Not current. 1985. Geoffredo Parise, Solitudes. It is a collection of very short stories. Each is constructed around a single word, its title, arranged in Italian alphabetical order. Happiness, Fascination, Hunger, Youth, ... Italy, Rome, ... Solitude. Each one is a surprise, because each turns on your expectation of the central theme, which is usually wrong, but in an unexpected way. You don't get it at first. Then it dawns on you. Sometimes nicely, sometimes not. And the way it dawns on you, is part, actually the central part of the story, the point so to speak.
The last story, Solitude is one of the best, because the central idea of a turn of recognition has the darkest turn and surprised me. After a hundred and fifty pages, I had the idea of an unexpected turn in my mind. It became a game. Could I see it coming? I thought the last one was just a little too obvious, but was well written. Cold, sombre, reflective. Then it hit me. I was wrong again. Very cool.
Rome is also good. It out does Pastolini. Fatherhood is so cruelly funny, that you have to have been one to really laugh.
Here is one that is easy to tell to give you a taste.
Freedom, Liberta starts with an American art student who rides around Rome on his bicycle and does pastel sketches in a notebook. He notices a limousine pull up near where he is sketching. An older woman, a socialist politician, a senator with her armed body guards is taking her mid-day constitutional in the park. She walks over to see his work, her legs bandaged with support stockings. She uses a cane. They have a minor exchange because he can't speak Italian beyond simple phrases. She smiles nicely and answers as gently as she can. He doesn't know who she is, and he never sees her again. But, in her daily travels in traffic, she sees him or his bicycle on a occasion and has her driver pull over for a few moments so she can watch him from a distance. The story ends when the politician is trapped by a journalist during a press conference and asked to define freedom. She begins a quote from Rosa Luxemburg.
CG