2 Interview with Alain Elkann, Rome, January 2006.
WORKS BY ELSA MORANTE
Il gioco segreto (The Secret Game). Milan: Garzanti, 1941.
Le bellissime avventure di Caterì dalla trecciolina e altre storie (The Marvelous Adventures of Cathy with the Long Tresses and Other Stories). Turin: Einaudi, 1942.
—Republished as Le straordinarie avventure di Caterina (The Extraordinary Adventures of Catherine). Turin: Einaudi, 1959 and 2007.
Menzogna e sortilegio. Turin: Einaudi, 1948.
—In English, House of Liars, translated by Adrienne Foulke with the editorial assistance of Andrew Chiappe. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1951.
L’isola di Arturo. Turin: Einaudi, 1957.
—In English. Arturo’s Island, translated by Isabel Quigly. New York: Knopf, 1959.
—Reissue, Hanover, N.H.: Steerforth Italia, 1998.
Alibi (Alibi). Milan: Longanesi Editions (then called Domenico Landini), 1958.
—Reprinted by Garzanti in 1990.
—Lo scialle andaluso (The Andalusian Shawl). Turin: Einaudi, 1963.
—Reprinted by Einaudi in 2007.
Il mondo salvato dai ragazzini e altri poemi (The World Saved by Children and Other Poems). Turin: Einaudi, 1968.
—Reprinted by Einaudi in 1971 and in 2006.
La storia. Turin: Einaudi, 1974.
—Reprinted by Einaudi in 1986 and in 2005.
—In English, History: A Novel, translated by William Weaver. New York: Knopf, 1977.
—Reissue, Hanover, N.H., Steerforth Italia: 2000.
—Reissue, Zoland Books, an imprint of Steerforth Press, Hanover, N.H.: 2007.
Aracoeli. Turin: Einaudi, 1982.
—Reprinted by Einaudi in 2005.
—In English, Aracoeli, translated by William Weaver. New York: Random House, 1984.
Pro o contro la bomba atomica (For or Against the Atomic Bomb). Milan: Adelphi Edizioni, 1987.
Diario 1938 (Diary 1938). Turin: Einaudi, 1989.
—Reprinted by Einaudi in 2005.
Racconti dimenticati (Forgotten Tales). Turin: Einaudi, 2002.
—Reprinted by Einaudi in 2004.
Elsa Morante Opere (Elsa Morante: Complete Works). Edited by Carlo Cecchi and Cesare Garboli. 2 vols. Milan: Mondadori, 1988 and 1990.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people helped me write this book.
Silvia Valisa, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California at Berkeley, answered my first query and set me on the right track with a long, passionate, informative e-mail, which was soon followed by the names of people I should contact as well as copies of Elsa Morante’s hard-to-find early published work. I am deeply grateful to Silvia for this initial as well as for her continual support, her enthusiasm for my project and her generosity in sharing her greatly superior expertise.
My research assistant, the beautiful and talented Veronica Raimo, made persistent phone calls, set up interviews and accompanied me to them, translated and recorded texts, took me on a tour of the San Lorenzo and Testaccio districts of Rome and accompanied me to the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, where she charmed recalcitrant and uncooperative librarians into searching archives and producing documents. She also accompanied me to the State Archives in Turin, where again she charmed recalcitrant archivists into producing documents. Mille grazie, Veronica.
I am most thankful to Giulia Ruggiero, who translated Morante’s early stories, Marcello Morante’s memoir and Cesare Garboli’s and Giorgio Agamben’s essays, and who generously and rapidly responded to my many, many queries. Also, to Paola Basirico, my teacher, who patiently tried to improve my mediocre Italian and who graciously allowed me to distract her from lessons in grammar with readings and discussions of stories by Morante, Moravia and Verga (her favorite).
