Iginio Ugo Tarchetti (1839–1869)

A young Milanese officer recalls the stormy year of love and hate for two women; one, Clara (light) passionately loved in a happy though troublesome because adulterous affair, and Fosca (dark), sick and monstrously ugly, who entangles him in a morbid net of dependence despite his profound physical and spiritual repugnance of her.

It's far from perfect, but it works. There is a mighty strain of psychological horror and morbidity typical of the Milanese "dishevelleds" (Scapigliati) to which show more Tarchetti belonged. Fosca is an amazing creation, unexplained and inexplicable, an emotional vampire and a physical threat, who poisons Giorgio's weakened soul and body. And yet she is far more than a witch and a monster, she has intelligence and exquisite sensitivity, and enormous strength, like those unkillable bugs who seem to revive after every crush of the heel. She is just as repellent, but changing moods and registers with unfailing cunning, she gets Giorgio to pity her, to forgive her, to accommodate her, to the point of agreeing to pretend to love her (she is expected to die any minute, so where's the harm in that). He tries to run away, she follows like a haunting nightmare, and finally gives away her passion in public, precipitating Giorgio's duel with her cousin. The night before the duel Giorgio, who has been abandoned by Clara, goes to Fosca, who forces him to make love to her. Tarchetti died before writing out the sketched "night of passion", the book was completed by his friend Salvatore Farina. I believe Tarchetti would have given it more zest, more madness; it still reads like a sketch. Nevertheless, because of Fosca, sufficient and whole in her desperate yearning, the story itself feels complete. show less

So much about this book is risible, though Tarchetti seems in dead earnest. So is his narrator, Giorgio,although no one who takes pains to tell us how preternaturally sensitive a soul he is is likely to have a large store of humour. And deathly serious as well is Fosca, the invalid with whom Giorgio becomes entangled. Their relationship, the subject of the novel, is the result of Giorgio's declaring his love to Fosca.

He does this, though he finds her repellent (too skinny), after a doctor show more tells him that if he does not do so, Fosca will die. (He finds consolation in the doctor's subsequent warning that their 'love' must remain unconsummated, as, once again, Fosca would otherwise die. Later still the doctor issues another alert: If Fosca doesn't die soon, Giorgio must instead die of the same contagious strain of hysteria. Giorgio is too occupied with agonising to tell us whether the doctor was finally removed from the register.) If you were to imagine a parody of a Decadent novel narrated by a parody of a Romantic hero you might imagine something a bit like this book. It can't be excused as a product of its time--it must have seemed silly in 1869--and Tarchetti isn't accomplished enough a writer to get away with it: He's no Zola and this is no Therese Racquin, no over-heated melodrama that is redeemed by good atmospheric writing.

What makes the book of more than historical interest is Fosca herself. I can't at the moment remember another fictional character so monstrous as she. Clinging, hysterical, utterly selfish, manipulative, demanding, she's credible--and therefore hateful--partly because in her case as opposed to the narrator's Tarchetti does a good job of showing what she's like rather than telling us and partly, no doubt, because her traits are merely an exaggeration of ones we've all seen in everyday life. A perfect villain (though I'm not at all sure that that's how Tarchetti intended the reader to regard her) and a memorable character. It's because of her that the book was worth reading.

Venuti, the translator of the Oneworld edition I read, interjects slangy modern American phrases into well-researched 19th-century English (and gives his reason for doing so, my translation of which is 'I dumbed it down for the American market'). So be prepared to tack from 'I was utterly in want of love; when one is unloved, vanity lacks any reason to exist. . . .' to 'Time flies when you're having fun.'

(A fair while after writing that much I came across a credible post saying that the novel was actually a satirical take on an Itailan literary movement of the period that apparently emboldened those who would write the likes of Decadent novels as told by Romantic heroes. In that case, Tarchetti most certainly does have a sense of humour & as well it's likely that the segments of the transaltion I found jarring were knowledgeably in the spirit of the book.) show less

Romanzo interessante, ma troppo estremo nei sentimenti per piacermi davvero. La prima parte, con la descrizione della nascita dell’amore tra Giorgio e Clara, mi ha annoiato parecchio. Con l’arrivo di Fosca, quando le cose cominciano a diventare forse un po’ più gotiche, ho provato maggiore interesse, ma non più di tanto. Fosca mi ha incuriosita moltissimo, e mi ha anche affascinato, ma il suo amore per Giorgio mi è sembrato alla fine, tutto sommato, banale come quello di Clara.
Sono show more contenta comunque di aver scoperto questo autore e questa corrente della letteratura italiana che ignoravo.

