Once more, I managed to choose a book that resonates powerfully with my thoughts. This year has been incredible for book pickings — I almost can’t believe it.
On One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand, Pirandello describes with wit and humor the discoveries of a man who starts questioning himself about his existence and how differently it sounds and looks for himself and the World around him.
Is that person inside your head the same your wife/husband knows? The same that grew with your parents? Is that person inside your head the same person you branded as the persona who does your daily work and engages in business conversations?
We are indeed One, Nobody, a Hundred Thousand beings in one institution, one single being. I greatly appreciated Pirandello’s narrative, seasoned with intelligence and sarcasm. I was so surprised by the similarities with the writings of my favorite, Machado de Assis, that I did a little and found this beautiful piece of analysis on their connection:
Although they belong to different generations, they have several common characteristics. It can be said, by the way, that the Machadian characters experienced a logical (and radical) development in the Pirandellian characters. Machado never knew Pirandello, just as Pirandello never met Fernando Pessoa. Still, it is as if they had established a fruitful dialogue in which they sought to unify the humane condition — bringing to the maximum limit the desecration of the last romantic illusions and the incipient scientific illusions, respectively, of the last decades of the XIX century and a quarter of the XX century.
— Prof. Sérgio Mauro, UNESP
A fantastic choice for 2023. I appreciate Audible has pointed it out, as I was precisely looking to read/listen to Italian classics lately. The interpretation of the text by Luca Ghignone is also quite straightforward and immersive, another positive aspect of this tasteful experience.
