Centuria : One Hundred Ouroboric Novels
Henry Martin...is an astute and imaginative translator, whose elegant and confident style gives us more than a flavour of the versatility and complexity of Manganelli's prose. Martin also allows us to appreciateCenturia'sprogrammatically metafictional plot, based on a hundred page narrative: the 'ouroboric novels' of the subtitle. Taken by itself, each of these precious textual miniatures appears as a sophisticated and subtly disrespectful game with literary and philosophical tradition: from classical mythology to existentialist minimalism, from romantic fiction to the ghost story. Taken together, the 100 'ourobouric novels' give the impression of a vast and elaborate textual maze which lures readers into0 a never-ending search for hidden references and resemblances, but also forces them to face up to the themes that haunt Manganelli's book: illness, fear and existential despair, unhappy love and sporadic glimpses of the supernatural. The mixture may not appeal to those in search of easy reading, butCenturiaearns its place among postmodern classics such as Calvino'sInvisible Cities,Hopscotchby Julio Cortazar andLife, a User's Manualby Georges Perec. --Times Literary Supplement, November 11, 2005The comparison to Calvino...may be inevitable, but it seems unfair. Calvino's later story-mosaics surprise us by depicting a world we recognize; his invisible city is late twentieth-century Rome. But Manganelli's terrific experiment elicits recognitions of another kind. It participates rather in the time-transcending gaiety that Yeats celebrates in his famous meditation on a carved scrap of blue lapis.Centuriabrings together harmony and intensity, wringing creation out of closure; it can make us believe anything's possible. --John Domini,American Book Review, Nov.-Dec., 2005When it was first published in 1979, this collection won that year's Viareggio Prize. Neither 25 years nor English translation has diminished this Absurdist jewel. Manganelli presents the reader with 100 two-page tableaux, each featuring one or more nameless characters living actively in an intense moment. Assassins, a public toilet attendant, several men in love or aware of their lovelessness, a greedy dreamer, and even a few trolls populate these tiny but fully fleshed-out tales. The final piece presents a mathematical model for book writing itself. While this work won't appeal to those looking for mass market fiction, it is accessible and should delight both those with experience with 20th-century absurdism and younger readers new to a now bygone movement. Manganelli (1922-90), to an astonishing extent, seems to have written with foreknowledge of our current world, one in which any of us might, en route home, be 'delayed by a disagreeable downpour, a slight earthquake, and rumors of an epidemic.' What to do in such a time? Consider these stories--and Manganelli's sardonic advice to smile. --Library JournalDespite the short length of his 'novels,' Manganelli not only provides a great range of genres--ghost stories, love stories, tall tales, and so on--but also manages to end each story satisfyingly. His economic and essential use of language cuts to the heart of the matter, and, combined with his clever sense of humor, this makesCenturiaan elegant and evocative book. --Harvey Pekar,Bookforum"When it was first published in 1979, this collection won that year's Viareggio Prize. Neither 25 years nor English translation has diminished this Absurdist jewel. Manganelli presents the reader with 100 two-page tableaux, each featuring one or more nameless characters living actively in an intense moment. Assassins, a public toilet attendant, several men in love or aware of their lovelessness, a greedy dreamer, and even a few trolls populate these tiny but fully fleshed-out tales. The final piece presents a mathematical model for book writing itself. While this work won't appeal to those looking for mass market fiction, it is accessible and should delight both those with experience with 20th-century absurdism and younger readers new to a now bygone movement. Manganelli (1922-90), to an astonishing extent, seems to have written with foreknowledge of our current world, one in which any of us might, en route home, be 'delayed by a disagreeable downpour, a slight earthquake, and rumors of an epidemic.' What to do in such a time? Consider these stories--and Manganelli's sardonic advice to smile." --Library Journal