> Take a break from film and try a small collection of short stories
> called _Solitudes_, Goffredo Parise, Vintage, NY, 1985. These are
> very short tableaux, sets with metaphorical symmetries like the kind
> you just posted. And what makes them so great is you understand the
> metaphor and its compositional template, only after you finish
> reading them. They astonish you.
Thanks, Chuck, for the recommendation. As a matter of fact, I'll have to revisit an anthology I have called _Name and Tears_ ("& Other Stories," actually - odd to name an anthology of 30 Italian writers after a story by just one of them, or maybe it's just me) which was published here in English by Graywolf in '91, which is when I got my copy. Have you seen that one?
I just pulled it off the shelf, and it has two stories by Parise from the _Solitudes_ series which, according to the intro, was originally published in two volumes in Italian. The second of the two was translated into English to become the collection you have, and the two stories in the Graywolf anthology are from the first. His pre-_Solitudes_ period sounds a bit different; the introduction states that early on he was "...primarily a critic of the middle class, a satirist of narrow-mindedness and conformity." (There's one early work with an English translation noted here, called _Don Gastone and the Ladies_.) It goes on to say, "Parise has become a writer of what he calls 'poems in prose,' short crystalline pieces which succeed in portraying the texture of human transactions or the decisive moments in life that come to seem inevitable."
My mother bought me this anthology after my second trip to Italy, believing, I think, that it would bring to mind fond recollections of my travels and inspire a return trip. What happened instead, if I remember correctly, is that it kind of took me outside of myself for a few days, unsettled me even, and didn't pull any punches. (Speaking of, I remember your mentioning Pasolini's _Roman Nights_ in a long-ago thread on the Bad list, which I also had a copy of and had read and which is some of the most amazing writing I've come across...)
So I'll have another go at the Parise stories, and see about hunting down the volume you mentioned. Then I'm planning on reading _Man's Rage for Chaos: Biology, Behavior & the Arts_ by Morse Peckham (Schocken, 1965, out of print). I've been under a lot of stress lately, and I always turn to fiction at such times; as I see it letting up soon, I can make an easy transition to the Peckham book in a few days. You had me pegged re. the metaphor thing, too. I sometimes think the existence of metaphor has allowed to me to survive thusfar, which is probably not far from the truth. "Metaphors are us."
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/ dave /