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The Late Mattia Pascal

Luigi Pirandello,

William Weaver (Translator),

Charles Simic (Introduction)

4.04 · Rating details · 17,715 ratings · 504 reviews

Mattia Pascal endures a life of drudgery in a provincial town. Then, providentially, he discovers that he has been declared dead. Realizing he has a chance to start over, to do it right this time, he moves to a new city, adopts a new name, and a new course of life—only to find that this new existence is as insufferable as the old one. But when he returns to the world he le ...more

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Paperback, 272 pages

Published November 30th 2004 by NYRB Classics (first published 1904)

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Jan 02, 2016 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it

Shelves: italian, fiction, 20th-century, literature, modern, novels, nobel-prize, classics

Il fu Mattia Pascal = The Late Mattia Pascal, Luigi Pirandello

The Late Mattia Pascal is a 1904 novel by Luigi Pirandello. It is one of his best-known works and was his first major treatment of the theme of the mask. The protagonist, Mattia Pascal, finds that his promising youth has, through misfortune or misdeed, dissolved into a dreary dead-end job and a miserable marriage.

His inheritance and the woman he loved are stolen from him by the same man, his eventual wife and mother-in-law badger him Il fu Mattia Pascal = The Late Mattia Pascal, Luigi Pirandello

The Late Mattia Pascal is a 1904 novel by Luigi Pirandello. It is one of his best-known works and was his first major treatment of the theme of the mask. The protagonist, Mattia Pascal, finds that his promising youth has, through misfortune or misdeed, dissolved into a dreary dead-end job and a miserable marriage.

His inheritance and the woman he loved are stolen from him by the same man, his eventual wife and mother-in-law badger him constantly, and his twin daughters, neglected by their mother, can provide him with joy only until an untimely death takes them. Death robs him even of his beloved mother.

تاریخ نخستین خوانشنسخه فارسی: روز سوم ماه ژانویه سال 1974میلادی

عنوان: مرحوم ماتيا پاسكال؛ اثر: لوئیجی پیراندللو؛ مترجم: بهمن محصص؛ تهران، امیرکبیر؛ 1348؛ در 424ص؛ چاپ دوم: تهران، امیرکبیر، 1394، در 247ص، شابک 9789640016992؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، انتشارات علمی فرهنگی؛ 1394، در 292ص؛ شابک 9786001217548؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان ایتالیایی - سده ی 20م

از بهترینهای کلاسیک است؛ داستان مردی که از زندگی خود، دل خوشی ندارد؛ او دور از خانه، در روزنامه، خبر مرگ خودش را میخواند، نخست جا میخورد، سپس تصمیم میگیرد، با ترک شهر خود، با هویتی تازه، زندگی دیگری را، آغاز کند؛ با این همه، سرانجام در زندگی تازه نیز، به جایی نمی‌رسد، و بازمی‌گردد، تا با گذشته ی خود رودررو شود...؛ اما بسیار دیر شده، چرا که شغلش از دست رفته، و همسرش دوباره ازدواج کرده است؛ تقدیر «ماتیا پاسکال» اینست که در قالب شبح، با هویت از دست رفته اش، باز هم به زندگی ادامه دهد؛

کتاب خواندنی و هیجان انگیز رمان «مرحوم ماتیا پاسکال»، با طنزی گزنده، و خواهان« کشف هویت» و راز و رمز آن، برای شناساندن، و به تصویر کشیدن استعداد و توانایی منحصر به فرد «پیراندللو» در داستان سرایی، نقش به سزایی داشته است؛ این اثر هر چند یکی از آثار داستانی «پیراندللو»، به شمار میرود، اما بیانگر بخشی از زندگی نویسنده نیز، هست؛ گویند: «پیراندللو» این رمان را، بر بالین همسر روانی خویش نوشته است؛

نقل از متن: (از چیزهای نادر و شاید تنها چیزی که به آن اطمینان داشتم این بود که اسمم «ماتیا پاسکال» بود؛ من هم آن را به کار میبردم؛ هر گاه کسی به سرش میزد که برای مشورت یا پرسشی نزدم بیاید خودم را جمع و جور میکردم، چشمم را میبستم و جواب میدادم: من «ماتیا پاسکال» هستم؛ - متشکرم عزیزم، میدانم؛ - به نظرت خیلی کم است؟ راستش را بخواهید حتی به نظر خودم هم این چیز زیادی نبود ولی در آن زمان هنوز نمیدانستم که حتی ندانستن همین چه معنایی دارد؛ به این معنی که نتوانم مانند گذشته ها به موقعش بگویم: من «ماتیا پاسکال» هستم

