Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
NYRB Classics (2004), Edition: Tra, Paperback, 272 pages
Description
While living an oppressive, provincial existence, Mattia Pascal learns that he has been mistakenly declared dead. Blessed with that rarest of opportunities - the chance to start an entirely new life - he moves to a new city under an assumed name, only to find this new "free" existence unbearable. Faking his own suicide, he returns to his hometown, where his wife has remarried and his job has been filled. Reduced to a sad walk-on part in his own life, the only role now left to him is that of the "late Mattia Pascal".
User reviews
LibraryThing member DieFledermaus
This is an energetic and entertaining book despite its potentially depressing subject material. There’s an almost metafictional irony that seems modern for the time it was published (1904). Pirandello includes all sorts of random enjoyable oddities that aren’t necessary for the plot but also
Mattia Pascal comes from a wealthy family but through laziness he loses his inheritance to a supposed family friend. He steals the girl his best friend loves, Romilda, and marries her after she gets pregnant. Mattia is unhappy in his reduced circumstances and despises his mother-in-law. He later takes a boring job at the deserted library which pays the bills. After his daughter dies, he finds life intolerable and runs off. Winning a fortune at a casino, Mattia returns home only to find an article stating that a body was found and believed to be his. He takes on a new identify and travels around Europe but that eventually becomes boring. In Rome, he rents a room from the odd Anselmo Paleari, who talks to the dead and holds séances, and his sweet daughter Adriana. At first distant, Mattia gradually warms up to the family but his secret stands in the way of anything closer.
The book drags a bit in the middle section when Mattia, now Adriano Meis, travels from country to country but is otherwise an engaging read. The first section is told with a characteristic verve which makes the story of losing everything and marrying unhappily sparkle. The side characters are vividly drawn. There are a number of comic bits, especially Mattia’s job working in a library bequeathed to the town by a rich man. No one visits the library and the other caretaker is a nearly blind, deaf and senile man who reads boring lists aloud as part of some misguided sense of duty. The last section also has weird characters and comic moments but there are some wonderful passages describing the essential loneliness of a man who has abandoned his identity. He’s always a liar and must constantly be thinking about his backstory. He can’t go to the police or attract any attention – he’s almost like a criminal. He hasn’t even really left his life as marrying someone else would be to knowingly commit a crime while his former wife has no such worries. The freedom is as stifling as the lives Mattia leaves but he realizes that life for him has no meaning without other people. There’s a suitably bittersweet but comic ending.
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has thoughtful digressions on identity and the meaning of life. Mattia Pascal, the narrator, has abandoned his unhappy life after he is mistakenly identified as a dead body but finds his freedom is cold and empty. He tries to form new relationships but life as a non-person makes that difficult.Mattia Pascal comes from a wealthy family but through laziness he loses his inheritance to a supposed family friend. He steals the girl his best friend loves, Romilda, and marries her after she gets pregnant. Mattia is unhappy in his reduced circumstances and despises his mother-in-law. He later takes a boring job at the deserted library which pays the bills. After his daughter dies, he finds life intolerable and runs off. Winning a fortune at a casino, Mattia returns home only to find an article stating that a body was found and believed to be his. He takes on a new identify and travels around Europe but that eventually becomes boring. In Rome, he rents a room from the odd Anselmo Paleari, who talks to the dead and holds séances, and his sweet daughter Adriana. At first distant, Mattia gradually warms up to the family but his secret stands in the way of anything closer.
The book drags a bit in the middle section when Mattia, now Adriano Meis, travels from country to country but is otherwise an engaging read. The first section is told with a characteristic verve which makes the story of losing everything and marrying unhappily sparkle. The side characters are vividly drawn. There are a number of comic bits, especially Mattia’s job working in a library bequeathed to the town by a rich man. No one visits the library and the other caretaker is a nearly blind, deaf and senile man who reads boring lists aloud as part of some misguided sense of duty. The last section also has weird characters and comic moments but there are some wonderful passages describing the essential loneliness of a man who has abandoned his identity. He’s always a liar and must constantly be thinking about his backstory. He can’t go to the police or attract any attention – he’s almost like a criminal. He hasn’t even really left his life as marrying someone else would be to knowingly commit a crime while his former wife has no such worries. The freedom is as stifling as the lives Mattia leaves but he realizes that life for him has no meaning without other people. There’s a suitably bittersweet but comic ending.
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LibraryThing member donato
Before you read another book (or finish the one you're reading), before you see another movie, before you contemplate any work of art, get yourself to the nearest bookstore or library or wherever you prefer to look at books, and find Pirandello's Il fu Mattia Pascal (The Late Mattia Pascal),
Here's a taste:
"...quei tali signori che, giudicando un romanzo..., condannano questo o quel personaggio, questa o quella rappresentazione di fatti o di sentimenti, non già in nome dell'arte come sarebbe giusto, ma in nome d'una _umanità_ che sembra essi conoscano a perfezione, come se realmente in astratto esistesse, fuori cioè di quell'infinita varietà d'uomini capaci di commettere tutte quelle sullodate assurdità _che non hanno bisogno di parer verosimili, perché sono vere_."
