The Paradoxical Circularity of Luigi Malerba’s Narrative:Ti saluto filosofiaandFantasmi romani

Abstract

The narrative journey of Luigi Malerba (1927–2008), from the Neoavanguardia experience to postmodernism, articulates a search for meaning through the interpretation of different genres. Malerba’s corpus epitomizes ‘l’ingombrante, evolutiva letteratura dell’invenzione’ through a thought-provoking, open circle that connects both his first and last collections of short stories, La scoperta dell’alfabeto (1963) and Ti saluto filosofia (2004), and his first and last novels, Il serpente (1966) and Fantasmi romani (2006). I contend that Malerba’s narrative circle in its entirety offers a literary expression of paradox. A logical contradiction defines also the geometrical image of the Moebius strip, over which Malerba lingers in a short story in Ti saluto filosofia, and the metaphor of Clarisse’s ring in Robert Musil’s novel The Man without Qualities (1930–42), which is a key intertextual presence in Fantasmi romani. Through consideration of the direct and indirect presence of paradoxical rings in Ti saluto filosofia and Fantasmi romani, this essay explores how Malerba’s last works again defy causal logic and raise new questions about the intertwining of philosophy and literature by indicating an open circle that simultaneously proceeds backwards to his experimental beginnings and forwards to postmodern literary expression.

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