Cesare Pavese
(1908-1950)
Langa Writer

Cesare Pavese was born on 9^th September 1908 in Santo Stefano Belbo (a small town in Langa, province of Cuneo). The father, who was chancellor at the Turin Court, had a farm. His family moved to Turin. The hills near his town will always remain in the writer’s mind; they will melt with his childhood mythical idea and nostalgia. Cesare’s father dies soon: this episode will strongly affect the child’s temper (he was already introvert and distant). Many authors dealt with Cesare’s adolescence. He was a timid boy; he loved books and the nature ; he was always about to isolate himself from the others, to hide, to chase butterflies and birds, or to explore the mysterious woods. A good friend of him, Davide Laiolo, wrote “Il vizio assurdo” [the absurd vice]. In his work he underlines two fundamental elements: Cesare’s father death and the consequent cooling of his mother, who will bring up Cesare more like a sever father than a sweet and loving mother. The other element is the “absurd vice” or his suicidal vocation. In his high school-time letters, there is always a mention to his suicidal mania (especially in those sent to his friend Mario Sturani). According to Monti, Cesare’s adolescent world is the result of the typical adolescence introversion; for Fernandez it is the result of a child trauma (his father death, the feminine world he grows up in, the unconscious self-punishment desire); according to other authors, it is due to his sexual impotence drama (findable in “Il mestiere di vivere” [The art of living]. Whatsoever interpretation for these first years is given, it is undeniable that they reflect the story of a tragic and bitter fate, which is underlined by a desperate need of love (and by the search for an opening toward the others, the world, the interpersonal relationships); it is a lonely, bitter, and desperate fate of defeat. A big dichotomy between the attraction toward loneliness and the need for companions. Struggled between a proud self-achievement and the realization of his unsuitability for life, since he was a child Pavese has chosen literature as a “metaphorical screen for his existential condition “ (Venturi); he seeks the solution for his internal conflicts in it. He studies at the Jesuit “Social” Institute and at the “modern Gymnasium”, then he passes to the “D’Azeglio” lyceum (where he will be taught by Augusto Monti, who was master of humanities for many Turin intellectuals. Entering the “D’Azeglio” lyceum is very important for Cesare’s life. He participates to a conscience renewal, which was carried out by Monti’s educational action and by Gramsci and Gobetti’s works. Initially Pavese is rather reluctant about engaging in the political struggle. He is not very interested in it, for he tends to melt the political motive with the literary one. However he is attracted by Monti’s followers: Leone Ginzburg, Norberto Bobbio, Tullio Pinelli, Massimo Mila, who do not join neither the “Strapaese” movement (connected to fascism) nor the “Stracittà” one (apparently a progressive movement; in reality it is also connected to fascism). They create their own party called “Strabarriera”. Cesare likes discussions in the inns with the workers, the street-sellers, or the ordinary people: many of them will be the protagonists of his novels. He feels young, reborn, and meets “the hoarse-voice woman”, who will become the core of his soul. Cesare looks transformed: as long as this woman stands by him, he becomes cordial, human, loving, open to speak with the people. That woman gives him back the childhood enchantment. When she leaves him, he thinks of her as a sweet cloud always reflecting “the ancient background”. The sky and hills return like the “sweet hollow of her mouth”. In 1930 (at the age of 22) he graduates with a thesis on “The interpretation of Walt Whitman’s poetry”, and starts working for the magazine “La cultura [the knowledge]”. He teaches at private and evening schools; he translates English and American literary works; this gives him fame and notoriousness. Friendship is brought to him during his high school and college years: all this contributes to humanize his angry readings: literary disputes, the forbidden world of politics, the “concerto cafes”, the cinematographic myths, the up-the-hill marches, the rows along the Po (which reinvigorate his body precociously tossed by asthma). Comparing to his town, the city looks like a big fair or a continuous party. During the day the city-life is full, there are many shops, the trams rattle, and music is heard everywhere. His mother dies in 1931, a few months after his graduation: her death is another bitter furrow in the writer’s life; for he had never showed his admiration for her; for he regretted he had never demonstrated her his love and tenderness. Alone, he moves to his sister Maria’s house, where he will live until death. In the same year, his first translation is printed in Florence: “Il nostro signor Wrenn [Dear Mr. Wrenn]” by Sinclair Lewis. His job as a translator is important not only for Pavese’s life but also for his knowledge, which opens a new period in the Italian literature. Through his translations he shows his anxiety for freedom, and