"...those gentlemen that, in judging a novel..., condemn this or that character, this or that representation of facts or feelings, not in the name of art as would be right, but in the name of a _humanity_ that they seem to know perfectly, as if it actually existed, but is in fact separate from that infinite variety of men and women who are capable of committing all those above-mentioned absurdities _that don't need to seem verisimilar, because they are real_." (my translation)
Oh yeah, what about the novel itself? A philosophical romp into what it means to to be Alive. So good I wanted to read it again right away, but of course there's more literature to be consumed........
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wherein you will find "Avvertenza sugli scrupoli della fantasia" ("A Warning on the Scruples of the Imagination"). Just read those 4 or 5 pages, which are not actually part of the novel, and you will begin to see (perhaps) that Art is True.Here's a taste:
"...quei tali signori che, giudicando un romanzo..., condannano questo o quel personaggio, questa o quella rappresentazione di fatti o di sentimenti, non già in nome dell'arte come sarebbe giusto, ma in nome d'una _umanità_ che sembra essi conoscano a perfezione, come se realmente in astratto esistesse, fuori cioè di quell'infinita varietà d'uomini capaci di commettere tutte quelle sullodate assurdità _che non hanno bisogno di parer verosimili, perché sono vere_."
"...those gentlemen that, in judging a novel..., condemn this or that character, this or that representation of facts or feelings, not in the name of art as would be right, but in the name of a _humanity_ that they seem to know perfectly, as if it actually existed, but is in fact separate from that infinite variety of men and women who are capable of committing all those above-mentioned absurdities _that don't need to seem verisimilar, because they are real_." (my translation)
Oh yeah, what about the novel itself? A philosophical romp into what it means to to be Alive. So good I wanted to read it again right away, but of course there's more literature to be consumed........
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LibraryThing member weeksj10
It seems so simple and yet is so deep and poignant. On the surface this is just the story of a weird guy trying to find his place in the world where he can be happy and safe. Beyond that though, it is a comic, sad, clever, and philosophical look on what life is... on being alive. In the vain of
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other master Italian authors of the era, such as Italo Calvino, Pirandello manages to create an amazingly profound and beautiful piece of art in a seemingly simple medium. (I loved it!!) Show Less
LibraryThing member HearTheWindSing
Have you ever thought about going to a place where nobody knows you and starting a new life as an entirely new person?
Luigi Pirandello makes Mattia Pascal live out this fantasy. Great misery has befallen Mattia Pascal and there is no silver lining in sight. Unable to think of anything else to do,
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he runs away leaving everyone and everything behind. A few days later on his way back home, he discovers that while he was away a dead body was mistaken for his and he has been declared dead in his town. Out of the confusion this caused emerged one thought: FREEDOM!! All the ties of his past life were now broken and Mattia could now re-invent himself and live a new, better life.And then follows the tragi-comic tale of the late Mattia Pascal. Life experiences have a great say in shaping a person. In trying to erase his past, Mattia Pascal had to lose a great part of himself. His roots were cut-off and he was empty, a mere shadow of a person. He found himself struggling with the questions of self-identity and his purpose in life. The people he had left behind, the ones who thought he was dead were indeed free of him, in a true sense. He, on the other hand, could not escape the past life he had lived. Poor Mattia's miserable adventure at living a new life reminds me of something Fyodor Dostoevsky said in Crime and Punishment:
"If you ran away, you’d come back to yourself."
Mattia never found real freedom, it was only an illusion. The question of whether free will really exists has been a long standing debate. And Pirandello's take on this is in the negative. What Mattia was living was tyranny masked as freedom. How could he ever hope for a true friendship or relationship when he was not free to reveal the real himself to anyone. His freedom tied him in the chains of solitude, complete solitude. The only life left for Mattia Pascal was that of the ghost of himself.
Pirandello's writing is very accessible and easy to read. It is flavored with wit, irony and subtle humor. For casual readers, he gives a compelling and well-crafted story. For more serious readers, it is interspersed with intriguing thoughts, reflections on life and some beautiful passages. The novel is a little treat for those who love existential themes and paradoxes.
My copy of the book has a brief beautiful post-script by the author where he talks about art, reality vs. illusion and how very realistic human significance can sometimes be found in imaginary fables. This was in response to critics who had denounced his work for being unrealistic and far from normal life.
The postscript is followed by another one which reports a *real life* case similar to the life of Mattia Pascal in this novel, which happened several years after the novel was first published. Fiction is real, after all!
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LibraryThing member Miguelnunonave
A great book about an absurd life, an absurd death and a forged identity. A deep reflection on life through the most comic of stories. A perfect character construction. One of the masterpieces in Italian literature.
Language
Original publication date
1904 (original Italian)
1904
Physical description
272 p.; 7.98 inches
ISBN
1590171152 / 9781590171158