Carlo Montella

Carlo Montella (born 1922 in Naples , † March 6, 2010 in Pisa ) was an Italian writer. He published various novels. His first work was "Reise durch die Kippschaft" (it: I parenti del sud ) from 1951, which was published two years after completion in the patriotic literature series "I Gettoni".

family

Carlo Montella's mother Emilia came from a noble family. She studied mechanical engineering and finished her studies with a thesis on theoretical mechanics , which was initially only published by the University of Naples, but was later published as a translation in a French specialist journal. She was then offered a professorship, which she declined in order to concentrate on her family life and in particular the upbringing of her children, Carlo and Adriana. In 1998, Montella killed his son Paolo, who was suffering from mental health problems, in self-defense to protect his wife Anna.

Life

Montella spent his childhood in Avellino . The house in which he lived at the time and in which Victor Hugo lived as a child is on Viale dei Platani.

After studying aesthetics , Montella wrote for the magazines “ La Nazione ” and “ Il Messaggero ”, among others . Between 1954 and 2002 he wrote seven novels.

Prizes and awards

• 1954: Premio Viareggio in the category “first work” for his novel I parenti del sud .

criticism

Elio Vittorini , the editor of “Reise durch die Kippschaft” in the “I Gettoni” series, wrote about Montella:

“Carlo Montella appartiene a quel tipo di scrittori per cui il vero e unico modo di rappresentare il mondo è quello di metterlo in burla . Ne è prova il suo primo romanzo, I parenti del Sud: un quadro quasi interamente spassoso e quasi interamente persuasivo della piccola borghesia meridionale, additata semper nell'estremo pittoresco dei propri costumi o delle proprie fissazioni, e pur per unondimeno derisa come 'universale degli uomini, per una, diciamo, "mancanza di grazia" in cui può continuamente cadere la natura umana. Montella vi dimostra la capacità generosa che distingue l'autentico scrittore comico dal polemista. Ma non bisogna credere che vi sia arrivato tutt'a un tratto; also lui ha cominciato credendo di far propri i più violenti o lacrimosi dei messi in voga dal neo-realismo. Ancora in un primo manoscritto di questo stesso Parenti del Sud egli alternava pagine tetramente volute a pagine felicemente involontarie. Egli voleva rappresentare il mondo, mica sfotterlo. Lo andava addirittura dicendo. E non s'accorgeva di poter rappresentare i dolori del mondo solo lasciandosi prendere dalla vena di sfottere. Ma ha finito con l'accorgersene. Al punto di sapersi mettere pieno d'ispirazione a tagliare e correggere I parenti del Sud, e di saperlo rendere in pochi mesi di lavoro, quale oggi lo presentiamo »

“Carlo Montella appears as one of those writers for whom the only way to portray the world is to make fun of it. His first novel, “Reise durch die Kippschaft”, testifies to this: an entertaining and completely convincing illustration of the petty bourgeoisie in southern Italy. The traditions and quirks are presented in an extremely picturesque manner and at the same time mocked as a kind of universal human weakness, an "absence of grace", so to speak, into which the human nature can permanently change. Montella has the skills that distinguish an authentically funny writer from a polemicist. But you shouldn't believe that he would have got there straight away, he too believed at the beginning that he was writing in the most brutal and lascivious way possible, which neo-realism made fashionable. In one of the first manuscripts of “Reise durch die Kippschaft”, artificially gloomy sides alternate with involuntarily comical ones. He wanted to represent the world and not mock it. He even said so himself. Little did he realize that he could simply depict the pain of the world by letting himself be guided by the impulse of ridicule. In the end, however, he realized. When he was clear about this, he began, full of inspiration, to correct the "journey through the clan" and to make it what we present today in a few months. »

Works

• Journey through the tribe (I parenti del Sud), Einaudi, Turin, 1953
• Fire in the land registry (Incendio al catasto), Vallecchi, Florence, 1956
• Chi parte all'alba, S. Sciascia, Caltanisetta, 1957
• Ritratto spagnolo, Vallecchi, 1958
• Perché anche morire, Rizzoli, Milan, 1967
• Le zie, Vallecchi, 1976
• Dovè Beethoven ?, Tullio Pironti, Naples, 2002

swell

1. ↑ http://www.tulliopironti.it/dov--beethoven.htm
2. ↑ [1]
3. ↑ Carlo Montella, I parenti del sud, Roma, Avagliano, 2000, pp. 5-6, ISBN 88-8309-036-5 .
4. ^ Elio Vittorini (author of the foreword), I parenti del sud, Torino, Elio Vittorini, 1963, p. 1.