La prima cosa che mi sento di dire riguardo a Racconto d'autunno è che non sembra un libro scritto da un autore italiano. So che suona come una cretinata o l'inizio di una tirata lagnosa contro i vizi degli italici scrittori, ma lasciatemi spiegare.

Racconto d'autunno è un vero e proprio fulmine a ciel sereno nella letteratura italiana. Nessuno di noi si stupirebbe nel vederlo accanto a Dracula di Bram Stoker: invece, è del 1946, quando un libro ambientato durante la Seconda Guerra Mondiale non finiva certo per raccontare di una casa piena di misteri (neanche oggi a dirla tutta, ma questa non è una tirata lagnosa contro i vizi degli italici scrittori).

Un'altra cosa che vorrei dire è che Tommaso Landolfi è uno dei maggiori scrittori italiani del Novecento. Sorpresi? Io sì, perché, prima di imbattermi in Racconto d'autunno, non avevo neanche mai sentito parlare di questo autore. Tra l'altro è stato un autore estremamente prolifico, con romanzi, poesie e racconti, oltre alle sue traduzioni. Com'è che la scuola italiana si è dimenticata di lui e non racconta ai suoi studenti che nel Novecento c'è stato anche un tale Tommaso Landolfi?

Vorrei anche dirvi che leggere Racconto d'autunno è stata un'esperienza esaltante per l'amante della lingua italiana che vive in me. Landolfi does it better, mi verrebbe quasi da dire. In Racconto d'autunno ho percepito proprio come ogni romanzo sia costruito con mattoni non casuali di parole. Sì, sembra la scoperta dell'acqua calda, ma in mondo pieno di scrittori dilettanti allo sbaraglio che pensano di scrivere capolavori infilando parole a caso una dietro l'altra, direi che ci siamo dimenticati anche degli elementi più basilari. Infatti, se – forse – il caso domina le vite degli esseri umani, di certo non può dominare nella letteratura, almeno per Landolfi.

Per quanto riguarda la trama, non vi ho raccontato quasi niente, né ho intenzione di approfondire. Racconto d'autunno è uno di quei libri che è meglio leggere che raccontare. C'è un'aura di mistero, inquietudine e desiderio di saperne di più che va indagata pagina dopo pagina. ( )

Tales of obsession and the grotesque combined with the Gothic, anyone? If you enjoy such stories as those penned by Edgar Allen Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Thomas Legotti, and Jorge Luis Borges, you are in for a real treat with this Tommaso Landolfi love story, perhaps the most bizarre love story I’ve ever encountered, a much overlooked classic published as part of the prestigious Eridanos Library, the only novel by the author to be translated into English.

Landolfi has been referred to as “that Italian weirdo” which contains a modicum of truth since much of the author’s fiction is as weird as weird can be. For example, in his short story The Labrenas, an aristocratic first person narrator relates how he has always been terrified at the prospect of an invasion by small reptilian creatures, labrenas, overrunning his house. One pitch-black night, while settling down for sleep, he imagines the labrenas approaching; he falls into such a physical paralysis his family takes him for dead and arranges his funeral. Once in the casket downstairs in the parlor (all through this ordeal, he has maintained full awareness), he is driven mad – a labrena has found a way to sneak into his casket so it can scrutinize him face-to-face with its round, bulging, glittering eyes.

Gogol’s Wife tells the tale of how the wife of Nikolai Gogol is not a woman at all, or, for that matter, a human being; rather Nikolai Gogol’s wife is a life-size inflatable flesh-colored rubber doll, nude in all seasons. Things goes well for the couple, at least for a time, before Nikolai Vasilyevich becomes progressively more disgusted and agitated with his wife who refuses to conduct herself in a gentile manner, even when entertaining house guests.

With the tale Uxoricide another aristocrat tells us how easy it is to murder people – case in point, he explains in exquisite detail how he murdered his wife by gagging her and binding her to a chair before engaging in a perfectly rational conversation outlining her faults and shortcomings, a conversation where all she could offer, by way of modest objection, was a constant, obnoxious “Mmmmmm” before succumbing to a massive heart attack.

And lastly, in Cancerqueen yet again another aristocrat recaps his boredom on earth leading him to join a half-mad space explorer blasting off in a rocket ship. Joris-Karl Huysmans’ novel of French decadence Against Nature meets Star Trek – wildly weird in the extreme.

Turning now to An Autumn Story, in a mountainous forest in Italy, fleeing both rebel and foreign troops, the narrator, a soldier, seeks refuge in a centuries-old isolated mansion inhabited by an aging reclusive aristocrat and his two huge wolfhounds. But the old man’s crumbling home contains much more, the entire atmosphere of this dark labyrinthine mansion is bathed in the gloomy Gothic. And there’s something even more foreboding – an unseen mysterious presence. It’s as if Tommaso Landolfi took his usual fistful of weirdness from his tales and spread it throughout this novel, creating what could be seen as a fresh combination: the weird Gothic.