This book would not exist without Carlo Cecchi, Elsa Morante’s coexecutor, who at first was elusive. I telephoned him a dozen times before I realized that, not so surprisingly, there was, on the part of Elsa’s friends and relatives, a certain amount of resistance to me. After all, why would an American who did not speak fluent Italian want to write about Elsa Morante? Just as I was ready to give up, Carlo answered the phone and agreed to see me. To do so, I had to cross the width of Italy. On the day we were to meet for lunch, I was both lost and late (each time I called to say that I was still lost, I could hear increasing irritation creep into his voice). I will never forget how when finally I drove up to the door of his hotel and saw him—a handsome man, dressed entirely in black, a shock of white hair falling over his forehead, looking stern and impatient—my heart sank. Since then, we have spoken and seen each other several times and Carlo has been more than forthcoming and candid with his memories, as well as generous in giving me access to material and allowing me to use his photographs of Elsa. I hope that this account of the woman he so admired and loved will not disappoint him. I am immensely grateful and thank him with all my heart.
For granting interviews, I want to thank Adriana Asti; Alfonso Berardinelli; Bernardo Bertolucci; Ginevra Bompiani; Alain Elkann; Dacia Maraini; Allen Midgette, a newfound friend (thanks to Bernardo Bertolucci) who knew both Elsa and Bill Morrow well; Daniele Morante; Maria Morante; and Paolo Morante. I especially want to thank Patrizia Cavalli with whom I spent several afternoons, including a memorable one sorting through a suitcase filled with photographs.
For their cooperation and help, my thanks also go to Toni Maraini and Alberto Cau at the Fondo Moravia; Mauro Bersani at Einaudi; Luigi Bernabó; Marco Cassini at Minimum Fax; Dr. Margherita Breccia Fratadocchi at the Rare Books and Manuscript Room, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma; Dr. Marsaglia at the State Archives in Turin; Danielle Sigler at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin; and finally to Flora Ghezzo, assistant professor at Columbia University, who graciously agreed to speak to me about nineteenth-and twentieth-century Italian women writers.
My special thanks to the American Academy in Rome for thrice providing a beautiful roof over my head, and to Adele Chatfield-Taylor, Carmela Franklin, Dana Prescott, and Pina Pasquantonio. I would also like to thank the gatekeeper, Norman Robertson, for cheer, directions and transportation, and, in particular, Romano Migliarino, who notwithstanding the fact that we were late and lost, drove me ten hours to Iesi and back. I also want to thank Terzo Giovanni of Procida for the gift of a lemon.
For their friendship and advice, I am grateful to JoAnne Akalaitis, Anselma dell’Olio, Paul Elie, Louisa Ermelino, Molly Haskell, Shirley Hazzard, Susan Minot, Renata Propper, Maria Tucci, Lu-Ann Walther and Beverley Zabriskie. For still more friendship, advice and for a close reading and rereading of these pages, I am very much indebted to Michelle Huneven and Frances Kiernan. Most of all, I want to express my enormous gratitude to Trent Duffy for his keen-eyed fact checking and masterly editing of this book. As always I thank Georges and Anne Borchardt, my guardian angels and friends. Finally, I thank Terry Karten and Julia Felsenthal.
SEARCHABLE TERMS
Note: Entries in this index, carried over verbatim from the print edition of this title, are unlikely to correspond to the pagination of any given e-book reader. However, entries in this index, and other terms, may be easily located by using the search feature of your e-book reader.
