tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post2081651699198728590..comments2023-12-24T17:41:42.989-08:00Comments on seraillon: "Prouder than before to be human" - Paolo Mantegazza's Utopian Novel, The Year 3000. A Dream.seraillonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-86971053102138572762017-02-21T07:27:37.947-08:002017-02-21T07:27:37.947-08:00Thanks for the comment. I mention the new translat...Thanks for the comment. I mention the new translation of <i>Il Piacere</i> in my more recent post on D'Annunzio, as well as an even newer translation of <i>Notturno</i>. I'm not aware of other such translations in the pipeline, but at least some of the "prudish mutilation" appears to be getting remediation.seraillonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-58822572498266703472017-02-20T12:25:52.787-08:002017-02-20T12:25:52.787-08:00I beg to differ! Il Piacere was translated anew in...I beg to differ! Il Piacere was translated anew in 2013 by Lara Raffaelli for Penguin Classics - a most needed endeavour given the only translation then available was the prudishly mutilated one by Georgina Harding! <br />(Brilliant blog, btw!) Bertrandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03676406538698739300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-16888869592929409522016-02-19T07:35:49.094-08:002016-02-19T07:35:49.094-08:00Tamara from what I gather and recall, was nearly v...<i>Tamara</i> from what I gather and recall, was nearly void of anything of substance having to do with d'Annunzio or de Lempicka. It was, instead, all about the novelty of having the audience run around in a villa following a character to whom they were assigned. A meal was served at intermission. For Los Angeles, where it ran for <i>years</i>, it was the perfect popular production, allowing the audience to run around in a spectacular house and feel involved in the sordid affairs of celebrities without having to be bothered with a single thought. The best part of it by far was the house itself.seraillonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-13097154042531951612016-02-19T07:26:37.493-08:002016-02-19T07:26:37.493-08:00Great thanks - very helpful. I'll see what I c...Great thanks - very helpful. I'll see what I can find.seraillonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-2845539778810794232016-02-19T00:37:46.511-08:002016-02-19T00:37:46.511-08:00Also, I'm curious about the play Tamara. In P...Also, I'm curious about the play Tamara. In Paris, I saw a show of her work in which her letters to d'Annunzio were included. In one, she firmly refused an affair with him because she didn't want to take syphilis home to her husband, whom she rather liked. JLShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13228664476069932247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-20471295605623207182016-02-19T00:28:17.946-08:002016-02-19T00:28:17.946-08:00I suppose you have to do Il Piacere and L'inno...I suppose you have to do Il Piacere and L'innocente. They're not my favorites. Avoid all Georgina Harding translations because they were considerably "cleaned up" for English speaking readers. My favorite was the nasty little novel Giovanni Episcopo. One of his short stories, San Pantaleone,available in a collection of Italian short stories at Gutenberg, bears an uncanny resemblance to Suskind's Perfume.<br /><br /> JLShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13228664476069932247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-79696184011718684942016-02-18T20:46:49.098-08:002016-02-18T20:46:49.098-08:00Any particular d'Annunzio suggestions? I see a...Any particular d'Annunzio suggestions? I see at least half a dozen possibilities in English translation in the library here. seraillonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-69307380739909996702016-02-18T15:15:06.434-08:002016-02-18T15:15:06.434-08:00Tom, I hope Scott really picks up on your d'An...Tom, I hope Scott really picks up on your d'Annunzio prod. When you, Tom, were doing the Italians last year I hoped for some d'Annunzio, but alas. JLShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13228664476069932247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-71003825130246434702016-02-18T14:51:50.914-08:002016-02-18T14:51:50.914-08:00Strangely enough, in moving some books around last...Strangely enough, in moving some books around last night, out of one of them fell my "passport" to the 1980's interactive theater production of John Krizanc's <i>Tamara</i>, set at d'Annuzio's Lake Garda villa. It's about the closest I've yet come to knowing anything about the writer - and a rather poor means of becoming informed, from what I've gathered - so, Tom, I'll accept your kind nomination and will get over to the library promptly. seraillonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-26274410100019928012016-02-18T14:40:46.934-08:002016-02-18T14:40:46.934-08:00Scott is the perfect person to read some d'Ann...Scott is the perfect person to read some d'Annunzio and report back, right here on this very blog. I meant to read something by d'Annunzio last year, I swear I did, but it did not happen.