Che cosa LEGGERE in italiano? 5 racconti brevi

0:00 Want to read Italian literature but don't have much time to devote to it,

0:05 or are lazy, or do you lose concentration easily?

0:10 The short story is the literary genre for you!

0:13 And that's why I wanted to make

0:15 this video dedicated to must-read stories by Italian authors,

0:23 if you enjoy reading and want to test your skills with Italian fiction,

0:28 but can't yet read a full-length novel.

0:32 Compared to a novel (another narrative genre),

0:36 the short story has a major advantage: it's much shorter.

0:41 Perhaps you've already enthusiastically embarked on reading an Italian novel,

0:46 perhaps a classic of Italian literature,

0:50 only to slowly (or quickly) lose motivation,

0:55 faced with hundreds of pages that just wouldn't slow down,

1:00 in a language you still feel you don't master, that you don't fully understand,

1:06 dozens and dozens of difficult words and constructions on every page.

1:10 I know, it's an experience that can

1:13 demoralize even the most accomplished language learners.

1:16 Because fiction, after all,

1:19 represents the greatest comprehension challenge for a language learner.

1:26 Precisely because they're short, short stories are less demanding than novels;

1:32 this will provide quick gratification and make reading much less stressful.

1:39 Furthermore, brevity also allows you to approach the text in its original form,

1:45 thus avoiding overly simplified versions for students.

1:48 Because I bet that, if you're like me,

1:51 you're a little annoyed by reading simplified versions.

1:54 You enjoy reading the original texts, right?

1:58 Especially if you already have a good level of Italian.

2:00 Well, in this video I'll suggest five Italian

2:03 short stories that I think are right for you,

2:06 if you enjoy fiction and literature.

2:09 Oh, who am I?

2:11 I'm Davide, and this is Podcast Italiano,

2:14 which is a channel, a project, for those learning Italian.

2:19 Turn on the subtitles if you think you need them.

2:23 Remember that the full transcript of what I say is on my website,

2:28 podcastitaliano.com (link in description), but also that I have prepared,

2:32 as always, a PDF to accompany the video,

2:36 which you can use while watching this video or even afterward.

2:40 In the PDF, you'll find other reading suggestions for other

2:45 stories by the same authors I'll be discussing in the video;

2:49 and I'll also show you how to find the stories I'll be discussing today.

2:56 So, it's the perfect complement to this video.

3:00 I'll leave you the link in the description to download the free PDF,

3:03 but you can also scan this handy QR code you'll find next to my title,

3:09 somewhere around here.

3:11 Now, I'm going to propose five stories, in chronological order of publication,

3:17 by authors who have shaped the history of Italian literature.

3:21 They are texts written between the 1950s and the 1980s.

3:27 For each story, I will offer you,

3:31 in addition to a brief description of the plot,

3:35 which I hope will pique your interest,

3:37 a short excerpt as a taste of the writer's style,

3:42 so you can decide if that pen (the pen...) is right for you,

3:51 and test your Italian comprehension.

3:54 1.

3:55 Good: the first story I propose is "A Pair of Glasses" by Anna Maria Ortese,

4:03 a text published in 1953 in the collection Il mare non bagna Napoli.

4:09 The author, born in Rome, lived for a long time in Naples,

4:12 a city that was a great inspiration to her, then in Rome,

4:16 Milan, and finally in Rapallo, in the province of Genoa.

4:20 She has won numerous awards, including the Strega Prize,

4:23 the Viareggio Prize, and the Campiello Prize for Lifetime Achievement.

4:28 The story "A Pair of Glasses" tells the story of Eugenia,

4:31 a poor girl growing up in an alley in post-war working-class Naples.

4:37 Eugenia suffers from severe myopia bordering on blindness,

4:41 meaning she is practically blind.

4:44 One day she receives a long-awaited gift:

4:48 the pair of glasses heralded in the story's title.

4:53 Much to Eugenia's and our readers' surprise,

4:57 the glasses, instead of bringing the little girl joy,

5:01 condemn her to an increasingly detailed and painful

5:05 gaze at the poverty and inequality that surround her.

5:12 The contrast between myopic vision and clear

5:15 vision is a contrast between fantasy and reality.

5:18 What Eugenia experiences is a traumatic awakening,

5:22 marking the end of innocent childhood and the entrance

5:26 into the awareness of the world typical of adulthood;

5:30 a transition that is narrated like this: "Eugenia,

5:34 still holding her glasses in her hands, went to the door to look out(...).

5:39 Her legs were shaking, her head was spinning,

5:42 and she no longer felt any joy(...).

5:44 Suddenly the balconies began to become numerous,

5:47 two thousand, a hundred thousand;

5:49 the carts with vegetables fell on her; the voices filling

5:54 the air(...) hit her head as if she were ill(...).