Although the narrator first approaches the hidden mansion as a desperate, fatigued, half-starved soldier, we come to learn he also possesses the heart of both an aristocrat and a romantic poet. In his initial exploration of the rooms from the outside, peering through the large, iron-grilled windows at two wolfhounds with ferocious faces, we read: “I thought I noticed something desperate deep in the eyes of the hounds, and my agitated nerves made me detect that same desperation in their howling, almost as if they were miserable creatures or souls in torment, bound to that place by some cruel spell.”

Insanity, madness, obsession, sorcery, spirit possession play their part in this Landolfi tale but more than anything, all one-hundred-fifty pages are coated with a haunting atmosphere, a most peculiar brooding tinged with menace. At one point, the narrator contemplates a portrait of a woman on the wall in a downstairs dinning room. After describing her clothing and jewelry, her haughty bearing and pale skin and delicate features, he observes: “However, the most vivid and disturbing element was her huge dark eyes. Their deep gaze seemed to have the same character as the old man’s gaze and, hence, that of the dogs: It was animated by the same gloom, indeed a more imperious one, and, simultaneously, by the same remote and pitiable bewilderment, if not desperation.”

For Italo Calvino the first rule of the game in reading Tommaso Landolfi is to expect a surprise that will rarely be pleasant or soothing. Curiously, from what I have written above, you might not think An Autumn Story could be a love story. But it is a love story. How the love story unfolds is the surprise.


Tommaso Landolfi (1908-1979) – Italian author, translator and aristocrat par excellence. Susan Sontag considered Landolfi’s fiction a cross between Jorge Luis Borges and Isak Dinesen. ( )

Era alcunché come uno zendado o un amoerro, un pezzo infine di stoffa preziosa….

Confesso che il significato di ‘zendado’ e di ‘amoerro’ mi era ignoto. Certo la lingua di Landolfi è desueta, ma, sorprendentemente, per nulla faticosa, anzi di un’eleganza avvolgente e con il retrogusto prezioso di tutto ciò che è perduto per sempre.
La storia è, per quattro quinti, avvincente e ciò che più meraviglia è il crescendo di tensione di capitolo in capitolo benché, in sostanza, succeda poco o nulla. Il necessario scioglimento dell’azione non mi ha invece persuaso. Troppi ingredienti (morbosità, malattia, amore, violenza di guerra) e l’impressione di un ché di posticcio per venirne fuori. Ma la scrittura di Landolfi è davvero una bella scoperta. ( )

FINAL REVIEW


Tommaso Landolfi (1908-1979) – Italian author, translator and aristocrat par excellence. Susan Sontag considered Landolfi’s fiction a cross between Jorge Luis Borges and Isak Dinesen.

Tales of obsession and the grotesque combined with the Gothic, anyone? If you enjoy such stories as those penned by Edgar Allen Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Thomas Legotti, and Jorge Luis Borges, you are in for a real treat with this Tommaso Landolfi love story, perhaps the most bizarre love story I’ve ever encountered, a much overlooked classic published as part of the prestigious Eridanos Library, the only novel by the author to be translated into English.

Landolfi has been referred to as “that Italian weirdo” which contains a modicum of truth since much of the author’s fiction is as weird as weird can be. For example, in his short story “The Labrenas” an aristocratic first person narrator relates how he has always been terrified at the prospect of an invasion by small reptilian creatures, labrenas, overrunning his house. One pitch-black night, while settling down for sleep, he imagines the labrenas approaching; he falls into such a physical paralysis his family takes him for dead and arranges his funeral. Once in the casket downstairs in the parlor (all through this ordeal, he has maintained full awareness), he is driven mad – a labrena has found a way to sneak into his casket so it can scrutinize him face-to-face with its round, bulging, glittering eyes.

“Gogol’s Wife” tells the tale of how the wife of Nikolai Gogol is not a woman at all, or, for that matter, a human being; rather Nikolai Gogol’s wife is a life-size inflatable flesh-colored rubber doll, nude in all seasons. Things goes well for the couple, at least for a time, before Nikolai Vasilyevich becomes progressively more disgusted and agitated with his wife who refuses to conduct herself in a gentile manner, even when entertaining house guests.

With the tale “Uxoricide” another aristocratic narrator tells us how easy it is to murder people – case in point, he explains in exquisite detail how he murdered his wife by gagging her and binding her to a chair before engaging in a perfectly rational conversation outlining her faults and shortcomings, a conversation where all she could offer, by way of modest objection, was a constant, obnoxious “Mmmmmm” before succumbing to a massive heart attack.