چه بسا کسی پیدا شود که بخواهد برای دلسوزی بر من «این چندان ارزشش را ندارد» تصور فلاکت آن بدبختی را بکند که ناگهان کشف کند که نه پدر دارد و نه مادر و نه میداند که بوده و چه نبوده، در اینصورت ممکن است از فساد آداب و رسوم، از عیبها و بدبختی زمانه که میتواند اینهمه گرفتاری و دردسر برای یک بیچارۀ بیگناه درست کند برآشفته گردد؛ «این هم باز کمتر ارزشش را دارد.» باری موضوع این هم نیست)؛ پایان نقل

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 30/10/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی ...more

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Mar 06, 2019 Steven Godin rated it really liked it

Shelves: italy, fiction

Recognized as one of the founding figures of modern drama and theater, Nobel Laureate Luigi Pirandello is not so well known in the English language as a novelist and short story writer, but this humorous affair written in 1904 shows he could work wonders in both fields. He touches on some of the themes that reverberate throughout his work as a dramatist: those being illusion and reality, and the enigmas of identity.

The narrator here (that would be Mattia Pascal) is something of a wazzock, a risi Recognized as one of the founding figures of modern drama and theater, Nobel Laureate Luigi Pirandello is not so well known in the English language as a novelist and short story writer, but this humorous affair written in 1904 shows he could work wonders in both fields. He touches on some of the themes that reverberate throughout his work as a dramatist: those being illusion and reality, and the enigmas of identity.

The narrator here (that would be Mattia Pascal) is something of a wazzock, a risible buffoon, a figure carved out of a fizzy comic opera, he is the impoverished son of a once-rich family that ended up being ruined by a villainous swindler. Living a dreary existence as an archivist, with a weary marriage, he is bedeviled by an intrusive mother-in-law, and tormented by creditors, so swiftly slips away to Monte Carlo where luck and fortune find him. Whilst missing in action back home he is mistakenly identified as deceased (slightly far-fetched, but hey, people make mistakes) and sees an opportunity to start a second life by being an enterprising rogue under a new identity and new name. But eventually he comes to realise he can only ever be the one and only Mattia Pascal.

To the consternation and confusion of all the other characters, this novel turned into a right old lark, with a shadowy, farcical and slapstick nature infused with a sardonic tone. This is death on a silver platter without the inconvenience of dying!. With Mattia's self-created doppelganger - Adriano Meis, Pirandello reminds us of how he began addressing that conundrum which he calls the "clumsy, inadequate metaphor of ourselves" and for all the laughable moments this novel provided, on deeper reflection I also found it quite moving, as Mattia Pascal slowly starts to realise that his freedom is in part illusory and comes at a price, as he loses his identity so he loses his ability to control his own destiny, becoming even more imprisoned than he was before.

Again William Weaver, who I have come across with many other Italian novels, does a great job with the translation. ...more

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Oct 31, 2017 Lea rated it really liked it

Shelves: philosophy, classic, fiction, owned

Central questions of Pirandello’s novel are “Who am I” and “What is freedom”.

One of the few things, in fact about the only thing I was sure of was
my name: Mattia Pascal.

The last time I read Pirandello I was in high school, and I think I read some plays that I have to re-read because I don’t remember them very well. This is his most-famous novel that has some autobiographical features and is exploring themes of identity, self, freedom, and death that were the most obvious and prominent, spiced ...more

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Jul 21, 2010 Megha rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviews

Have you ever thought about going to a place where nobody knows you and starting a new life as an entirely new person?

Luigi Pirandello makes Mattia Pascal live out this fantasy. Great misery has befallen Mattia Pascal and there is no silver lining in sight. Unable to think of anything else to do, he runs away leaving everyone and everything behind. A few days later on his way back home, he discovers that while he was away a dead body was mistaken for his and he has been declared dead in his town
Have you ever thought about going to a place where nobody knows you and starting a new life as an entirely new person?