http://www.naufragio.it/iltempodileggere/18019 show less

Iginio (or Igino) Ugo Tarchetti (1839 – 1869) was a journalist and author, a leading figure within the Scapigliatura movement. The Scapigliatura consisted of a like-minded group of Italian authors, musicians, painters and sculptors who, in the wake of the Risorgimento, sought to revitalise their country’s predominantly conservative culture. The literal meaning of “Scapigliato” is “dishevelled”, whereas “Scapigliatura” is equivalent to the French term “bohème” (bohemian). show more It was derived from the title of the novel La Scapigliatura e il 6 Febbraio by Cletto Arrighi, the pen-name of Carlo Righetti (1830-1906), one of the forerunners of the movement. The Scapigliati often sought to shock the Catholic establishment (whose authority had already been questioned, on the political front, by the ongoing upheavals in the newly-formed Italian state). To achieve their aims, they sought models outside the Italian tradition. While the musicians within the group (such as Arrigo Boito and Franco Faccio) looked towards Wagner, authors such as Tarchetti were influenced by the German Romantics (such as Heine and E.T.A. Hoffmann), the French Bohemians (such as Gautier) and the poetry of Charles Baudelaire. Another source of inspiration was Edgar Allan Poe.

The literature of the fantastic has illustrious antecedents in Italian literature. Indeed, Dante’s Divine Comedy, with its tour of Heaven, Purgatory and Hell, can be read as a work of supernatural – and in some aspects Gothic – fiction, and Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, with its sorcerers and fantastic creatures in an imagined East, is a worthy forerunner of Oriental Gothic. Yet, the resurgence of the literature of the weird and the fantastic in Italy owes much to the Scapigliati and their interest in works of figures such as Hoffmann and Poe.

In this regard, Tarchetti’s Racconti Fantastici, first published by Treves in 1869, is an important, not to say seminal, collection. Lawrence Venuti’s translation was first published by Mercury House in 1992, and is now being issued on Archipelago Books. Reading this collection, one detects two distinct currents in Tarchetti’s style. Some stories harken back to an earlier form of Gothic. This is the case, for instance, with The Legends of the Black Castle with its well-worn tropes of ruined castles and old clerics with mysterious histories. A Spirit in a Raspberry and A Dead Man’s Bone are, essentially, ghost stories where, once again, the Anglo-Saxon tradition of supernatural fiction is evident. The Lake of the Three Lampreys, “A Popular Tradition”, reminded me of the folklore-infused stories of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, but its “nature writing” and inevitably sinful monks are also close to Radcliffe. Nowhere is the influence of English Gothic more obvious than in The Elixir of Immortality. Tarchetti subtitles it “In Imitation of the English”. It is, in effect, a plagiarised version of Mary Shelley’s “The Mortal Immortal”.

The theme of “Fate” recurs in Tarchetti’s stories. Often, the protagonists battle against the vicissitudes of Fortune, with scant results. Fate can set some individuals on the course of tragedy (as in The Fated) but, in other cases, has a decidedly benevolent influence (Captain Gubart’s Fortune).

In other works, Tarchetti is particularly reminiscent of Poe. In Bouvard, the eponymous protagonist is haunted by his own ugliness, which keeps him from winning the love of his life. The conclusion of the story brims with morbid horror. Then there is what is possibly the most original story in the collection – The Letter U (A Madman’s Manuscript). When I started reading this tale about a man obsessed with the “evil” letter U, I smiled at this absurd, quasi-comic premise. By the end of it, I definitely felt uneasy.

Lawrence Venuti’s translation is excellent. The authenticity of the language he uses does not stem only from its faithfulness to the original but also from the fact that Venuti bases his style on that of the (English-speaking) Gothic authors of the nineteenth century. As a result, his prose, albeit flowing, has a slightly archaic feel to it which fits the subject perfectly.

Fantastic Tales is an enjoyable read, but it is also a window onto an as yet underappreciated era of Italian fiction.

Head to https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2020/06/fantastic-tales-by-iginio-ugo-tarchet... for an illustrated review with a playlist of Italian opera. show less