Michele Mari
Encyclopedia
Michele Mari is an Italian novelist, short story writer, academic critic and poet. The son of a prestigious Milanese industrial designer and artist, Enzo Mari, Michele teaches Italian literature at the Università Statale di Milano; he is considered one of the leading experts of Eighteenth-Century Italian literature.
Mari intensely dislikes change, so he mistrusts modernity in its more vulgar and showy aspects; he is fascinated by obsessive personalities (Walter Benjamin
in Tutto il ferro della Torre Eiffel, Roger Waters
in Rosso Floyd); he nonchalantly mixes fact and fiction in his works, both in those with an overwhelming autobiographic component (Rondini sul filo, Tu, sanguinosa infanzia, Filologia dell'anfibio), and in those novels where he uses, like a puppetteer, historical characters (Benjamin and Marc Bloch
- plus countless other writers and artists - in Tutto il ferro della Torre Eiffel, the Italian romantic poet Giacomo Leopardi
in Io venia pien d'angoscia a rimirarti, the members of the Pink Floyd
band in Rosso Floyd) .
Mari is an outstanding parodist, whose prose may easily imitate that of more famous authors. He has presented his readers with virtuoso imitations of the style of other Italian fiction writers like Carlo Emilio Gadda
, Tommaso Landolfi
and Giorgio Manganelli
, but also a French author like Louis-Ferdinand Céline
(especially in Rondini sul filo). His two most recent novels, Verderame and Rosso Floyd, though continuing Mari's sylistic care and formal innovation (especially the latter), achieved some real suspense by borrowing narrative devices from crime, gothic, and horror fiction (something Mari had already done at the beginning of his career in his second novel, Io venia pien d'angoscia a rimirarti).
Mari won the prestigious Premio Grinzane Cavour in 2008, as Supervincitore of the Narrativa italiana section, with his novel Verderame.
Mari is also a poet (Cento poesie d'amore a Ladyhawke, Einaudi 2007) and a prestigious academic scholar (cf. his monographs L'Iliade di Vincenzo Monti, 1982; Venere celeste e venere terrestre, 1988; Momenti della traduzione fra Settecento e Ottocento, 1994; Il genio freddo: La storiografia letteraria di Girolamo Tiraboschi, 1999); he also wrote essays on European and American fantastic literature (I demoni e la pasta sfoglia, Quiritta 2004).
Important themes
Mari is a philologist and a connoisseur of science fiction (see his poetic essay "Le copertine di Urania" in Tu, sanguinosa infanzia, 1997) and comics. In his short stories the theme of childhood and teenage as moments to be devoutly preserved recurs often (cf. the story "I palloni del signor Kurtz", in Euridice aveva un cane, 1993); other important motifs are the obsession for other people's life that one could not live (in the short story "Euridice aveva un cane", 1993, or in Rondini sul filo, 1999), of literature as ersatz life, of memory and its workings (Verderame, 2007).Mari intensely dislikes change, so he mistrusts modernity in its more vulgar and showy aspects; he is fascinated by obsessive personalities (Walter Benjamin
Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German-Jewish intellectual, who functioned variously as a literary critic, philosopher, sociologist, translator, radio broadcaster and essayist...
in Tutto il ferro della Torre Eiffel, Roger Waters
Roger Waters
George Roger Waters is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. He was a founding member of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd, serving as bassist and co-lead vocalist. Following the departure of bandmate Syd Barrett in 1968, Waters became the band's lyricist, principal songwriter...
in Rosso Floyd); he nonchalantly mixes fact and fiction in his works, both in those with an overwhelming autobiographic component (Rondini sul filo, Tu, sanguinosa infanzia, Filologia dell'anfibio), and in those novels where he uses, like a puppetteer, historical characters (Benjamin and Marc Bloch
Marc Bloch
Marc Léopold Benjamin Bloch was a French historian who cofounded the highly influential Annales School of French social history. Bloch was a quintessential modernist. An assimilated Alsatian Jew from an academic family in Paris, he was deeply affected in his youth by the Dreyfus Affair...
- plus countless other writers and artists - in Tutto il ferro della Torre Eiffel, the Italian romantic poet Giacomo Leopardi
Giacomo Leopardi
Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi was an Italian poet, essayist, philosopher, and philologist...
in Io venia pien d'angoscia a rimirarti, the members of the Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
band in Rosso Floyd) .