Luigi Pirandello makes Mattia Pascal live out this fantasy. Great misery has befallen Mattia Pascal and there is no silver lining in sight. Unable to think of anything else to do, he runs away leaving everyone and everything behind. A few days later on his way back home, he discovers that while he was away a dead body was mistaken for his and he has been declared dead in his town. Out of the confusion this caused emerged one thought: FREEDOM!! All the ties of his past life were now broken and Mattia could now re-invent himself and live a new, better life.

And then follows the tragi-comic tale of the late Mattia Pascal. Life experiences have a great say in shaping a person. In trying to erase his past, Mattia Pascal had to lose a great part of himself. His roots were cut-off and he was empty, a mere shadow of a person. He found himself struggling with the questions of self-identity and his purpose in life. The people he had left behind, the ones who thought he was dead were indeed free of him, in a true sense. He, on the other hand, could not escape the past life he had lived. Poor Mattia's miserable adventure at living a new life reminds me of something Fyodor Dostoevsky said in Crime and Punishment:

"If you ran away, you’d come back to yourself."

Mattia never found real freedom, it was only an illusion. The question of whether free will really exists has been a long standing debate. And Pirandello's take on this is in the negative. What Mattia was living was tyranny masked as freedom. How could he ever hope for a true friendship or relationship when he was not free to reveal the real himself to anyone. His freedom tied him in the chains of solitude, complete solitude. The only life left for Mattia Pascal was that of the ghost of himself.

Pirandello's writing is very accessible and easy to read. It is flavored with wit, irony and subtle humor. For casual readers, he gives a compelling and well-crafted story. For more serious readers, it is interspersed with intriguing thoughts, reflections on life and some beautiful passages. The novel is a little treat for those who love existential themes and paradoxes.

My copy of the book has a brief beautiful post-script by the author where he talks about art, reality vs. illusion and how very realistic human significance can sometimes be found in imaginary fables. This was in response to critics who had denounced his work for being unrealistic and far from normal life.
The postscript is followed by another one which reports a *real life* case similar to the life of Mattia Pascal in this novel, which happened several years after the novel was first published. Fiction is real, after all!
...more

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Aug 10, 2009 Donato rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Before you read another book (or finish the one you're reading), before you see another movie, before you contemplate any work of art, get yourself to the nearest bookstore or library or wherever you prefer to look at books, and find Pirandello's Il fu Mattia Pascal (The Late Mattia Pascal), wherein you will find "Avvertenza sugli scrupoli della fantasia" ("A Warning on the Scruples of the Imagination"). Just read those 4 or 5 pages, which are not actually part of the novel, and you will begin t ...more

