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Paperback That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana Book

ISBN: 1590172221

ISBN13: 9781590172223

Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana

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Format: Paperback

Condition: Like New

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Book Overview

In a large apartment house in central Rome, two crimes are committed within a matter of days- a burglary, in which a good deal of money and precious jewels are taken, and a murder, as a young woman whose husband is out of town is found with her throat cut. Called in to investigate, melancholy Detective Ciccio, a secret admirer of the murdered woman and a friend of her husband's, discovers that almost everyone in the apartment building is somehow involved in the case, and with each new development the mystery only deepens and broadens. Gadda's sublimely different detective story presents a scathing picture of fascist Italy while tracking the elusiveness of the truth, the impossibility of proof, and the infinite complexity of the workings of fate, showing how they come into conflict with the demands of justice and love. Italo Calvino, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Alberto Moravia all considered That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana to be the great modern Italian novel. Unquestionably, it is a work of universal significance and protean genius- a rich social novel, a comic opera, an act of political resistance, a blazing feat of baroque wordplay, and a haunting story of life and death.

Customer Reviews

3 customer ratings | 3 reviews

Rated 5 stars
A wonderfully baroque novel.

A philosophical novel...murder mystery, this baroque, caustic, and ultimately poignant work has been lauded by no less than Italo Calvino, whose introduction alone is worth the cover price. Carlo Emilio Gadda--in this and in his only other published novel, _Acquainted With Grief_--concerned himself with the exploration of the interrelatedness of things, the never-ending, kaleidoscopic complexities of life, the myriad,...

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Rated 5 stars
A Feast of Languages, but also the Ultimate Whodunit

It is a great, original, learned, creative, enthralling novel; yes, sure. But it is also a masterpiece of the detective-story genre it its own right. A bold experiment with languages, but also a grandiose fresco of what life in the capital of Italy was like in the early years of Fascism. And a deformed picture of what Italy has been until a few years ago--and probably still is. Maybe detective Ingravallo, the police...

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Rated 5 stars
One of the best italian modern books.

The book, that is not complete, is about a misterious murder in a middle-class house in Rome just after the rise of fascism. The style of the author is immaginific, resembling baroque. Unfortunately, I think that is very difficult to preserve in an english version the richness of different words in regional italian slang. So, please, read it in italian!!

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