The Keeper of Ruins and Other Inventions

by Gesualdo Bufalino, Patrick Creagh (Translator)

In this collection of twenty-odd short stories the situations vary - the reader is invited to consider Noah's ark as it first takes the ground after the Flood, and to experience a brush with Jack the Ripper in foggy Victorian London.

Genres: Short Stories, Italy, Fiction

165 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Gesualdo Bufalino (Comiso, Italy, November 15, 1920 - June 14, 1996), was an Italian writer. Born in Comiso (Sicily), he studied literature and was, for most of his life a high-school professor in his hometown. The time spent in an hospital for tuberculosis immediately after World War II provided the material for the novel Diceria dell'untore (The Plague Sower), that, begun in 1950, would be published only in 1981, when, at the age of 61, his friend and celebrated writer Leonardo Sciascia discovered his talents. In 1988, the novel Le menzogne della notte (Night's Lies) won the Strega Prize. In 1990 he won the Nino Martoglio International Book Award. In his native town the Biblioteca di Bufalino ("Bufalino's Library") is now named after him.

Reviews

[William2 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overwrought stories. A few, very few, have the sonorousness of prose poems. My favorite is “A Bench in the Park.” Bufalino was word drunk in the Melvillean sense. Perhaps it isn’t so surprising then that the story “The Beauty of the Universe,” with its pontificating tutor and his pettycoated charge, should have reminded me so much of the unreadable Pierre, or the Ambiguities. Moreover, and this is consonant with his baroque style, it seems as if the ideal time period for Bufalino is the 14th century. Just before the Renaissance. One story mentions a Walkman. But such a contemporary reference is rare.

[Maurizio Manco · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Com'è stato difficile essere me, com'è stato misterioso. Talvolta anche bello, qualunque cosa io stesso abbia mai pensato o detto altrimenti. E sì che cento volte, come un brutto film o un sogno bisbetico, avrei voluto lasciarmi a mezzo. Interrompere, interrompersi è salutare. Sconcludere, che c'è di meglio?" (Voci di pianto da un lettino di sleeping-car, p. 163)

[M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books from this year and possibly of all time. It has helped me to rediscover Bufalino and the magic of contemporary italian literature. Not because the stories told here are fantastic only, but because of the magnificent atmosphere the author is able to create with such use of the vocabulary and his vast knowledge. It has one of these narrators one should not trust most of the time, but the ride is 100% worth it. From the Universal Flood to Euridice's myth, to a strange meeting between Baudelaire and an almost typical character from Poe's tales, this book has such varied topics and styles that it is impossible to dislike everything about it.

[Antonella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vorrei avere le giuste parole da esprimere al riguardo ma non le ho. Posso solo dire che è imperdibile e geniale.

Uno stile per niente semplice, ricco di arcaismi e cultismi di vario tipo (specchio, del resto, delle tematiche affrontate nei racconti: si passa da Euridice a Baudelaire a Jack Lo Squartatore a Don Chisciotte, per citarne alcuni), ove mai niente è fine a se stesso. Si ha la netta sensazione che ogni parola sia esattamente lì perché debba essere lì, perché non ci potrebbe essere nient’altro al suo posto, sia per la sua semantica sia per il suo suono.

Sono sconvolta per la bellezza di questi racconti.
(Non penso che sia un libro che possa piacere a tutti, solo che rappresenta esattamente tutto ciò che piace a me).

[Susanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un mondo che sa di cose rurali e antiche, un po' come la Deledda, ma ancora più misterioso; ovunque l'ossessione di Bufalino: vivere realmente, lasciando un segno nel mondo di sé, nella speranza di dare un senso alla propria vita.
Una continua ricerca di "essere" per "vivere".

[Giorgia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ilare, intenso, linguisticamente ricco, intelligentissimo.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great classic - a classic of the unfettered imagination though do not look here for conventional 'fantasy'. This is a fantasy of erudition with a narrator who, although apparently untrustworthy, always delivers you home safely after a journey both wild and remarkable. There was nothing like these stories in English, nor an author like Bufalino writing in English when they were first written in Italian in the 1980's nor when they were translated in 1994. I still think they are unique - from Flood of Genesis to Euridice's myth, to a strange meeting between Baudelaire and an almost typical character from Poe's tales, this book has such varied topics and styles that it is impossible to dislike.

I heartily recommend it.

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wonderful collection, quite varied, though not all worked for me, Bufalino's language is full but sometimes carries away the story...

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Libro meraviglioso. Bufalino conferma di essere uno scrittore eccezionale e prezioso.