The Late Mattia Pascal (Eridanos Library) [Paperback]

Luigi Pirandello (Author), William Weaver (Translator)

Book Description

Series: Eridanos Library | Publication Date: March 1, 1995

While living an oppressive, provincial existence, Mattia Pascal learns that he has been mistakenly declared dead. Blessed with that rarest of opportunities - the chance to start an entirely new life - he moves to a new city under an assumed name, only to find this new "free" existence unbearable. Faking his own suicide, he returns to his hometown, where his wife has remarried and his job has been filled. Reduced to a sad walk-on part in his own life, the only role now left to him is that of the "late Mattia Pascal".

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Universally recognized as one of the founding figures of modern drama and theater, Pirandello is virtually unknown here as a novelist and short story writer. Written in 1904, this novel touches on some of the themes that reverberate throughout his work: illusion and reality, the enigmas of identity, art and life. The narratorprotagonist is something of a buffoon, a figure out of comic opera, the impoverished son of a once-rich family stripped bare by a villainous swindler of an estate manager. Living a dreary life as an archivist, tired of his dismal marriage, plagued by an intrusive mother-in-law, tormented by creditors, he slips away to Monte Carolo and hits it big. While he is gone, a suicide in his hometown is mistakenly identified as the very same Mattia, who, being an enterprising scamp, changes name and identity, marries anew in adopted territory, fakes his own suicide and returns to the orginal scene as his old self, to the consternation and confusion of everyone. Comedy descends to farce and slapstick here and there; but no harm done. Essentially the novel is a lark, with some shadowy overtones; and the portrait of town lifethe "biographies of worms," Mattia saysis drawn in acid.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Three writers of the twentieth century have given voice to—and leant their names to—our disquiet, our injuries, and our fear; at the same time, through the catharsis or measure of contemplation, which are among the revelations of art, they have helped us to live by tempering our anxiety and desperation; and I am using this term, tempering, in a musical sense…of striking a more pure, more cristalline, more vibrant note. These three writers are Pirandello, Kafka, and Borges.
— Leonardo Sciascia

Very funny, often hilariously so. It is also moving, disturbing, tragic. For Pirandello saw comedy residing in “the fundamental contradiction … between human aspiration and frailty,” a contradiction that induced “a certain perplexity between weeping and laughing.”
— The New York Times Book Review --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Marsilio Publishers (March 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0941419444
• ISBN-13: 978-0941419444
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,696,596 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Funny Page-Turner for Those Who Enjoy a Mesmerizing Story!, June 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Late Mattia Pascal (Eridanos Library) (Paperback)

This is a novel for those who read to get transpotred into another world and simply enjoy a great story! If you like Calvino you'll love "Pascal". It's a very funny depiction of what happens when one (here, Pascal) tries to reinvent oneself and become something else. Like Calvino, it incorporates irreverent humour, mystery and wonderful descriptions. But Pirandello is more traditional in his prose than Calvino--so if your offset by Calvino's randomness, don't worry, Pirandello is more focused.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The brain is the piano and the player the soul, September 7, 2002

By 

Esther Nebenzahl - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Late Mattia Pascal (Eridanos Library) (Paperback)

Italian author, winner of the Novel Prize in 1934, Luigi Pirandello is better known for his plays, forerunners of the theatre of the absurd. In this novel, the main character Mattia Pascal faces an economic downfall and a marriage without love. He decides to escape from this situation and in a stroke of luck wins a fortune in Monte Carlo. He takes a new identity, gains total freedom, shams death but the ghosts of his past existence, and the discovery of true love will spoil his new life.
The plot is neatly constructed and the dialogues between Mattia Pascal and some of the characters are enlightening, expressing Pirandello's philosophical outlook on life as well as reflecting biographical elements. The author is concerned with the ambiguity of truth and reality, the problem of identity and illusion. For him self-identity only exists in relation to others, as much as man is a social creature, unfortunately bound to social conventions. Man creates his own reality and lives in a world of illusions, always bound one way or the other to the past. The resulting paradox is that illusion may often become more real than reality!
Mattia Pascal is unable to cope with his total freedom which strucks him as being shapeless and aimless. Only the love he feels for Adriana will help him brake away from his suffocating mask. Upon returning to his former town he finds his wife has remarried and he is destined to become the shadow of a dead man.
Pirandello held a pessimistic outlook on life, believeing that his time was one of distress and darkeness (early 20th century), democracy was nothing more than tyranny disguised as freedom, and philosophical speculations nothing more than a product of our imagination.
"When death comes perpetual night will great us after the misty daylight of our illusion, or rather, we will be left to the mercy of Being, which will only have shattered the vain forms of our reasoning."

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A funny, deep and astonishing story, November 15, 2000

By 

Guillermo Maynez (Mexico, Distrito Federal Mexico) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Late Mattia Pascal (new edition) (Paperback)

This novel is about the identity of the individual, and the possibilities and limits of self-reinvention. By failing to transform himself into someone else, Mattia Pascal remains the same person, but radically changed from his experience. Oh, but it's not so complicated. Mattia Pascal is a good-for nothing- junior who, along with his also-spoiled brother, lose the fortune inherited from their father. Besides losing his fortune, Mattia is forced to make a disastrous marriage. And then, along comes a big and most unexpected chance to run away and become someone else. I won't spoil anything. Just read it and you will find an amazing story. Pirandello's writing is easy. The introduction to the real knot of the story is a little long, but it is absolutely necessary to situate the plot, and moreover, it is very funny. Pirandello's style fluctuates between irreverent and outrageous irony, and melancholic reflections on fate, identity and man's place in the world. Far from being boring, it has extremely funny moments of dark humor (check his confrontations with his mother-in-law). So, it is an extremely recommendable book, because it is intelligent humor with a reflection on life. If you really get to love the story, as I did, you'll end up asking to yourself: "Who the hell am I?".