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-66860475407809549282016-02-18T14:30:04.711-08:002016-02-18T14:30:04.711-08:00On d'Annunzio . . .yes, agreed but "once ...On d'Annunzio . . .yes, agreed but "once was." If one has access to a good library with a big collection of old stuff, d'Annunzio can be found. But for new glittery translations . . .not much. <br /><br />Accepting arguments concerning the quality of his prose, the quality of his politics, the quality of his love life, it's shallow to teach Italian Literature without a look at his body of work. One book and a poetry or two collection, just doesn't reflect what d'Annuzio was to Italian Literature. I, regularly, beat a drum on this topic, apparently to a non-existent audience. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> JLShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13228664476069932247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-4857407202551657482016-02-18T08:04:32.179-08:002016-02-18T08:04:32.179-08:00Poor Italians, they get their Unification and stil...Poor Italians, they get their Unification and still everything goes wrong.<br /><br />I'll note that there is - or perhaps more accurately once was - lots of d'Annunzio in English. His novels, especially. He had some best-sellers.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-50597496420072318322016-02-16T12:25:45.636-08:002016-02-16T12:25:45.636-08:00The flip side of Mantegazza's charming Italo-c...The flip side of Mantegazza's charming Italo-centrism is that he has blinders on when it comes to the rest of the world. And it's fairly astonishing that of Italian writers, he only mentions (aside from a handful from Roman antiquity) Dante, Carlo Porta, and d'Annunzio. <br /><br />I should have mentioned a bit more about Mantegazza's own ostensible aesthetics as displayed in <i>The Year 3000</i>. The architecture of Andropolis sounds rather austere and Neo-classical, and the capital features a few immense, symbolic and unbelievably kitsch statues that might not look out of place in North Korea.seraillonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-44817912466833522852016-02-14T09:58:25.169-08:002016-02-14T09:58:25.169-08:00“a period that also witnessed the nadir of Italian...“a period that also witnessed the nadir of Italian literature as decadent writers produced an “epidemic of Preraphaelitism, of the superhuman, that affected very high and powerful minds.” As an example, the narrator offers Gabriel d’Annunzio, who, instead of being “one of the great masters,” became “merely a great neurasthenic of Italian literature.” <br /><br />Interesting observation, of course, but the “epidemic of Preraphaelitism, of the superhuman, that affected very high and powerful minds” was a European phenomenon not just an Italian one. Freud, symbolists, syphilis, femme fatale, Schnitzler, Rodenbach, Munch, Maeterlinck, Berg . . .and all sorts of other key words. Oddly enough, the only source denied English only readers is d’Annunzio. <br /><br />JLShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13228664476069932247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-88564461871844776512016-02-13T18:20:47.087-08:002016-02-13T18:20:47.087-08:00For anyone interested in utopian literature, The Y...For anyone interested in utopian literature, <i>The Year 3000</i> is absolutely a must read. As an example of that genre, this is a real treat, one that - as the outstanding introduction notes - seems to operate at a level of imagination quite a bit more developed than most other utopian works of its time. seraillonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-83415231678927558922016-02-13T18:16:45.926-08:002016-02-13T18:16:45.926-08:00In this case, Jacqui, I found it in my favorite wa...In this case, Jacqui, I found it in my favorite way: it was on the shelf in the library in the vicinity of something else I was seeking.<br /><br />The body suit is fitted with thousands of tiny metallic stimulators that can provide different textures and pressures. I'm not sure whether that would be a good thing or not either, but Mantegazza certainly seems to be a fan!seraillonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-18519840009806677552016-02-13T13:02:44.853-08:002016-02-13T13:02:44.853-08:00I had never heard of this one.
For anyone intere...I had never heard of this one. <br /><br />For anyone interested in this type of book this sounds like a must read. <br /><br />It is always so interesting to go back and look at what folks in the past thought that the future would look like.Brian Josephhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15139559400312336791noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-70271296812128843962016-02-13T10:39:38.316-08:002016-02-13T10:39:38.316-08:00As is often the case when I read your reviews, I f...As is often the case when I read your reviews, I find myself wondering how you stumbled across this book. It does sound right up your alley, though.<br /><br />The concept of the whole-body massage/workout suit caught my eye...can't work out whether that would be a good thing or not!JacquiWinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16220597283351925721noreply@blogger.com