Mari is an outstanding parodist, whose prose may easily imitate that of more famous authors. He has presented his readers with virtuoso imitations of the style of other Italian fiction writers like Carlo Emilio Gadda
Carlo Emilio Gadda
Carlo Emilio Gadda was an Italian writer and poet. He belongs to the tradition of the language innovators, writers that played with the somewhat stiff standard pre-war Italian language, and added elements of dialects, technical jargon and wordplay.-Biography:Gadda was a practising engineer from...
, Tommaso Landolfi
Tommaso Landolfi
Tommaso Landolfi was an Italian author and translator.Born in Pico, province of Frosinone, he wrote numerous grotesque tales and novels, sometimes on the border of speculative fiction, science fiction and realism...
and Giorgio Manganelli
Giorgio Manganelli
Giorgio Manganelli was an Italian journalist, avant-garde writer and literary critic. A native of Milan, he was one of the leaders of the avant-garde literary movement in Italy in the 1960s. He was a baroque and expressionist writer. Manganelli translated Edgar Allan Poe's complete stories and...
, but also a French author like Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Louis-Ferdinand Céline was the pen name of French writer and physician Louis-Ferdinand Destouches . Céline was chosen after his grandmother's first name. He is considered one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, developing a new style of writing that modernized both French and...
(especially in Rondini sul filo). His two most recent novels, Verderame and Rosso Floyd, though continuing Mari's sylistic care and formal innovation (especially the latter), achieved some real suspense by borrowing narrative devices from crime, gothic, and horror fiction (something Mari had already done at the beginning of his career in his second novel, Io venia pien d'angoscia a rimirarti).
Mari won the prestigious Premio Grinzane Cavour in 2008, as Supervincitore of the Narrativa italiana section, with his novel Verderame.
Mari is also a poet (Cento poesie d'amore a Ladyhawke, Einaudi 2007) and a prestigious academic scholar (cf. his monographs L'Iliade di Vincenzo Monti, 1982; Venere celeste e venere terrestre, 1988; Momenti della traduzione fra Settecento e Ottocento, 1994; Il genio freddo: La storiografia letteraria di Girolamo Tiraboschi, 1999); he also wrote essays on European and American fantastic literature (I demoni e la pasta sfoglia, Quiritta 2004).
Trivia
- He played in the Osvaldo Soriano Football Club, the Italian writers' national football team.
Fiction
- Di bestia in bestia, Longanesi, 1989, novel.
- Io venia pien d'angoscia a rimirarti, Longanesi, 1990 (rpt. Marsilio, 1998), novelette.
- La stiva e l'abisso, Bompiani 1992 (rpt. Einaudi, 2002), novel.
- Euridice aveva un cane, Bompiani, 1993 (rpt. Einaudi, 2004), short story collection.
- Filologia dell'anfibio, Bompiani, 1995 (rpt. Laterza, 2009), memoir.
- Tu, sanguinosa infanzia, Mondadori, 1997 (rpt. Mondadori, 1999; Einaudi, 2009), short story collection.
- Rondini sul filo, Mondadori, 1999, novel.
- Tutto il ferro della torre Eiffel, Einaudi, 2002, novel.
- Verderame, Einaudi, 2007, novel.
- Rosso Floyd, Einaudi, 2010, novel.
Poetry
- I sepolcri illustrati, Portofranco, 2000, illustrated poems.
- Cento poesie d'amore a Ladyhawke, Einaudi, 2007, poems.
Non-fiction
- Milano fantasma, EDT, 2008 (illustrated by Velasco Vitali), travelogue.
- I demoni e la pasta sfoglia, Quiritta, 2004 (rpt. Cavallo di Ferro, 2010), essay collection.
Secondary Literature
- Di Stefano, Alice, "Le ossessioni di Michele Mari" Sincronie, 2004, No. 16, 185-191.
- Iovinelli, Alessandro, "Le strategie ipertestuali di Michele Mari", Narrativa, 2001, No. 20-21, 297-304.
- Sinopoli, Franca, "Passages della critica e riuso della tradizione letteraria in Michele Mari", Storia e memoria nelle riletture e riscritture letterarie, Eds. Bessière, Jean and Franca Sinopoli, Roma, Bulzoni, 2005, 126-42.
External links
- An interview of Michele Mari on the website of the Italian state TV (in Italian)
- A review of Rosso Floyd (in Italian)
- An extract from Rosso Floyd (translated into English)
- Website on Michele Mari (in Italian)
- Michele Mari on the sacrality of literature (in Italian)
- Michele Mari speaks about his novel Verderame (in Italian)
- Michele Mari speaks about his novel Rosso Floyd (in Italian)
- A selection of Michele Mari's best writings (up to 1999), as chosen by him (in Italian)