Above the Arch

by Renzo Novatore, Wolfi Landstreicher (Translator)

Poetry by Novatore newly translated by Wolfi Landstreicher, recently found and so not included in the collection Novatore carried by LBC.

Above the Arch is in the style of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which Novatore would have read and which--in voice, tone, and use of parable--almost certainly inspired this set.

Designed and produced by the same folks who bring you Baeden journal.

116 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2015

About the author

Renzo Novatore is the pen-name of Abele Rizieri Ferrari (May 12, 1890 – November 29, 1922), an Italian individualist anarchist, illegalist and anti-fascist poet, philosopher and militant, now mostly known for his posthumously published book Toward the Creative Nothing (Verso il nulla creatore) and associated with left wing futurism. His thought is influenced by Max Stirner, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georges Palante, Oscar Wilde, Henrik Ibsen, Arthur Schopenhauer and Charles Baudelaire.

Reviews

[Fortuna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had searched for this book for an entire month — I had read through Novatore's collected works and, finding out about this, set out as far as I could through the Internet to find it. This dark book promised me secrets of life I would know. I messaged people I would otherwise never had spoken to, I dug every time deeper into the bottomless pits of the digital archives, I sent out as many emails as I could find reasonable recipients! At last I reached the end of the tunnel, where I waited for a month, ready to give up, yet unwilling to surrender. It was then that an email roared in my inbox, with a grand "sorry for the wait" a PDF's dark music echoed through my home. Renzo Novatore! That name, that unforgettable name! This dark book promised me secrets of life I would know. And so I read, I plunged into the pool of words of his dark prose and his mystic poetry. And the answers appeared — whether they rose from the deepest pits of hell, or descended from the highest plateaus of heaven, I did not know. I did not care! I took the answers for myself, and so I kept them to myself, but the book I shared far and wide, to all who would read it. To all who would need it! What unimaginable, titanic bliss I have experienced finally devouring this infinitesimally brief text! O that I could read it again for the first time! O that I could had met this man in the flesh, that I might had given him the greatest embrace life could offer! Perhaps he is still waiting there, at the end of the Forest of the Phantoms. I do not know, I could not, I will.

[Michael Dunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetry that’s engaging from start to finish.

[Aditya · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is like if Edgar Allan Poe was a shitposter

[Kevin I. Slaughter]

An odd little book of dream inspired stories from a fascinating figure.

[xDEAD ENDx · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really my style of poetry, but this is a cute little book full of Nietzschean vigor.