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Feb 07, 2020 Uhtred rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The Late Mattia Pascal is such a great book that when a reader writes a review he wonders (rightly) what he can add, which has not yet been said, to one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. The reflection is correct, but after reading it you really want to put your thoughts on paper.
The Late Mattia Pascal is undoubtedly a milestone in world literature. Why did I re-read a book from 1904 in 2020? For various reasons: the first is that a work like this must be read several times in lif The Late Mattia Pascal is such a great book that when a reader writes a review he wonders (rightly) what he can add, which has not yet been said, to one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. The reflection is correct, but after reading it you really want to put your thoughts on paper.
The Late Mattia Pascal is undoubtedly a milestone in world literature. Why did I re-read a book from 1904 in 2020? For various reasons: the first is that a work like this must be read several times in life. The second is that in the midst of thrillers, noir, essays and science fiction, every now and then I feel the need for a "difficult" book, one that forces you to think.
Pirandello does not need any presentation, and the Late Mattia Pascal is one of his best known and most loved works, at the basis of which there is a narrative intuition that is still unsurpassed today. The book develops around the theme of the individual identity of each man: in the book, it is that of Mattia Pascal and his alter ego, Adriano Meis. The novel is the protagonist's story and of the events that have led him to be the "Late" of himself.
At the beginning Pirandello explains how Mattia's father got rich by playing cards with an English captain from Liverpool and how, with the great fortune he had accumulated, he managed to buy houses, vineyards and fields in his Ligurian village. Due to an illness, his father dies during a trip and Mattia's mother entrusts the management of the estate to an administrator, who is dishonest and over the years takes possession of all the assets of the Pascal family. Mattia and his brother are too busy having fun to notice and furthermore Mattia gets the administrator's niece pregnant, who forces him to marry her. Mattia thus passes from a life of fun to a very different life: he has lost all his money, he has to work as a librarian to earn something in a village of people disinterested in reading, he lives with his wife at the house of his mother-in-law who despises him, has two children who both die, the relationship with his wife is bad, his mother also dies. A hell. One day Mattia decides to leave for Monte Carlo without telling anyone, to try to get rich by gambling like his father did. Luck is on his side this time and in about ten days, between unique acquaintances and many lucky bets, he manages to multiply his little initial money up to win a lot of money at roulette. He then decides to go home, to redeem himself, to show everyone what he was capable of and maybe buy back some of the lands that belonged to his family. During the train journey, however, the fact that will change the book happens: Mattia reads in the newspaper that there has been a suicide in his village and discovers that he has been identified in the corpse found, which was hardly recognizable because already in state of decomposition. After a few moments of bewilderment, Mattia decides to take the opportunity to escape from his old life. He decides that his new name will be Adriano Meis, takes off his wedding ring, cuts his beard, grows his hair and puts on dark glasses to hide his squinting eye.
The first thing he will do is travel a bit, see the most beautiful and famous cities, in complete freedom; but such a life, without affection, friendships and ties, soon tires and Adriano decides to settle in Rome, where he rents a room.
After a first period of euphoria, however, the first problems begin: Mattia has no documents and when he suffers a theft he cannot even report it, but the worst thing is that he cannot even marry the woman he fell in love with, Adriana, the daughter of his landlord. Mattia feels imprisoned by this condition, for which, if you do not have an identity card you are non-existent for the society, and then decides to renounce the identity of Adriano Meis (whose suicide he stages) and to take back the old identity, returning to his village inventing some excuse. He decides to visit his brother first, who is obviously very amazed by the sight of his brother believed to have been dead for two years. His brother tells him that his wife has now remarried to an old friend of him and that however, if Mattia returns, the marriage will be canceled according to the law and so they would get married again, even if his wife didn't want to. Mattia decides to go back to the village and see what happens. As soon as he enters his wife's house, a great chaos happens: the wife faints, her new husband is already thinking about the problems related to the marriage to be canceled and the old mother-in-law reacts in her own way, screaming like crazy. Mattia, in front of a happy family (who also had a daughter) decides not to interfere in their life. He renounces to assert his rights on marriage and decides to live in the village on the sidelines, abandoning everything that is no longer his property, because it belonged to the Late Mattia Pascal.
He then resumes his work as a librarian, excluded from everything and everyone, pervaded by a sense of constant strangeness, and with the only consolation of a visit every now and then to his own grave in the town cemetery, with the feel that he is now nothing else that the "Late Mattia Pascal".
Why did I speak of unsurpassed narrative intuition? Because here we are in presence of a protagonist, Mattia Pascal / Adriano Meis, who was able to formally die twice in the book. With his experience, he has matured, he has grown, he has discovered what it means to have ideals, he has known true love, but he cannot have a second chance. For a man like him, victim of destiny and his will to change him, there is nothing left to do but feel sorry for himself in front of his own grave, the tomb of the late Mattia Pascal, on which to bring fresh flowers from time to time.
The story of Mattia Pascal also has another bitter background: in just two years all the inhabitants of the village forget him, the family does not seem to despair of his death and his wife remarries, replacing him with a richer man. Our society soon forgets, it replaces everything and everyone and goes on: it was true in 1904 and it is even more true today....
...more

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Sep 12, 2020 Luís rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: italy, classics, 2020-readings

That's a fair and often funny reflection on life and freedom which can only appreciate in close relation with men.
I had a little trouble finishing this book due to the somewhat dated mess of the whole affair, but worth a visit. ...more

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Mar 29, 2014 Jim Fonseca rated it really liked it

Shelves: italian-authors

Right in the first few pages the author tells us this is the story of a man who “died twice." Our hero, or anti-hero, is going nowhere in late 1800’s Italy. He earns a pittance as the librarian in backwater Italian town. He lives with screaming kids, a wife who has lost interest in him and a viscous mother-in-law who hates him. One day while out of town, he learns from newspapers that the decomposed body of a suicide victim down by the watermill in his home town was mistaken for him. He is free! ...more

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Apr 15, 2011 Praj rated it really liked it

Shelves: lp

R.I.P.
Mattia Pascal.

