A DIFFERENT SEA

Author: Magris, Claudio

Source: Italian Studies, Volume 49, 1994 , pp. 125-131(7)

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Abstract:

Every story knows much more than its author, who can only say how and why he has tried to tell it. The origin of this book goes back many years; I was in Grado, at the house of Biagio Marin, the poet who in 1985 died in his ninety-fourth year, who also devised in his poetry his own language, and who was a great friend of mine, a father and brother. We were in his room, in front of a window looking over the sea which itself seemed to open upon something of eternity, and he talked to me, briefly, of this Enrico Mreule, who had been the friend of Carlo Michelstaedter, the great Gorizian philosopher and poet who in 1910, at the age of twenty-three, committed suicide soon after having written one of the great books of the century, Persuasion and Rhetoric. He talked to me of Enrico, this strange character who spoke ancient Greek as we speak our own dialect, who always went barefoot and who wished to free himself of everything, get rid of everything, and who, one fine day, left for Patagonia where he lived alone for years with his herds on the great plains, with, at most, the brief company of some woman encountered in some passing caravan.

Document Type: Research Article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/007516394790599529

Publication date: 1994-01-01

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