Much admired in Europe, Landolfi has been called the Italian Kafka; he is often linked with the Surrealists, and in the intellectual quality of his fantasy there are certain affinities with Borges; but beyond these superficial comparisons, his is a truly unique--and fascinating--art. It is based in a prodigious imagination, a very curious sense of humor and a rare command of irony.
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Much admired in Europe, Landolfi has been called the Italian Kafka; he is often linked with the Surrealists, and in the intellectual quality of his fantasy there are certain affinities with Borges; but beyond these superficial comparisons, his is a truly unique--and fascinating--art. It is based in a prodigious imagination, a very curious sense of humor and a rare command of irony.
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New York. 1963. December 1963. New Directions. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. Translated from the Italian by Raymond Rosenthal. John Longrigg & Wayland Young. 183 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by David Ford. keywords: Literature Translated Italy. FROM THE PUBLISHER-The title story in this collection is claimed by its narrator to be a chapter in his biography of the Russian writer, Nikolai Gogol. He begins by saying he knows some intimate details of Gogol's life and that as his biographer he feels obligated to reveal them, though as his friend he might have kept all this to himself. After setting the reader up for some perhaps prurient ‘facts, ' the narrator tells us that Gogol's wife was a life-sized balloon, anatomically correct and quite voluptuous. Claiming to be the only person besides Gogol who has ever seen this creation, the narrator goes on to tell us an occasion where he heard her speak. He describes how she developed her own personality, in spite of the fact that she was a balloon, and that she even contracted syphilis, which subsequently infected Gogol. The narrator and Gogol are celebrating the silver anniversary of Gogol and his wife when the novelist gets insanely irritated with her, inserts a bicycle pump into her, and inflates her until she explodes. Gogol then throws the rubber pieces into the fire (much as he had burned his manuscripts earlier). He also throws into the fire a balloon baby boy. The story closes with the narrator again defending his position of biographer, providing the truth about Gogol to the reader. inventory #15414.
The title story is one of the best short stories of our time--Magical Realism, Kafka, Gogol all rolled into one by a reclusive Italian master. A world unfolds before us of impossible relationships, unspeakable sins that whisper their name, the whole spectrum of human. subhuman, and pseudohuman behavior.