Autorentext

Laura Lucia Rossi is a Lecturer in Italian and Comparative Literature at the University of Leeds.

Klappentext

What makes literature 'literary'? Some theories argue it is a certain degree of ungraspability- openness, vagueness, or ambiguity that invites readers' active participation in constructing meaning. This book examines five canonical twentieth-century Italian novels (by Tozzi, Landolfi, Vittorini, Gadda, and Ortese) that have consistently been described by critics as particularly "indeterminate" or "ungraspable." Through these case studies, spanning fifty years of Italian literature, the book investigates how textual indeterminacy functions as a literary strategy rather than a shortcoming. Each novel employs different techniques to create indeterminacy: fragmented punctuation and syntax in Tozzi, fantastic elements and hesitation in Landolfi, dialogic openness in Vittorini, linguistic accumulation in Gadda, and genre hybridism in Ortese. These works challenged readers' expectations decades before postmodernists like Calvino made such techniques commonplace. By analyzing how these novels manipulate indeterminacy and engage readers in meaning-making, this book contributes to our understanding of literary communication while offering fresh interpretations of key works in the Italian canon.

Inhalt

1. Introduction. Exploring literary indeterminacy

2. Vertigo. Orchestrated disorientation in Federigo Tozzi's Con gli occhi chiusi (Eyes Shut, 1919)

3. Anamorphosis. Indeterminacy beyond the fantastic: Tommaso Landolfi's La pietra lunare (The Moon Stone, 1939)

4. Echo. The open dialogue of Elio Vittorini's Conversazione in Sicilia (Conversations in Sicily, 1941)

5. Vortex. Indeterminacy by accumulation in Carlo Emilio Gadda's La cognizione del dolore (The Experience of Pain, 1963)

6. Creature. Indeterminacy and hybridism in Anna Maria Ortese's L'Iguana (The Iguana, 1965)

7. Conclusion