abandoned children, in EM’s fiction, 34
absent father, in EM’s fiction, 74, 204, 205, 208
Accatone (film), 155
Accursed and Blessed (Marcello Morante), 13–14, 28, 29
Achilles (type), 61, 127
“Addio” (Morante), 171
Afrique-Action, 132–33
Agamben, Giorgio, 155, 160, 165, 210
Agostino (Moravia), 58
Alain-Fournier (Henri Alban Fournier), 122
Aleramo, Sibilla, 81–82
Alfred A. Knopf (publishing house), 177, 193, 194
Alibi (Morante), 149–53
“Alibi” (Morante), 150–51
“Alla favola” (Morante), 151–52
Alter, Robert, 193
Amidei, Sergio, 95, 96
Anacapri, Italy, 57–58, 226
Andalusian Shawl, The (Morante), 67, 140–41, 218
“Andalusian Shawl, The” (Morante), 140
anti-Fascists, 54, 61, 62
Antonioni, Michelangelo, 102, 103
“anxiety of influence,” 122–23
Aracoeli (Morante), 20, 197, 200, 202–10, 211
Ardeatine Caves, 68
Arturo’s Island (Morante), 4, 26, 109, 112–13, 116–27, 134, 140, 181, 203, 206, 220, 223
critical reaction to, 122, 125–26
U.S. edition of, 124–26
Ashes of Gramsci, The (Pasolini), 148–49
Asti, Adriana, 104, 106–7, 160
“Avventura” (Morante), 150
Badoglio, Pietro, 62, 68
Balbo, Felice, 84
Baldini, Gabriele, 155
Baudelaire, Charles, 27, 200
Beck, Julian, 157–58
Bedford, Sybille, 90
Before the Revolution (film), 130, 167
Bellezza, Dario, 160
Bellini, Giovanni, 197
Bellissima (film), 103
Bellissime avventure di Caterì dalla trecciolina e altre storie, Le (Morante), 27, 57
Bellocchio, Piergiorgio, 160
Berardinelli, Alfonso, 160, 199, 213, 215, 224
Bergman, Ingrid, 96–97
Berliner Ensemble, 166
Berlinguer, Enrico, 187, 200
Bertolucci, Attilio, 101
Bertolucci, Bernardo, 94, 101–2, 104, 107, 130, 166, 167, 171, 191
Betrothed, The (Manzoni), 134
“Betrothed, The” (Morante), 32
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, 225
Bicycle Thief (film), 90
“Bitter Honeymoon” (Moravia), 58–60
Blackshirts, 31, 62
Bloom, Harold, 122
Bompiani, Ginevra, 44, 102, 160, 165, 206, 210–11, 213, 215
Botteghe Oscure, 140
Bragaglia, Carlo Ludovico, 62–63, 66
Brancati, Vitaliano, 54
Brennan, Maeve, 86–87
Büchner, Georg, 158
Caetani, Marguerite Chapin, 140
Cahiers (Weil), 147
Cahiers du Sud, 177
Calderón de la Barca, Pedro, 37
Calvino, Italo, 30, 84, 133
Cantata della fiaba estrema (Henze), 151
“Canzone degli F[elici]. P[oci]. e degli I[nfelici]. M[olti]. La” (Morante), 172
“Canzoni popolari” (Morante), 175
Capa, Robert, 176
Capogrossi, Giuseppe, 40, 54
Capri, 57–58, 61, 85, 111–12
Capuana, Luigi, 35
Caravaggio, Michelangelo da, 221
Carocci, Alberto, 105
Carrera, Antonio (pseud.), 32–33
Corriere della Sera, 28–29, 188
Caruso (cat), 100–101, 210–11
Cassola, Carlo, 133
Catholic Church, 91, 187–88
Cavalli, Patrizia, 98, 160, 180, 187, 213
EM’s clothes kept by, 143
on EM’s relationship with
Moravia, 99
EM’s support for poetry of, 144–45
on EM’s truth-telling obsession, 165
and recording of EM reading, 155–56
Cecchi, Carlo, 180, 211
and death of EM, 218, 219
on EM at Villa Margherita, 215–16
with EM in Venice, 166–67
and EM’s Spanish trip, 197–98
first meeting of EM and, 158–60
Morrow’s paintings owned by, 136
Cecchi d’Amico, Suso, 103
Ceneri di Gramsci, Le (Pasolini), 148–49
Cervantes, Miguel de, 74, 133, 134
Chanel, Coco, 103
characters, pathology of, in EM’s fiction, 35, 76, 77, 183, 204, 205–6
Chekhov, Anton, 56, 133, 134
Cherchi, Grazia, 160
Chiari, Walter, 103
children, in EM’s fiction, 123
Christian Democratic Party, 91, 92, 187, 200
Christ Stopped at Eboli (Levi), 90
Cinema Barberini, 94
Ciociara, La (Moravia), 40, 64n, 66–67
Civinini, Guelfo, 28–29
