312
MERLYN S. PITZELE
that are love's special attribute, and that to be without love is to
~
separated from aU that can keep man sane, is not an unusual theme.
But
to
have its retelling from Volponi, whose position gives him command
of a stage on which the tragedy of a Saluggia may be enacted, is
to
have it with the force of a confession that may be the author's catharsis.
Through the eyes and musings of a peasant-to whom the fields
and
lakes and hills take on anthropomorphic powers in the changing light–
transplanted to proletarianism in a cosseting industry, Volponi speaks
as
Saluggia in a voice that rarely fails. A single cry from two hearts emerges
as a poem of great sadness.
And this is another dimension that must be added to the estimate
of this book.
It
bears the unmistakable mark of the poet's hand. Not
that
the writing is to be excepted from that of novelists who write a
"poetic
prose." But rather because the disciplines learned in creating poetry are
clearly at work here: the images from which the reader draws his
own
symbols, the accretion of metaphor that builds feeling, the fugue-like
progress of the tensions that mount slowly to their signalled climax,
and
the unity, as
in
a poem, of a single voice.
How many poets are there who have demonstrated their mastery
of
poetic forms and bring the poetic stance to the writing of a novel worth
being judged by higher standards? Hardy, Lawrence and Pushkin come
quickly to mind. Beyond that, everyone will have his own list, but it
will hardly escape being of a lower order. Hugo, with the somewhat
equal quality in his novels and verse, and Kipling, who may
be
thought
of as performing at about the same .level in both forms,
are
not
distinguished for the use in their prose of the poet's craft. It would
be
quite useful to have a study of the way the two sensioilities work
with
and against each other
in
a single author.
It is with the poet's craft, and with his own personal feeling
cI.
universal guilt, that Volponi has made Saluggia's story into
literature.
Merlyn S. Pitzele
