The Via Veneto Papers
Encyclopedia
The Via Veneto Papers is a memoir collection by Ennio Flaiano
, originally published in Italian in 1973, with a new expanded edition by Rizzoli
in 1989 and translated into English by John Satriano in 1992.
in Newsday
:
This is the first English language
edition of the Italian original La solitudine del satiro (lit. The Satyr’s Solitude) published in 1973, a year after Flaiano’s death.
The book is divided into three sections:
June 1958 --
"I am working with Fellini and Tullio Pinelli, dusting off an old idea of ours for a film, the one about a young provincial who comes to Rome to become a journalist. Fellini wants to adapt the idea to the present day, to paint a picture of this “wog society” that frolics between eroticism, alienation, boredom and sudden affluence. It is a society which, the terrors of the cold war now past and perhaps even in reaction to them, flourishes a bit everywhere. But in Rome, through a mixing together of the sacred and the profane, of the old and the new, through the en masse arrival of foreigners, through the cinema, presents more aggressive, subtropical qualities. The film will have La dolce Vita as its title and we have yet to write a single line of it; we are vaguely taking notes and going to the different places around town to refresh our memories."
--The Via Veneto Papers, p.1.
Ennio Flaiano
Ennio Flaiano , was an Italian screenwriter, playwright, novelist, journalist and drama critic...
, originally published in Italian in 1973, with a new expanded edition by Rizzoli
RCS MediaGroup
RCS MediaGroup S.p.A. , based in Milan and listed on the Italian Stock Exchange, is an international multimedia publishing group that operates in daily newspapers, magazines and books, radio broadcasting, new media and digital and satellite TV...
in 1989 and translated into English by John Satriano in 1992.
Synopsis & Narrative Style
Wrote critic Richard EderRichard Eder
Richard Eder was for 20 years variously a foreign correspondent, a film reviewer and the drama critic for the New York Times. Subsequently he was book critic for the Los Angeles Times, winning a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism and the National Book Critics Circle annual citation...
in Newsday
Newsday
Newsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...
:
- To read the late Ennio Flaiano is to imagine a bust of OvidOvidPublius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
or MartialMartialMarcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...
, placed in a pizza in RomeRomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
and smiling above a traffic jam. In his antic, melancholy irony, Flaiano wrote as if he were time itself, satirizing the present moment.
This is the first English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
edition of the Italian original La solitudine del satiro (lit. The Satyr’s Solitude) published in 1973, a year after Flaiano’s death.
The book is divided into three sections:
- The first, The Via Veneto Papers, is an evocation of the RomeRomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
of La Dolce VitaLa Dolce VitaLa Dolce Vita is a 1960 comedy-drama film written and directed by the critically acclaimed director Federico Fellini. The film is a story of a passive journalist's week in Rome, and his search for both happiness and love that will never come...
, of the early stages in the writing and the realising of the film itself, and, through a series of brilliant little sketches, a commemoration of the aging Italian poetPoetA poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
Vincenzo CardarelliVincenzo CardarelliVincenzo Cardarelli, pseudonym of Nazareno Caldarelli was an Italian journalist, writer and poet.Cardarelli was born in Corneto, Lazio, to a family of Marche origin. His studies were irregular and he tried different jobs...
, skeptical survivor from an earlier time, representative of an altogether different life.
- Occasional Notebooks comprises the second and longest section: satirical commentaries and diary jottings on diverse subjects: filmFilmA film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
, artArtArt is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
, literatureLiteratureLiterature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, world politicsPoliticsPolitics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
, ItalyItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and the Italians, contemporary cultureCultureCulture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
, travelTravelTravel is the movement of people or objects between relatively distant geographical locations. 'Travel' can also include relatively short stays between successive movements.-Etymology:...
.
- The concluding section is an interview given by Flaiano shortly before his death: entitled Concerning SatireSatireSatire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
, BoredomBoredomBoredom is an emotional state experienced when an individual is without any activity or is not interested in their surroundings. The first recorded use of the word boredom is in the novel Bleak House by Charles Dickens, written in 1852, in which it appears six times, although the expression to be a...
, FaithFaithFaith is confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof. In religion, faith is a belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. Generally speaking, it is offered as a means by which the truth of the proposition,...
, it’s a kind of spiritual testament of one of Italy’s most brilliant modern writers.
Excerpt
Incipit:- These notes were written at various moments and are not here in chronological order. What I wanted to recollect is a street, a film, and old poet: disparate things that are unclearly mixed up with one another, not only in memory, but also in a diary. The jumps from one time to another have, then, a reason of their own.
June 1958 --
"I am working with Fellini and Tullio Pinelli, dusting off an old idea of ours for a film, the one about a young provincial who comes to Rome to become a journalist. Fellini wants to adapt the idea to the present day, to paint a picture of this “wog society” that frolics between eroticism, alienation, boredom and sudden affluence. It is a society which, the terrors of the cold war now past and perhaps even in reaction to them, flourishes a bit everywhere. But in Rome, through a mixing together of the sacred and the profane, of the old and the new, through the en masse arrival of foreigners, through the cinema, presents more aggressive, subtropical qualities. The film will have La dolce Vita as its title and we have yet to write a single line of it; we are vaguely taking notes and going to the different places around town to refresh our memories."
--The Via Veneto Papers, p.1.
Quote
- …Indeed this reminds me of an aphorism of Malraux’s: "In every intelligent minority there is a majority of imbeciles."