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 151
Commune of Rome libraries, 224
Communist Party, 22, 61, 70, 91, 92, 187–88, 202
concentration camps, 54
Conformist, The (Moravia), 40
Conjugal Love (Moravia), 40, 45
Conversion of St. Paul, The (Caravaggio), 221
Coppens, Willy, 32, 50
Corso, Gregory, 132, 171
cristiani, 175
Croce e delizia (Penna), 149
crones:
in Diary 1938, 47–48
in EM’s fiction, 48, 73
Cross and a Delight, A (Penna), 149
Crucifixion of St. Peter, The (Caravaggio), 221
Dante (Dante Alighieri), 37, 214
David, Michel, 74–75, 79–80
Death of a Salesman (Miller), 103
Debenedetti, Giacomo, 36, 40, 132, 224
De Feo, Sandro, 54
De Gasperi, Alcide, 92
de Grazia, Alfred, 69–70
De Laurentiis, Dino, 94
Deputy, The (Hochhuth), 158
De Sica, Vittorio, 90, 94, 95
Diary 1938 (Morante), 31–32, 37–51, 208
babies in, 49–50
crones in, 47–48
death in, 49
EM’s family in, 46–47
Kafka in, 49
Moravia in, 39, 40–44, 45–46, 49
sexual desire in, 38–39
sexually precocious girls in, 48–49
as source for later fiction, 38
Diritti della Scuola, I, 33
“Domestiche” (Morante), 34
Donna, Una (Aleramo), 81–82
“Donna Amalia” (Morante), 140–41
Donne senza nome (film), 95–96
Don Quixote (Cervantes), 74
Don Quixote (type), 61, 127
Dos Passos, John, 181
Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 98, 183
“Dream and Life” (Irma Morante), 29
Edwards, William, 161, 162
Einaudi, Giulio, 57, 139–40
Einaudi, Ida, 216
Einaudi (publishing house), 38n, 83, 145
El Almendral, Spain, 197, 203, 206
Elkann, Alain, 55, 226
Elsa Morante: Complete Works, 2, 224
Elsa’s Room (exhibition catalogue), 225
Emmer, Luciano, 95
Espresso, L’, 169
family, in EM’s fiction, 35
Fascism, Fascists, 31, 175
Moravia on, 61–62, 92
“Fidanzati, I” (Morante), 32
First Edition Society, 195–96
“First in Her Class” (Morante), 34
Foa, Vittorio, 169
Fofi, Goffredo, 160, 213
Fontana, Luca, 176
“For or against the Atomic
Bomb” (Morante), 170
Freud, Sigmund, 38
Game of Gentlemen, 25
game-playing, 25–26, 102, 147, 165, 215
Garboli, Cesare, 122, 136n, 224
on “The Andalusian Shawl,” 140
on EM’s aging, 179–80
on EM’s character, 141, 217
on EM’s literary reputation, 223
EM’s philosophical argument with, 173–74
on EM’s poetry, 149
on History, 185n, 194
on House of Liars, 82–83
Garibaldi, Anita, 20
Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 19, 21
Garolla, Federico, 224
Germany Year Zero (film), 90
Ginsberg, Allen, 1
32, 171
Ginzburg, Natalia, 81, 82–83, 85, 107, 130–31, 133, 155
on editing House of Liars, 83–84
History reviewed by, 188
Gioco segreto, Il (Morante), 35, 140
“Gioco segreto, Il” (Morante), 26, 141
Giorgione da Castelfranco, 197
Girotti, Massimo, 103
Giuseppe (cat), 112
Gonzaga, Donna Maria Guerrieri, 8, 15
Irma’s demands on, 27–28
“Good-bye” (Morante), 171
Gospel According to St. Matthew, The (film), 154–55
Gramsci, Antonio, 181
Grand Meaulnes, Le (Alain-Fournier), 122
Graziosi, Paolo, 160
Graziosi, Stella, 160, 218
Great Depression, 31
Greenburger, Sanford, 85
Guttuso, Renato, 54
Hamlet (type), 61, 127
Hartman, Peter, 157, 159, 160, 166
Henze, Hans Werner, 150–51
History (Morante), 2, 17, 68–69, 134, 138, 175–77, 179, 180–87, 214, 223
critical reaction to, 188–90, 193–94
EM’s introduction to First Edition Society edition of, 195–96
Garboli on, 185n, 194
RAI broadcast of, 224
U.S. publication of, 192–94
Hitler, Adolf, 31, 53
Hochhuth, Rolf, 158
Hofmann, Paul, 177
Holocaust, 54
Homer, 134, 177–78
homosexuals, homosexuality:
EM’s attraction to, 161–62
of Pasolini, 146, 154
Horst, Horst P., 103
House of Liars (Morante), 38, 48, 58, 66, 73–87, 122, 140, 151, 181, 220
critical response to, 80, 86–87, 97