5:58 It was Mariuccia who was the first to notice that the child was ill,

6:02 and quickly tore off her glasses, because Eugenia had doubled over and, moaning,

6:08 was vomiting." The book "The Sea Does Not Bathe Naples" was

6:11 interpreted by critics of the time as a text against Naples,

6:16 which earned the author such hostility that she

6:21 never returned to her beloved adopted city of Naples,

6:26 and, above all, confined her to the margins of a poor and misunderstood life.

6:34 2.

6:35 The second story in our anthology of five stories is titled "The Lost Days":

6:42 it is born from the imagination of Dino Buzzati and is

6:45 part of the 1954 collection "The Collapse of Baliverna." Buzzati,

6:50 who was born in Belluno and lived mainly in Milan,

6:56 was a journalist for the daily newspaper Il Corriere della Sera,

7:01 as well as a painter.

7:03 As a journalist, Buzzati covered extensive crime news,

7:06 but also the tragedies that marked the history of twentieth-century Italy.

7:11 His experience as a journalist greatly influenced Buzzati's narrative writing,

7:16 giving it a realistic streak and a predilection

7:20 for the noir and mysterious aspects of everyday reality.

7:26 The story "The Lost Days" is indeed a tale filled with mystery,

7:32 inviting reflection on the value of time and its irreversibility.

7:37 The protagonist is Ernst Kazirra, the owner of a large and opulent villa.

7:43 Returning home, he sees a man emerge from a side door carrying large crates,

7:49 which he then loads onto a truck.

7:53 The truck sets off, Kazirra chases it, and after a long journey,

7:58 he surprises the man on the edge of a ravine

8:03 as he's dumping the crates he'd taken from the villa.

8:07 Those crates contain the "lost days" of the title, meaning the time wasted,

8:13 wasted by Kazirra throughout his life, time that Kazirra will never recover.

8:19 Let's read a sample.

8:20 "They formed an immense pile.

8:22 He went down the slope and opened one.

8:26 Inside was an autumnal road, and at the end was Graziella,

8:30 his fiancée, who was leaving forever.

8:32 And he didn't even call her.

8:34 He opened a second one.

8:36 There was a hospital room,

8:37 and on the bed his brother Giosuè was ill and waiting for him.

8:42 But he was away on business.

8:44 He opened a third.

8:45 At the gate of the old, miserable house stood Duk,

8:49 the faithful mastiff who had been waiting for him for two years,

8:52 reduced to skin and bones.

8:54 And he never dreamed of returning.

8:56 He felt gripped by a certain thing here, in the pit of his stomach.

9:02 How much of this excerpt did you manage to understand?

9:05 Was it difficult?

9:06 Was it easy?

9:07 Let me know.

9:08 Oh, a curiosity: although Buzzati is best remembered

9:11 for his novel The Steppe of the Tartars,

9:14 it is precisely for his short stories that he received,

9:18 albeit posthumously, that is, after his death, the Strega Prize.

9:24 3.

9:24 The third story I invite you to read

9:29 is “The Adventure of Two Spouses” by Italo Calvino,

9:33 published in 1958 as part of the collection Difficult Loves.

9:37 Calvino, born in Cuba and living in Sanremo, Turin, Paris, and Rome,

9:44 is undoubtedly one of the most important authors of twentieth-century Italy,

9:48 internationally known and beloved for his short stories, novels, and essays.

9:52 He is truly a great figure in Italian literature.

9:56 His story, "The Adventure of Two Spouses," tells the story

9:59 of a husband and wife forced to live with incompatible work schedules:

10:05 he works at night, she during the day.

10:08 The couple's life is thus reduced to brief encounters:

10:11 after he returns home, before she leaves.

10:16 A brief and precious time,

10:20 in which they try to experience emotional closeness and daily

10:26 intimacy despite the tyrannical pace dictated by factory work.

10:30 Let's read a brief, infinitely sweet excerpt:

10:34 “The bed was as Elide had left it when she got up,

10:37 but on her side, Arturo’s, it was almost intact, as if it had just been made.

10:43 He would lie down on his side, properly,

10:47 but then he would stretch out one leg over there,

10:49 where his wife’s warmth had remained,

10:51 then he would stretch out the other leg as well,

10:54 and so little by little he would shift completely to Elide’s side,

10:57 into that niche of warmth that still retained the shape of her body,

11:02 and he would bury his face in her pillow,

11:05 in her scent, and fall asleep.” Regarding the collection Gli amori difficili,

11:11 of which the story “L’avventura di due sposi” is part, Calvino wrote:

11:17 “Perhaps the title that could best define what

11:20 these stories have in common would be Amore eassenza.” 4.

11:26 The fourth story I propose to you is titled “Donna

11:32 Amalia” and is written by the Roman writer Elsa Morante.

11:37 It is part of the collection Lo

11:39 scialle andaluso (The Andalusian Shawl), published in 1963.

