Claudio Taddei

The book Flames and Ashes intimates a new way of dealing with the emotions and values to be experienced in great literature, from the novel Elective Affinities (also entitled Kindred by Choice) by Goethe, in which the author investigates charm and mystery to Tess, by Thomas Hardy, a novel in which the author offers the reader an integrally beautiful read. We are then thrust into the world of Joseph Conrad, ranging from the gothic detective story Secret Agent, to his final work, The Rover, at times nostalgic, at others optimistic. In this novel, he makes a significant number of references to the great Russian novel, to Stephenson and to Thomas Mann. So, in a transparent and vast time tapestry, we move on to an intriguing read of the novel Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence. And finally, we get onto contemporary literature, ranging from Philip Roth’s ‘Sabbath’s Theater’ to Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men and finally to Coetzee’s Disgrace. The circle closes with Stephen King whose fame as a great narrator is legitimised ( with a certain reserve) by a level of in-depth analysis which has so far been unheard of in Italy. Special focus is placed on his classic novel The Shining and on his recent 22/11/63. Like small elements of a bigger constellation, the individual readings find a definite balance in the writing itself and in King’s love of the story, which gifts to the reader the joy of discovery or even of long overdue compensation. In his preface to the book, the author writes “ The critical reader will once again experience the figure of the narrator-witness, as well as that of the narrator-accomplice, which are to be found in many examples of great literature (for example in Conrad, or in Dostoyevsky or in Henry James). On other occasions, that same reader must put a certain distance between himself and the object under scrutiny, much as Kafka did with the heroes of his novels or short stories. Critical reading is not an exact science and it is most definitely not an ideology. It is more a shared salvation; it is a search for the essential atmosphere of a book or an episode. It is a barely camouflaged lingering which immerses the reader in the world of shadows and puts him in contact with the spectacular lightning flashes which inflame the very edges of the clouds. It is planned exploration in the presence of ephemeral beings, chaotic signals, unavoidable violence and the tricks and spells of that evil spirit whose existence no heretic would ever doubt.