I was able to reach an intermediate level in Italian after 6 months of study, which was very satisfying. But then the question was what to do next and I didn't have much of a plan. I had read a couple of books by then and enjoyed the experience, but they were spy novels, because that was easy for me to read.
20th century track
It was around this time I was in the library one day and I stumbled upon Introduction to Twentieth Century Italian Literature by Robert Gordon. It hadn't been my goal in learning Italian to use it for literature, but here was a very practical guide that gives you a great overview of the most important works. I recommend the book; it has a thematic presentation so if you want to read about war, there's a chapter on books about that, if you want gender issues there's one for that etc.
Inspired, I read Gordon's guide making a note of every book that seemed interesting. It was clear that it was going to take quite a while to read all those books, but I wasn't in a hurry. And I thought what better way to learn about the Italian identity while simultaneously expanding my knowledge of the language.
It turned out to be a worthwhile pursuit, both culturally and linguistically. These books basically cover the 20th century canon (if it isn't too early to use a big word like that). I've added a couple of my own, but for the most part they are from the guide.
| 1904 |
Il fu Mattia Pascal ~ Luigi Pirandello |
| 1913 |
La persuasione e la rettorica ~ Carlo Michelstaedter |
| 1922 |
Enrico IV ~ Luigi Pirandello |
| 1923 |
La coscienza di Zeno ~ Italo Svevo |
| 1929 |
Gli indifferenti ~ Alberto Moravia |
| 1933 |
Fontamara ~ Ignazio Silone |
| 1940 |
Il deserto dei Tartari ~ Dino Buzzati |
| 1941 |
Conversazione in Sicilia ~ Elio Vittorini |
| 1945 |
Cristo si è fermato a Eboli ~ Carlo Levi |
| 1947 |
Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno ~ Italo Calvino |
| 1947 |
Se questo è un uomo ~ Primo Levi |
| 1948 |
La casa in collina ~ Cesare Pavese |
| 1951 |
Il conformista ~ Alberto Moravia |
| 1953 |
Il mare non bagna Napoli ~ Anna Maria Ortese |
| 1957 |
Il barone rampante ~ Italo Calvino |
| 1958 |
Il Gattopardo ~ Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa |
| 1961 |
Il giorno della civetta ~ Leonardo Sciascia |
| 1963 |
Lessico famigliare ~ Natalia Ginzburg |
| 1963 |
Il consiglio d'Egitto ~ Leonardo Sciascia |
| 1963 |
La speculazione edilizia ~ Italo Calvino |
| 1964 |
Apocalittici e integrati ~ Umberto Eco |
| 1964 |
Morte dell'inquisitore ~ Leonardo Sciascia |
| 1965 |
Le cosmicomiche ~ Italo Calvino |
| 1965 |
Lettera a una professoressa ~ Lorenzo Milani |
| 1968 |
L'avventura di un povero cristiano ~ Ignazio Silone |
| 1971 |
Il contesto ~ Leonardo Sciascia |
| 1972 |
Le città invisibili ~ Italo Calvino |
| 1974 |
Todo modo ~ Leonardo Sciascia |
| 1975 |
Il sistema periodico ~ Primo Levi |
| 1975 |
Lettera a un bambino mai nato ~ Oriana Fallaci |
| 1978 |
L'affaire Moro ~ Leonardo Sciascia |
| 1979 |
Centuria ~ Giorgio Manganelli |
| 1979 |
Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore ~ Italo Calvino |
| 1980 |
Il nome della rosa ~ Umberto Eco |
| 1987 |
Gli invisibili ~ Nanni Balestrini |
| 1989 |
Due di due ~ Andrea De Carlo |
| 1989 |
Una storia semplice ~ Leonardo Sciascia |
| 1991 |
Cose di Cosa Nostra ~ Giovanni Falcone |
| 1993 |
Oceano Mare ~ Alessandro Baricco |
| 1996 |
Seta ~ Alessandro Baricco |
| 2001 |
Io non ho paura ~ Niccolò Ammaniti |
| 2002 |
Montedidio ~ Erri De Luca |
Reading all these books is well and good, but how would I know if it's "working"? Well, for one thing, reading books by many different authors, on various topics, and from different periods, ought to make it plain that I have certain blind spots if I have them.
Historical track
But I wanted to raise the bar and read some older works too, going right back to Dante, basically the gold standard of Italian literature. This would truly validate my strategy and answer the question of whether the 20th century reading was teaching me enough. It would also make my reading more well rounded.
| 1293 |
Vita Nuova ~ Dante Alighieri |
| 1304 |
Divina Commedia ~ Dante Alighieri |
| 1513 |
Il principe ~ Niccolò Machiavelli |
| 1531 |
Discorsi sulla prima deca di Tito Livio ~ Niccolò Machiavelli |
| 1827 |
I promessi sposi ~ Alessandro Manzoni |
| 1881 |
I Malavoglia ~ Giovanni Verga |
| 1881 |
Le avventure di Pinocchio ~ Carlo Collodi |
| 1889 |
Il piacere ~ Gabriele d'Annunzio |
| 1894 |
I viceré ~ Federico De Roberto |
My selection here is less deliberate, because I didn't research the topic as much. I suppose I could do the same here, starting with the well known Storia della letteratura italiana by Francesco De Sanctis to get an overview of what there is to read and then make a selection. But since I'm more motivated by language than literature I was more curious to see how far back in time I could go and still read the books and I'm fairly satisfied with what I've covered. Besides, much of the influential early literature in Italian is poetry (eg. Petrarca), and I don't particularly care for that.
Conclusions
So there you have it, a successful strategy and a nice way to spend the time. It took me about two years and while not every book was a hit, doing a broad survey like this put me onto many authors I would otherwise have dismissed because they didn't seem like my thing. And if you are picking from a guide like this, even blindly, you can be reasonably confident that a certain amount of effort went into producing it, so you're unlikely to encounter complete garbage.
January 28th, 2012
January 27th, 2012
January 18th, 2012