Mattia Pascal was a man born to endure adversities in every walk of life. He was a dutiful son who saw his family affluence ruined by a benefactor after his father’s death and his mother’s existence fading into rueful shadows. He was a concerned husband and a doting father even in the thorniest situations that brought demoralizing repercussions in his marital life. The only thing Mattia was ever sure about in his burdensome life was his name-Mattia Pascal. It was his solita ...more

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Dec 05, 2011 Tyler Jones rated it really liked it

Shelves: italian-literature

Even in so-called literary circles, the name of Luigi Pirandello is connected primarily with his innovative work as a playwright. Almost entirely forgotten, at least outside of the Italian speaking world, are the early novels which launched his literary career. The Late Mattia Pascal, published in 1904 could certainly lay claim to being one of the most unjustly under-appreciated books of the Twentieth Century. It is a psychological meditation grafted on to a rollicking comic adventure. Perhaps t ...more

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Sep 20, 2011 Caroline rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: italian, philip-ward-500-books, fiction-in-translation

This is an interesting contrast with 'Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself', which I read a short time ago. In Sheppard Lee a man flees debts and a generally unsatisfactory, pointless life by magic. That is, dying in an accident, he finds he can magically inhabit another body whose ‘owner’ has just died. However, he takes on the character and life circumstances of said dead man, which in time, for each of the sequence of bodies he adapts, becomes intolerable.

Mattia Pascal, in contrast, doesn’t die b This is an interesting contrast with 'Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself', which I read a short time ago. In Sheppard Lee a man flees debts and a generally unsatisfactory, pointless life by magic. That is, dying in an accident, he finds he can magically inhabit another body whose ‘owner’ has just died. However, he takes on the character and life circumstances of said dead man, which in time, for each of the sequence of bodies he adapts, becomes intolerable.

Mattia Pascal, in contrast, doesn’t die but is released when his wife and his harridan mother-in-law identify someone else’s dead body as his. Mattia has run away a few days before and takes the misidentification as a godsend; Pascal too flees debts as well as a miserable home life. But he suddenly finds equal misery in having no identity at all in his un-dead state. Both he and Sheppard Lee avoided any kind of serious education or training, and they have no inner resources to support them when adversity and boredom strike. Both have lost their inherited lands to devious business managers, and thus as gentlemen have no way to earn a living.

Pirandello investigates authenticity, asking how much of our identity is dependent on external definition: heritage, relationships, position, law. Not an innovative subject for a novel now, but in 1904 this must have been a fairly unusual work. Mattia tries to live without any home or relationships for a while, then gradually becomes enmeshed in a new set of relationships which he cannot sustain in his inauthentic, unrecognizable (legal) state. He both takes advantage of others and is taken advantage of, without a ‘self’ of recognized responsibility and integrity.

The following quote is interesting in the context of other WWI era reading:

