecdote of the correspondence from Prague remains memorable , immediately after the Soviet invasion of August 1968, which Goldoni said in Parma dialect to escape the interference of a polyglot and nosy switchboard operator.
Then came the job at Corriere della Sera, which almost fell through due to a reluctance from Goldoni, who was determined not to move from Bologna, where he had now put down roots. On the other hand, the daily newspaper on Via Solferino had taken him around the world, with reports from large metropolises and remote places, often during wars, coups d’état, popular uprisings. Goldoni laughed about it, highlighting the paradox: when you are a young journalist, anxious to leave for the most exotic and dangerous destinations, they send you to look for news at the police station, while at a more mature age, when you have started a family and would like to get involved metaphorically slippers, you find yourself constantly taking the plane to quickly reach distant lands.
In parallel with his job as a correspondent, Goldoni had cultivated his talent for observing our national character and its tics. After the first volumes published by the Cappelli publisher of Bologna, such as Italia veniale (1969) and Il pesce a mezzo’acqua (1970), the bestsellers came with Mondadori, starting with The Dark Dress (1972). They were books that were the result of natural inspiration, however combined with assiduous application. Irony and humor – said Goldoni – don’t knock on the door, they arrive. Of humor I usually say that a third degree equation that succeeds or fails. If you get a comma or the word order wrong, it doesn’t work anymore. And he was rarely wrong.
At a certain point he decided to move from news to history, keeping his approach unchanged. Together with Enzo Sermasi he had recounted the fascist regime through his reminiscences of childhood and adolescence in the volume Fiero l’occhio, svelto il passi (Mondadori, 1979), equipped with a rich photographic apparatus. Stranger to any nostalgic inclination towards the black twenty years, Goldoni intended to recall, in a sort of Fellini-esque amarcord, the atmosphere in which he had grown up together with millions of other Italians.
Still in the historical field, he then dedicated himself to a central character in the events of his Parma, the duchess who had been Napoleon’s wife, in the book Maria Luigia, a career woman (Rizzoli, 1991), trying to break away from the usual stereotypes and with a updating touch: Today females – wrote Goldoni – have conquered the right to the managerial ulcer. Maria Luigia is ahead of her time (even with her stomach ache): a fake housewife who, having tasted the taste of power, no longer wants to do without it. Everything else, feelings, loves, betrayals, are just a tumultuous side dish. With benevolent indulgence he had then turned to another woman who was even more controversial and considered the symbol of ancient debauchery, the wife of the Roman emperor Claudius, in the biography Messalina. A shameless innocence (Rizzoli, 1992).
There is no doubt, however, that, despite his successful forays into the past, Goldoni’s vocation remained mainly that of analyzing the transformations of our society, with a prose that was often pungent in his judgment on his fellow countrymen. For example, the 2013 book Tranelli d’Italia (Barbera editore) went in that direction between the sarcastic and the disconsolate, concrete testimony of a spirit that remained lively even in old age, as also demonstrated by the articles that he continued to write for the Corriere and other newspapers.
One is struck, when scrolling through his texts from even the rather remote past, by the Italian perseverance in terms of bad habits, so much so that some of Goldoni’s corrosive notes, a bit like a talking cricket, still seem wet with ink. Here, for example, is how a chapter of Cio, perhaps his greatest success, published by Mondadori in 1977, concludes: None of us thinks that a general problem also concerns him in particular. No one is touched by the doubt that a society is made up of individual people: and if each person thinks that something should be done right, he doesn’t do it for him, no one does this thing. The real Italian problem is that we are all heading, each with his own common sense, towards a senseless society. Do we need to add anything else?
October 7, 2023 (modified October 7, 2023 | 10.23pm)
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