11:42 The author won the Viareggio Prize for her work Menzogna e sortilegio (Menace

11:47 and Sorcery) and the Strega Prize

11:49 for her acclaimed novel L'isola di Arturo (Arturo's Island).

11:52 The story "Donna Amalia," which I want to tell you about, is almost a painting:

11:57 the delightful portrait of a female figure beyond the ordinary,

12:02 both in appearance and character.

12:04 A woman as tall as a tower but with tiny feet and doll-like hands;

12:12 strong bones but delicate flesh; predatory in profile but sweet in the face.

12:18 Amalia is a simple woman who has never lost

12:22 the ability to marvel at the wonders of the world, both great and small.

12:27 A woman who, unlike women her age, has not gained weight as she has grown,

12:33 because that intensity of life that normally occurs in childhood,

12:38 weakens in youth, and wanes in adulthood, has continued to burn within her.

12:46 Not for Donna Amalia, whose thoughts are always in motion,

12:52 always burning, always ardent, even in her sleep,

12:56 punctuated by dreams that seem like fairy tales,

12:59 tales from One Thousand and One Nights.

13:01 This is how the secret of Donna Amalia's character is described:

13:06 "She, unlike ordinary people, never acquired,

13:09 towards even the most ordinary aspects of life,

13:13 that habit that gives rise to indifference and boredom.

13:17 Show a child a lit candelabra: he will open his eyes wide,

13:22 wave his hands, and celebrate as if he were seeing a marvel of nature.

13:26 With time, he will become accustomed to the graces of life,

13:30 and it will take something rare to give him wonder and pleasure.

13:34 Not so for Donna Amalia; she always remained a novice, and the world,

13:38 for her, was an opera house always open,

13:41 with all the lights on." Do you recognize yourself in Donna Amalia?

13:46 Or have you ever met someone similar to her?

13:49 If you like, let me know in a comment.

13:53 5.

13:54 The last story in our anthology today is "Isole" by Antonio Tabucchi.

14:00 Tabucchi was born in Pisa and died in Lisbon, Portugal,

14:05 a country with whose capital and language

14:09 Tabucchi had a special relationship throughout his life.

14:14 Best remembered for his novels "Notturno

14:17 indiano" and "Sostiene Pereira," Tabucchi won,

14:20 among other prizes, the Premio Campiello and the Premio Strega.

14:25 The two protagonists are a prison guard on his last

14:30 day of service and an inmate headed to the hospital.

14:34 Together, they make their final ferry journey from an island

14:38 in the Tuscan archipelago to the mainland, but above all,

14:42 to a new phase in their lives: retirement for the guard,

14:46 after a lifetime of work;

14:49 terminal illness and death for the prisoner, after years of imprisonment.

14:54 Both the guard and the prisoner are engaged in writing a letter to a woman,

14:58 the former mentally, the latter physically.

15:00 The guard writes to his daughter,

15:03 announcing that he doesn't want to leave the seaside town where

15:07 he's lived all his life to join her in the North;

15:11 the prisoner writes to Lisa, whose identity we don't know but we can guess,

15:16 the recipient of a letter entrusted to the guard so he can send it,

15:23 bypassing censorship.

15:24 These are the guard's feelings on the matter:

15:28 "He didn't want to know where that letter was going,

15:32 but he was curious to know the name of the person who would receive it.

15:36 Only the first name.

15:38 He carefully concealed the address with his hand

15:42 and only glimpsed the first name.

15:44 Lisa.

15:45 Her name was Lisa.

15:46 He thought it was a beautiful name.

15:48 And only then did it occur to him that it was strange:

15:52 he knew the name of the person who would receive that letter,

15:55 but he didn't know her; and he knew the person who wrote that letter,

16:00 but he didn't know her name.

16:02 Good.

16:02 We've come to the end of our reading recommendations,

16:06 which this time have focused on the short story genre.

16:11 Five stories that I hope you'll go and read now.

16:15 I hope I've piqued your curiosity.

16:17 I also invite you to take a look at the PDF,

16:21 which we create with so much love, that accompanies all the videos,

16:25 where you'll find other reading suggestions for short stories,

16:29 other stories by the same authors I told you about,

16:32 and I'll show you how to find the stories I told you about.

16:35 And in the PDF, you'll also find instructions on how

16:37 to find the stories I told you about in this video.

16:41 Again, I'll leave the QR code here, if you're interested.

16:45 Let me know in the comments if you've already read any short stories in Italian?

16:49 Which ones, by which authors?

16:51 How did it go?

16:53 How was it?

16:54 Do you recommend reading short stories?

16:57 What were the challenges?

16:59 Was it easier than a novel?

17:01 Let me know in the comments if you'd like.

17:04 Now, if you want to try your hand at a novel,

17:08 I'll leave you a card at the end with a video

17:11 in which I talk about four novels that might be right for you.