‘ This feeling about life, for Signor Anselmo, was exactly like a lantern which makes us see ourselves scattered over the earth, and makes us perceive good and evil; a lantern which projecs all around us a more or less extensive circle of light, beyond which lies the blank shadow, a fearful shadow, which would not exist if the lantern was not lit in us, but which we must unfortunately beiieve to be real as long as the lantern is alight within us. When at the end it is snuffed out, perpetual night will greet 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.
…In each period, in fact, a certain agreement about feelings tends to establish itself among men, which gives light and color to those lanterns which are represented by the abstract terms : Truth, Virtue, Beauty, Honour and so on…Don’t you think, for example, that the lantern of pagan Virtue must have been red? Christian Virtue must have been violet, a depressing color. The light of a common idea is fed by a collective feeling; if however , this feeling stops being general, the lantern of the abstract term stays standing, but the flame of the idea crackles, flickers, and dips, as usually happens in all periods of so-called transition. Then there are periods in history, not altogether rare, when proud gusts of wind suddenly extinguish all the lanterns. Wonderful! In the unexpected darkness there is an indescribable sense of disorientation amongst the smaller lanterns: some go hither, some thither, some turn back, some falter; no-one knows the way any longer: they bump into one another, perhaps make groups for a while of ten or twenty, but cannot come to any agreement and go back to being scattered about in a state of confusion and anguish and fury, like ants that can’t find the entrance to the anthill when some cruel child has blocked it up just for fun. I think, Signor Meis, that we are at one such time at this very moment. It is very dark and confused. All the great lanterns have gone out. Who should we turn to? Should we turn back perhaps? Should we go back to the surviving lanterns which great men now dead have left burning on their tombs?
…The weak, but constant light of these little lanterns [re: lanterns of men who get their lantern oil from the church] of course awakens a painful envy in many of us; whilst certain others, who think they are armed, like so many Jupiters, with the tame thunderbolts of science and who, in place of the little lanterns, carry triumphantly electric torches, feel disdain and pity…. ...more

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Dec 08, 2019 Lucia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

It has been such a pleasure to re-read this Italian classic. Mattia's narrative is hilarious and thought-provoking. ...more

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Mar 23, 2020 Inês rated it really liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Luigi Pirandello is not only known by his works in prose but for his work as a playwright and this second trait is visible in this work and in other similar works (like 6 characters in search for a writer) . As his stories are often times filled with originality and are extremely dramatic. But also depict a weird reality that calls our attention.

In this narrative the protagonist, Mattia Pascal, finds himself in a life that gives him no pleasure. With a wife and a mother in law badgering him cons ...more

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Apr 29, 2014 Jill rated it liked it

Enjoyable, if not exceptional. Pirandello is witty & amusing, and even when the book shifts into its more blatantly philosophical segments, it's still a pleasure to read. That said, it's dated -- not in content, necessarily, but in impetus -- but not so badly that it completely detracts from the reading experience. A dark but fun meditation on identity & faith/fulness -- and worth it, mostly. ...more

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Feb 27, 2010 Fabio rated it it was amazing

Mattia Pascal thinks he has a chance to cut all the laces that bounds him to the world, and live in a state of complete freedom. But soon he discovers there's no full life and no freedom outside the boundaries imposed by society, unless you accept a life of fear and solitude.
A classic, timeless novel (that I probably should have read in high school...).
On my edition there's a post-scriptum from Pirandello in which he reports of a real case he found in a newspaper, 20 years after publishing his ...more

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Oct 26, 2007 Tosh rated it it was amazing

Have you ever wanted to stop your life and become someone else? Well this is what "The Late Mattia Pascal" deals with. It makes perfect sense. Classic novel about identity and how that plays in one's world. ...more

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Oct 13, 2013 Mattia Ravasi rated it it was amazing

Pirandello's most famous book brilliantly exposes weaknesses and strenghts of the Modern Man through a brilliant, entertaining story whose surreal nature weirdly makes it more realistic.

Featured in my Top 5 20th Century Italian Novels: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn6D59... ...more

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Jul 02, 2016 Anna rated it really liked it

Shelves: cactus-book-challenge

4.5 stars

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Dec 14, 2011 mirela Darau rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: i-have-it-in-english

It was my first book of Pirandello’s and it raised my curiosity about other ones too :). I enjoyed very much the story, the character study, the telling of the story and the –often philosophical - meditations, the humor: indeed everything!
I liked the idea of the story: a man is constrained and defined in the same time by the society he lives is, the name he wears, and cannot live freely without a past. It made me think of all the new beginnings I often wish for, the memories and experiences I ch It was my first book of Pirandello’s and it raised my curiosity about other ones too :). I enjoyed very much the story, the character study, the telling of the story and the –often philosophical - meditations, the humor: indeed everything!
I liked the idea of the story: a man is constrained and defined in the same time by the society he lives is, the name he wears, and cannot live freely without a past. It made me think of all the new beginnings I often wish for, the memories and experiences I cherish. In other words, it was enjoyable also for the thoughts and reflections it brought to my mind.

Among the sticking-out things I read:
The clothes we wear, their cut and color, can make people have the strangest opinions of us. pg.64 –indeed we are sometimes implicitly defined by our appearance, but for me it’s something I fight against:).

