Carlo Emilio Gadda (1893-1973) is an Italian writer of the 20th century. He belongs to the tradition of the language innovators, writers that played with the somewhat stiff standard pre-war Italian language, and added elements of dialects, technical jargon and wordplay. Another writer that did this was the nobleman Tommaso Landolfi.

Gadda was a practising engineer from Milan, and he both loved and hated his job. Critics have compared him to other writers with a scientific background, such as Primo Levi, Robert Musil and Thomas Pynchon--a similar spirit of exactitude pervades some of Gadda's books.

Carlo Emilio Gadda was born in Milan in 1893, and he was always intensely Milanese, although late in his life Florence and Rome also became an influence. Gadda's nickname is Il gran Lombardo, The Great Lombard: a reference to the famous lines 70-3 of Paradiso XVII, which predict the protection Dante would receive from Bartolomeo della Scala of Verona during his exile from Florence: "Lo primo tuo refugio e 'l primo ostello / sarà la cortesia del gran Lombardo / che 'n su la scala porta il santo uccello" (Your first refuge and inn shall be the courtesy of the great Lombard, who bears on the ladder the sacred bird).

Gadda's father died in 1909, leaving the family in reduced economic conditions; Gadda's mother, however, never tried to adopt a cheaper style of life. The paternal business ineptitude and the maternal obsession for keeping "face" and appearances turn up strongly in La cognizione del dolore.

He studied in Milan, and while studying at the Politecnico (a university specialized in engineering and architecture), he volunteered for World War I. During the war he was taken prisoner and his brother was killed in a plane--his brother's death features prominently in La cognizione del dolore.

After the war, in 1920, Gadda finally graduated. He practiced as an engineer until 1935, spending three of these years in Argentina. The country at that time was experiencing a booming economy, and Gadda used the experience for the fictional South American-cum-Brianza setting of La Cognizione del Dolore. After that, in the 1940s, he dedicated himself to literature. These were the years of fascism, that founnd him a grumbling and embittered pessimist. With age, his bitterness and misanthropy somewhat intensified--one of his less amiable tracts was misery.

Gadda kept writing until his death, in 1973. The most important critic of Gadda was Gianfranco Contini.

Bibliography

• La madonna dei filosofi, 1931
• Il castello di Udine, 1934
• Le meraviglie d'Italia, 1939
• Gli anni, 1943
• L'Adalgisa, 1944 short stories, set in Milan in a middle-high class environment
• Il primo libro delle favole, 1952 a collection of Italian Renaissance and Medieval folk tales
• Novelle dal ducato in fiamme, 1953
• I sogni e la folgore, 1955
• Giornale di guerra e di prigionia, 1955 this diary covers Gadda's years in World War I, including his military actions in the Passo Tonale area and his months as a prisoner in Austria.
• Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana, 1957 - translated as That Awful Mess on Via Merulana, this crime novel experiments heavily with language, borrowing a great deal from several Italian dialects
• I viaggi e la morte, 1958
• Verso la Certosa, 1961
• Accoppiamenti giudiziosi, 1963
• La cognizione del dolore, 1963 translated as Acquainted with Grief. A large unfinished crime novel set in a fictitious South American country that is really the ^* area close to Milan. This is the book you have to read to form an opinion of Gadda. It touches all of the author's obsessions - some parts will have you laughing out loud.
• I Luigi di Francia, 1964 a curious summary of French history, through the distorting and corrosive outlook of the author
• Eros e Priapo, 1967 an analysis of Italian Fascism and of Italian fascination with Benito Mussolini. It explains Fascism as an essentially bourgeois movement.
• La meccanica, 1970 more ^* short stories, like the following books
• Novella seconda, 1971
• Meditazione milanese, 1974
• Le bizze del capitano in congedo, 1981
• Il palazzo degli ori, 1983
• Racconto italiano di ignoto del novecento, 1983
• Azoto e altri scritti di divulgazione scientifica, 1986 a collection of scientific prose
• Taccuino di Caporetto, 1991
• Opere, 1988-93

Gadda's complete works are available in the I Meridiani collection.

1893 births | 1973 deaths | Italian writers | Natives of Milan

Carlo Emilio Gadda | Carlo Emilio Gadda | Carlo Emilio Gadda | Carlo Emilio Gadda | Carlo Emilio Gadda