Volume 5, Number 12 · January 20, 1966
Imaginary Ruins
By D.J. Enright
That Awful Mess on Via Merulana
by Carlo Emilio Gadda, translated by William Weaver
Braziller, 399 pp., $5.95
Trial by Battle
by David Piper
Chilmark, 219 pp., $5.95
The mess in question is primarily the gruesome murder (though not, as some reviewers have understandably supposed, the rape-murder) of a genteel married lady, in Rome in 1927. Extra mess is provided by a case of commonplace robbery in the same apartment house. Carlo Emilio Gadda's mess, piled up behind these messes, seems to be Mussolini in particular and human life in general. And his novel is a fine mess indeed, though its impact at this moment (it was written in 1946) is somewhat lessened by the fact that the mess-novel has been with us for some time now, an extremely arty art-form which justifies itself by appealing to the natural messiness of life.
Review, 1651 words
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