--from the funny passages: The country air would certainly do my wife good. Perhaps some of the trees would lose their leaves at the sight of her, and the birds will fall silent; I only hope that the spring doesn’t go dry. pg.70

--from the reflections: I seemed frighteningly cut off from life, my own survivor, lost now, waiting to live beyond death, but still unable to glimpse the way ahead. pg.77 ---loved the image!

lol!:)“Put it away. I wouldn’t want to frighten it. “
He stared at me and asked: “Frighten what?”
“Why, that little mirror. It’s charming. It must be an antique…” pg.84

But at a certain point we realize that all life is stupidity; so tell me yourself what it means never to have done anything foolish. At the very least it means you have never lived. pg.105

And yet, I thought, science has the illusion that it is making our existence easier and more comfortable. But even admitting that it’s easier, with all these difficult, complicated machines, I still ask: What worse could they do a man condemned to futile activity than to make it easy and almost mechanical for him? pg.108

Because we can’t understand life, if we don’t explain death in some way. The motive, the direction of our actions, the thread to lead us out of the maze, dear Signor Meis, the light must come from beyond, from death.pg.122 –it seems strange and funny to me now, how Pirandello brought his character exactly in the house of a man concerned with life beyond the visible and more of these things, and how –up to the end- this man is –I may dare say- made fun of..
pg.165 –he’s talking about the darkness we’re surrounded by and the lanterns we have to lighten it, and then he refers to the ‘sense of exile that torments us’ :) --I often had this feeling..

As day is different from night, so perhaps we are one thing during daytime, and another after dark: though poor enough material at any hour. Pg 187—been often thinking about this!

I looked around; then my eyes fell on the shadow of my body, and I stood there for a while, contemplating it. Finally I raised my foot over it agrily. But no, I couldn't trample on my shadow.
Which of us was more of a shadow? It, or I?
Two shadows!
There, there on the ground; Everyone could pass over it, crush my head, trample on my heart; and I would be quiet, my shadow would be quiet.
The shadow of a dead man; that was my life... pg.199

The epilogue is also interesting in the logic and word games:P For example
Life's absurdities don't have to seem believable, because they are real. As opposed to art's absurdities which, to seem real, have to be believable. Then, when they are believable, they are no longer absurd. pg.256 ...more

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Nov 01, 2020 Daniella rated it liked it

3.5

I think this did get a bit boring at times but I really liked the main concept and how Mattia slowly began to realise his newfound freedom wasn't such a blessing after all. The last like 50 pages or so were probably my favourite! ...more

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Aug 06, 2013 Nicholas During rated it it was amazing

What would happen if everyone you knew thought you were dead? Would you rejoice in a newfound liberty of a new, fresh life? Away from that boring wife? The reduced wealth of you family? The insults of your neighbors that you can't fight? That's what happens to Mattia Pascal. But of course nothing really works out like we plan in this world unfortunately. And it turns out complete freedom from everything has its costs too. Try travelling without a passport. And more than that, even if circumstanc ...more

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Jan 20, 2018 Ciaran Monaghan rated it liked it

The main crux of the story is about identity, questioning the ability of a person to change their identity and leave their old self behind when given the chance. It was good in that regard but I am primarily interested in the story and, from that perspective, it was only OK. It had early promise with the narrator being declared dead, opening up the opportunity for a new start, but I felt it didn't really go anywhere beyond that. There were a few threads that I was expecting to develop but they n ...more

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Feb 07, 2019 Jerry Pogan rated it really liked it

A very entertaining story about a man who runs away from a miserable marriage and boring job who unexpectedly wins a small fortune gambling. When he decides to return home after a few days he discovers a newspaper article about a suicide body found that has been identified as himself. He then decides to take a new identity and make a new life. Things become more and more complicated from there and don't go as well as he had hoped. ...more

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Dec 03, 2019 Big Al rated it really liked it

Shelves: in-translation, 2019

Do you ever feel trapped by your own existence? Do you ever long for the freedom of death but are too afraid of dying? In this bizarre early 20th century Italian novel, a man is granted his freedom and a new lease on life after reading about his own death in the newspaper. For a novel that is over 100 years old, this still feels fresh, fast-paced, and fun. Really enjoyed following Mattia’s adventures as he finds out the pros and cons of being fake-dead.