his need to break the nationalist rhetoric; he wants to open new horizons (for him and the other people), in order  to shift those old and new encrustations which sickened the Italian society; he wants to present consciously “the enormous theatre where, more frankly than anywhere else, everyone’s drama was acted out”. Fascism prohibited any initiative for the masses; it condemned and impeded strikes, while the possibility of new social relations was being read through American novels. Against the monotonous art prose and differently to the hermetism, Pavese showed how the contact with the American masses (through the novels) enlivened the language (through the popular speaking), so that it became congenial to the new contents. Peter Mathiessen (who was the writer of the nature: “Il leopardo delle nevi”, “L’albero dove è nato l’uomo”, “Il silenzio africano”) becomes his destiny’s conscience. They have in common the search for the language, for the tragic meaning and uselessness of life, and for the extreme suicidal act. The publishing house Einaudi was born in 1933. Pavese participates to this project enthusiastically, for he is a friend of Giulio: these are his best moments with “the hoarse voice woman”, who was a maths-graduated intellectual, strongly engaged in antifascism. Cesare accepts to receive some politically-compromising letters: spotted, he does not confess the woman’s name and on 15^th May 1935 he is condemned to three years of exile in Brancaleone Calabro for suspected antifascism. The years will be reduced to one, through a petition for mercy. He comes back from exile in 1935 and has a bitter disappointment: the woman leaves him and marries another man. The experience (topic of his first novel, “Il carcere [the prison]”) and the disappointment lead him to a serious and profound crisis, which for years will tempt him to suicide. He chooses an isolation even worse than the adolescence one. Literature saves him once again (“pen value”). His first collection of poems, “Lavorare stanca [Working is tiring]”, is published in 1936 in Florence for the Solaria publishing company. This contained the poems written between 1931 and 1935. Unfortunately, it was read by very few people. A second edition was published in 1942 for Einaudi. This contained also the poems written up to 1940. In those years he is writing tales, short novels, essays: it seems he re-gained self-esteem and trust in life. Above all, he developed a political conscience by frequenting antifascist intellectuals in his city. However, he does not take part neither to the war nor to the Resistance: called to arms, he is dismissed for he is asthma-ill. He opens a new office for Einaudi in Rome. However, he finds himself isolated and he physically repels violence and war dreads. He shelters in his sister’s house in Monferrato. He will live there (“secluded among the hills”) for two years. There he will have a religious crisis. He will  realize his diversity. He will discover he is not able of taking part to life or being active and present. He will not find concrete ideals for the living. All these motives will return in his work “Corrado de la casa in collina [Corrado from the house on the hill]”. It takes back to Svevo’s ineptitude and decadentism. After the end of the war he joins the Communist party. Even this choice (as well as his religious crisis) was the umpteenth misunderstanding. It was a new way of making a fool of himself. He kept deceiving himself that he owned adhesion to things (and choices, and care), which he lacked instead. It was probably a reparation attempt. He wanted to set his conscience at rest. His zeal is always literary: he writes civil-ethical essays and articles; he re-starts his publishing job and re-organize the Einaudi publishing company; he takes an interest in mythology and ethnology (he elaborates his theory about myth in his work “Dialoghi con Leucò [Dialogues with Leucò]”). Besides some periodical evasions to Langhe, he will stably live in Rome. Here he knows a young actress, Constance Dowling. He falls in love again. The red-freckled young woman had probably a sincere admiration for that famous and rich, intellect-doted, and emotively-strong man. She enlightens Cesare once again but at the end she leaves him and goes away. Constance goes back to America and Pavese writes his work “Verrà la morte e avrà I tuoi occhi… [Death will come with your eyes…]”. He is not able to react anymore to this second abandonment; political and religious crisis will shake him again; the anguish will assault him, as well as new waves of solitude and sense of emptiness although his literary successes (his work “Il compagno [The companion]” wins the Salento Prize; “La bella estate [The beautiful summer]” wins the Strega prize; he publishes what is considered as his best work, “La luna e I falò [The moon and the bonfires]”). Worn, tired, but perfectly lucid, he suicides in a room of the hotel “Roma” in Turin by swallowing a strong dose of barbiturics. It is on 27^th August 1950. Only an annotation is left on the first page of his book “Dialoghi con Leucò”, which was on the bedside of the room: “I forgive all and to you all I ask for me is forgiveness…”. He was only 42 years old.