426
PARTISAN REVIEW
morality that Klee mapped almost single-handed. The masks and dis–
guises that Klee wrenched away from the face of reality, Steinberg
now seeks to destroy by depicting them utterly.
John Hollander
THE ITALIAN QUALITY
MODERN ITALIAN SHORT STORIES. Edited by More Sionim. Simon
&
Shuster. $5.00.
We often say that the Italians are so encumbered by their
great past that they have been unable to create freely in modem art and
literature. This may be so, but it is probably more true that we have
been encumbered by that past and approaching the beautiful peninsula
like tourists with eyes only for ancient Italy have failed to see its literary
present. For American readers continental fiction has meant almost ex–
clusively the great French and Russian masters; and while modem Italy
probably has nobody to put beside these, it has nevertheless produced
over the last seventy years a literature of singular vigor and interest. Pro–
fessor Slonim's collection is therefore something of a natural: it helps to
repair the general ignorance, and it is a delight to read.
What emerges, then, from the present very varied collection is the
unmistakable impression of an Italian quality, which is as powerfully
sensed as it is hard to put down. The collection begins with a story by
Verga, and Verga himself is probably the best representative of this
quality.
It
is a quality essentially of directness, vigor, earthiness; and it
is not necessarily realism, for it appears in the more fantastic writings
of d'Annunzio or Pirandello, though it lends itself to powerful realistic
touches. (Verga, again, would be the best illustration of this last.) The
Italian spirit does not have the refinement of French taste: its vigor
sometimes turns into crudity, its warmth into sentimentality, and its
directness into the obvious. But for Italophiles these qualities have al–
ways been accepted as part and parcel of the Italian charm, and here
the national literature is very much an expression of the character of
the people.
To be sure, a certain aestheticism and aping of Gallic taste have
played a considerable part in modem Italian literature, coming to the
fore particularly during the years of Fascism. But these aesthetic graces
merely played upon the surface, and wherever Italian writing came alive
during that period it was with the old earthborn vigor of the native