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Aug 11, 2017 Alberto rated it it was amazing

Pirandello is an authentic genius. The story has a unique circularity unfolding with the progress of the main character life experience. Good insights on life and society that are always valid nowadays. Very recommended.

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Dec 25, 2020 Maan Kawas rated it it was amazing

Great book, brilliant and engaging!

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Dec 15, 2020 Lorenz rated it liked it

3.5. Pirandello is Kafka if the latter had a sense of humor. Finding comedy amidst bleak and existential situations, Pirandello explores the modern condition and finds that it is, unsurprisingly, strange.

While many of Pirandello's observations still resonate today, the plot and humor do sometimes rely heavily on the cultural expectations of 1930's Italy. I feel that the main themes and plot points could have been conveyed in half the length; as with Kafka, the blurb and first few chapters are t ...more

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Nov 02, 2019 Eileen rated it really liked it

3.75 stars (liked it)

When Mattia Pascal, a husband and librarian living in an Italian village, escapes his difficult family and flees to Monte Carlo, he soon learns his village believes he has passed away which then gives him an opportunuty to remain away and re-invent both his identity and his life:

"Here I was alone, more wholly alone than I could ever hope to be again on this earth; free from every present bond and obligation, a new man, my own master absolutely, with no past to drag along ...more

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Jan 27, 2016 Alex rated it really liked it

Shelves: existence-as-trap, melted-nobel-medal, postmodern-over-reliance-on-play

Pascal is mistakenly declared dead, and he takes advantage by abandoning his life for a new one. Much later, when others discover his actions, everyone approves. Why return when the opportunity exists to leave?

Every existence is a prison. To leave one life means to take up another, and taking up this other life means taking up its shackles. Pascal tries to avoid commitments and requirements, but the avoidance of commitment shackles him as well.

The Late Mattia Pascal could be read as a deeply con

...more

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Sep 14, 2017 Felipe rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2017, romance, italia

[english below]
História de um homem vivo, ainda que duas vezes morto, que acredita ter sido acometido por grande sorte quando é confundido com um suicida e se vê completamente livre das amarras e mesquinharias que lhe traziam desgraça, mas logo descobre que fugir da própria essência é tarefa bastante complexa. Tem lá suas doses de humor, discussão filosófica e política, reverência a história da literatura italiana, e no meio de tudo isso é um grande (talvez o maior) exemplo da genialidade de Lui ...more

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About Luigi Pirandello

Luigi Pirandello

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Luigi Pirandello; Agrigento 28 June 1867 – Rome 10 December 1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist, poet, and short story writer whose greatest contributions were his plays.
He was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his almost magical power to turn psychological analysis into good theatre.
Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of whic ...more

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“Le anime hanno un loro particolar modo d'intendersi, d'entrare in intimità, fino a darsi del tu, mentre le nostre persone sono tuttavia impacciate nel commercio delle parole comuni, nella schiavitù delle esigenze sociali. Han bisogni lor proprii e le loro proprie aspirazioni le anime, di cui il corpo non si dà per inteso, quando veda l'impossibilità di soddisfarli e di tradurle in atto. E ogni qualvolta due che comunichino fra loro così, con le anime soltanto, si trovano soli in qualche luogo, provano un turbamento angoscioso e quasi una repulsione violenta d'ogni minimo contatto materiale, una sofferenza che li allontana, e che cessa subito, non appena un terzo intervenga. Allora, passata l'angoscia, le due anime sollevate si ricercano e tornano a sorridersi da lontano.” — 32 likes

“Tu non le sai, povero ubriaco filosofo, queste cose; non ti passano neppure per la mente. Ma la causa vera di tutti i nostri mali, di questa tristezza nostra, sai qual è? La democrazia, mio caro, la democrazia, cioè il governo della maggioranza. Perché quando il potere è in mano d’uno solo, quest’uno sa d’essere uno e di dover contentare molti; ma quando i molti governano, pensano soltanto a contentar se stessi, e si ha allora la tirannia più balorda e più odiosa: la tirannia mascherata da libertà.” — 7 likes

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