FASCISM IN FICTION: PRATOLINI RECONSIDERED

Abstract

In the decade or so following the end of the Second World War Pratolini was the novelist who seemed most directly to confront the urgent cultural and political issues of the time, the high point of his role as a focalizer of debate being reached with the publication of Metello in 1955. In fact neorealism and impegno were about to fade or take different forms and his whole approach was soon to feel dated. Metello was cast as the first volume in a trilogy, Una storia italiana. The two subsequent volumes, Lo scialo and Allegoria e derisione (which appeared in 1960 and 1966 respectively), had at best a lukewarm reception whilst the earlier work was judged quite negatively by the new intellectual left. Asor Rosa's Scrittori e popolo (1965) was perhaps even more dismissive of Pratolini than of Vittorini, Pavese, and Moravia. By 1981 Romano Luperini could be totally scathing over Pratolini's attempts to interpret Italian twentieth-century history. All the same the main novels remained in print and in the last few years there have been signs of a re-awakening of interest. Two volumes of collected fiction and some collections of letters have also appeared, the most important being those to Alessandro Parronchi.