And lastly, in “Cancerqueen” yet again another aristocratic first person narrator recaps his boredom on earth leading him to join a half-mad space explorer blasting off in a rocket ship. Joris-Karl Huysmans’ novel of French decadence “Against Nature” meets Star Trek – wildly weird in the extreme.

Turning now to “An Autumn Story,” a mountainous forest in Italy, fleeing both rebel and foreign troops, the narrator, a soldier, seeks refuge in a centuries-old isolated mansion inhabited by an aging reclusive aristocrat and his two huge wolfhounds. But the old man’s crumbling home contains much more, the entire atmosphere of this dark labyrinthine mansion is bathed in the gloomy Gothic. And there’s something even more foreboding – an unseen mysterious presence. It’s as if Tommaso Landolfi took his usual fistful of weirdness from his tales and spread it throughout this novel, creating what could be seen as a fresh combination: the weird Gothic.

Although the narrator first approaches the hidden mansion as a desperate, fatigued, half-starved soldier, we come to learn he also possesses the heart of both an aristocrat and a romantic poet. In his initial exploration of the rooms from the outside, peering through the large, iron-grilled windows at two wolfhounds with ferocious faces, we read: “I thought I noticed something desperate deep in the eyes of the hounds, and my agitated nerves made me detect that same desperation in their howling, almost as if they were miserable creatures or souls in torment, bound to that place by some cruel spell.”

Insanity, madness, obsession, sorcery, spirit possession play their part in this Landolfi tale but more than anything, all one-hundred-fifty pages are coated with a haunting atmosphere, a most peculiar brooding tinged with menace. At one point, the narrator contemplates a portrait of a woman on the wall in a downstairs dinning room. After describing her clothing and jewelry, her haughty bearing and pale skin and delicate features, he observes: “However, the most vivid and disturbing element was her huge dark eyes. Their deep gaze seemed to have the same character as the old man’s gaze and, hence, that of the dogs: It was animated by the same gloom, indeed a more imperious one, and, simultaneously, by the same remote and pitiable bewilderment, if not desperation.”

For Italo Calvino the first rule of the game in reading Tommaso Landolfi is to expect a surprise that will rarely be pleasant or soothing. Curiously, from what I have written above, you might not think “An Autumn Story” could be a love story. But it is a love story. How the love story unfolds is the surprise.
( )

The narrator of this war-time tale is a fugitive. As the novella opens the narrator is being chased and after going further and further into forest clad ravines that are foreign and strange to him he encounters an eerie mansion in the woods. He explores around the grounds and almost immediately encounters two ferocious wolfhounds. Ultimately an old man appears and lets him enter. The strangeness of the place grows slowly with the fugitive narrator soon feeling that the house itself was alive:
"Climbing over a mountain, the sun had finally reached the window. But the window seemed, if I may put it this way, surprised and annoyed by that torrent of light. Every single object appeared virtually stupefied--I might almost say: bewildered." (36)
The fugitive is allowed to stay by the old man and later he has a chance to explore "every nook and cranny of the place." His exploration leads him to a room with a large portrait of a woman that almost instantly mesmerizes him. He describes the portrait in detail but finds "the most vivid and disturbing element was her huge, dark eyes. Their deep gaze seemed to have the same character as the old man's gaze and, hence, that of the dogs: It was animated by the same gloom, indeed a more imperious one, and, simultaneously, by the same remote and pitiable bewilderment,if not desperation. The common character, therefore had to be due to a more subtle kinship than that of blood, if man and beast were on a par here. And yet her gaze spoke on infinity of other languages to the senses and the heart! Her eyes seemed intensely magnetic, and I was unable to look away."(45-46)

This is only one third of the way into the story, and the mysteries continue to build as the fugitive has further encounters with the presence of this eldritch place at the edge of the world. The motifs of eyes, gazes, gloom, and disturbance abound as the enigmatic experiences of the fugitive heighten the tension. We gradually learn more about the background of the old man, and more about his strange mansion, and the discovery of a woman in the mansion:
"Curling, twisting, thickening, the smoke gave way to a large female figure emerging from the brazier. Hovering in mid-air, the figure still vaguely undulated all over, but then coagulated, rapidly fixing into a precise image, with alternate streams of light, or rather smoke, pouring through it. As if the smoke were the figure's visible blood." (103)
Whether this is a dream or reality the women of this strange place become just another piece of the mystery. For just as the fugitive searches following paths are compared to the "thread of Ariadne", the reality of the place and its inhabitant(s) come into question. The catastatis of the narrative provides complexities sufficient to make this one of the most competent novellas of its kind. That is a story of adventure, Eros, and mystery combined with a deeper sense of the spirit of the unknown.
The author, Tommaso Landolfi has justly been compared to Poe, but I found the eeriness of the story more subtle than most tales by Poe. This story was tinged with the aura of Kafka and Borges making it a rich reading experience that rewards those who love the unusual in literature. ( )