The Lives of the Gods

by Alberto Savinio, James Brook (Translator), Susan Etlinger (Translator)

A selection of Savinio’s early stories, many of which appeared in Surrealist magazines in the thirties. Savinio was the brother of the artist Giorgio de Chirico and an associate of Apollinaire. The moments of personal mythology we create from the apprehensions and misapprehensions of everyday waking life are captured with bizarre charm and delicacy in this collection of stories from an author who is rapidly being recognised as one of the stars of the pre-war Italian literature. the collection is united by a common theme — the re-telling of the most famous stories of all time. "The whole of the modern myth still in process of formation is founded on two bodies of work — Alberto Savinio’s and his brother Giorgio de Chirico’s — that are almost indistinguishable in spirit and that reached their zenith on the eve of the war of 1914." — André Breton, Anthology of Black Humour

Genres: Short Stories, Literature

138 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Alberto Savinio, nome d'arte di Andrea Francesco Alberto de Chirico (Atene, 25 agosto 1891 – Roma, 5 maggio 1952), è stato uno scrittore, pittore e compositore italiano.
Nato in Grecia, terzo figlio dell'ingegnere ferroviario Evaristo de Chirico e Gemma Cervetto, fratello del pittore Giorgio de Chirico e di Adele, primogenita, morta nel 1891, studiò pianoforte e composizione al conservatorio della sua città natale, dove si diplomò a pieni voti nel 1903.

Reviews

[Nate D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pursuing what bits I can of the authors gleaned from the Dedalus Book of Surrealism, here's Alberto Savino, whose story there concerned deranged taxidermist in seeking ultimate perfection.

Here he's more of warped mythologer, with gods and myths giving the collection its thematic continuity. Here's part of the piece de resistance, a long opener destabilizing and debasing the story of Cupid and Psyche:

Someone should calculate all the things that have not been accomplished for the sole reason that the word that would have inaugurated their "exterior" destiny found neither the means nor the opportunity for descending from brain to tongue, and from tongue to sonorous flight, like the bee from its hive. The number of things lost because of this defectus vocabuli is certainly greater than the number of human beings lost because the semen that contained them was spilled on hempen or silken sheets, or on overstuffed sofas, or simply because it was spilled on the bare ground or carried off by the waters of bidets into the dark heart of the oceans. It is in this sense that we should interpret Rimbaud's verse: "Oisive jeunesse / À tout asservie, / Par délicatesse / J'ai perdu ma vie." But what Paterne Berichon's brother terms délicatesse is in reality that mysterious authority that we carry inside ourselves and that, for reasons unknown, prevents us from accomplishing the majority of the acts that we set out to do, and this very often to the detriment of our health, our reputations, and even our lives. As for the man who with unrelenting stubbornness fights against the arbitrary rules and tyranny that other men would impose on him, never in his blindness does it occur to him to fight against the arbitrary rules and tyranny that he carries inside. The cruelest tyrants and our worst enemies are inside us, and if the number of men who are externally free is very small, there is not even one man who has the right to proclaim himself internally free.

(Translation of the Rimbaud citation: Idle youth / Enslaved to everything / By being too sensitive / I have wasted my life.)

Savinio, born Andrea Alberto de Chirco, was the younger brother of that other excellent de Chirco, and a fantastic painter and writer in his own right. (In the latter, better, I would argue.) Also of note here: a tour through a large Achilles, sentient rocks, and death interrogated via a man literally falling to pieces as he watches.

Below, “Self Portrait in the Form of an Owl”, c. 1930)

[Gabriel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best of Savinio's work straddles the divide between Futurism and Surrealism. In particular, the first story here, "Psyche," and a later one (although written a decade earlier) "Achilles in Love Mixed with the Evergeta," have that enthusiasm for mechanizing everything that fired Marinetti, but tempered by a kind of ambivalence for the effects that Marinetti would most certainly have frowned on.

As a result, the best of these stories read like the exegetics or mythos of a Tinguely machine. Everything mechanized, automated, but whirling out of control and somehow brought to the level of the human as a result. Savinio's particular genius lies in identifying the machine as a sort of Greek god-- all-powerful, yes, but also terrible, frightening.

Unfortunately, there are only a handful of those here. Much of the rest of the collection is tiresome to some degree or another-- "innovations" that have long since been surpassed by subsequent innovations, like the machines of Savinio's time have been surpassed by the machines of ours.

[Lance Grabmiller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Various short and varied pieces by Giorgio de Chirico's brother from the 1910s through the 1940s. From cubist, to absurdist to surrealist. I wish there were some sort of introduction or context included to tell me more about him and his work. Also curious to know why the various pieces in this tiny collection where hand picked from many other collection.

[Marty · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book, but i found very few of the stories engaging. even so there were flashes of brilliance even in the dullest stories. I did very much enjoy the story "The House of Stupidity". Not a bad pickup for a dollar at the AK Press christmas sale.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great musician, painter and writer, almost unknown outside France and Italy - highly recommeded