Pirandello (1867-1936) published ‘Il Fu Mattia Pascal’ in 1904, three decades before he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. I read the 1964 translation by William Weaver.

The novel was written shortly after the Pirandello family were bankrupted, causing his wife’s mental collapse. But it successfully established his literary reputation.

As it begins, Mattia Pascal is writing this very work himself, in a neglected library where he was formerly employed as librarian.

He relates how, following his father’s death, his family are cheated out of their property by his manager, Malagna.

Malagna goes on to marry Oliva, the woman Pascal loves, who is bearing Pascal’s child.

His own subsequent marriage to Romilda is unhappy: his live-in mother-in-law loathes him and his twin baby daughters die in infancy.

Despairing, he runs away to Monte Carlo where he wins a small fortune in the casino. Then he learns from a newspaper that he is believed dead – his wife and mother-in-law have wrongly identified the body of a drowned suicide as his own – and he seizes the opportunity to start a new life.

After a period of travelling, he settles in Rome, renting rooms under the assumed name of Adriano Meis.

But he comes to realise that this new-found freedom is illusory: he is compelled to resort to disguise and falsehood, constantly afraid that contact with the authorities will reveal his true identity.

When part of his winnings are stolen, and having fallen in love with his landlord’s daughter, Adriana, he fakes his death a second time, deserting her in the process.

But, upon returning home, he discovers that Romilda has married his erstwhile friend and they now have their own baby daughter.

So, describing himself as ‘the late Mattia Pascal’, he retires to live with his elderly aunt, occasionally visiting his own grave while continuing these memoirs in the library.

I found it very difficult to ‘get inside’ this novel, having to read the opening chapters two or three times before I could internalise the narrative and grasp the conceit. But, eventually, I became attuned to Pirandello’s register and began to enjoy the book.

Two episodes in particular are powerfully realised: the scene where Pascal is betting at the roulette wheel in the casino; and a farcical seance, conducted in darkness, under cover of which Pascal/Meis declares his love for Adriana.

TD

July 2024