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To Those Gods Beyond
This combination of two key works by the Italian avant-garde writer Giorgio Manganelli (1922–90) is a major addition to the small number of his works available in English. In the 1960s Manganelli was a member, along with Umberto Eco and Eduardo Sanguinetti, of the Gruppo 63 movement, and a close friend of Italo Calvino, who provides an enthusiastic foreword that describes “To Those Gods Beyond” (1972) as a “heraldic bestiary” that “launches into a crescendo of variations on its main theme, the self-aggrandisement of a lucid megalomaniac.” Perhaps the best known of his works included here, “An Impossible Love,” comprises an epistolary exchange between Hamlet and the Princess of Cleves conducted with a “verbal catapult” as the universes about them descend into oblivion. All is overseen by gods beyond whom an endless array of other gods lie in wait, intent on torment. Everything seemingly finite or known in our world becomes infinite and unknown.
The book is prefaced by Manganelli’s notorious manifesto “Literature as Deception” (1967), in which he describes the “literary object” as something cynical, corrupt and devoted only to turning human suffering into exquisite figures of speech. This is a major new offering of work by this important writer, heralded by Calvino as an “erudite acrobat who twirls around the trapeze of rhetoric above the timeless void of meaning.”
The book is prefaced by Manganelli’s notorious manifesto “Literature as Deception” (1967), in which he describes the “literary object” as something cynical, corrupt and devoted only to turning human suffering into exquisite figures of speech. This is a major new offering of work by this important writer, heralded by Calvino as an “erudite acrobat who twirls around the trapeze of rhetoric above the timeless void of meaning.”
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1972
About the author
Giorgio Manganelli
152 books94 followersGiorgio Manganelli was an Italian journalist, avant-garde writer, translator and literary critic. A native of Milan, he was one of the leaders of the avant-garde literary movement in Italy in the 1960s, Gruppo 63. He was a baroque and expressionist writer. Manganelli translated Edgar Allan Poe's complete stories and authors like T. S. Eliot, Henry James, Eric Ambler, O. Henry, Ezra Pound, Robert Louis Stevenson, Byron's Manfred and others into Italian. He published an experimental work of fiction, Hilarotragoedia, in 1964, at the time he was a member of the avant-garde Gruppo 63.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
December 30, 2024
I have yet to read an Atlas Press title that hasn't surprised me and delighted me. Giorgio Manganelli's To Those Gods Beyond is no exception. Again, Atlas captures and presents the work of a heretofore-unknown-to-me master of literary expression with near perfection. I'll explain the "near" at the end. Even with that forthcoming caveat, this is an outstanding work that should be read more widely. I absolutely see why Italo Calvino praised Manganelli's work and why Atlas published this book. The first 50-ish pages alone are worth the price of entry. Far more, if you ask me. The book is divided into seven sections, which I've outlined below. Calvino remarked on the coherence of the work, which is seemingly all over the place. I agree, but I can't quite put my finger on exactly how it coheres. This bears more examination and thought.
Manganelli's essay "Literature as Deception" flatters the writer's vanity, crowning him buffoon, but in the sense of The Fool in the tarot. The foolishness is freedom and the buffoonery wisdom. The writer is, in essence, the trickster god of words and semantics. I wholeheartedly agree with his assessment. At least I flatter myself thusly. Call me a vain fool.
"A King" may be an existentialist shudder from the whispering of death or it may be a eulogy to solipsism itself. But why not both? In any case it is as bold and majestic as the title.
"Simulations" takes the narrator from kingship to poverty to being a renegade and, finally, to nothing but a "child's hallucination". Manganelli, like Beckett in his famous trilogy, breaks down the character to the point of less than nothing, a mere figment of imagination. The last paragraph is a masterful paradigm shift from the observer to the observed; an existentialist epiphany.
"A Few Hypotheses Concerning My Previous Reincarnations" is exactly what it purports to be, which is a baffling thing for any reader. Suffice it to say that the "S" word (-uicide) figures prominently in the narrative as the author tries to piece together his past life. It's a whimsical and tragic examination of identity and the twisted roads one can go down when reflecting on the self.
"Ignominy" sees the (yet another) dead protagonist slowly reason themself into the state defined by the title. The self-awareness of The Dead leads them to disappear in the ever-diminishing (or, rather, spreading thin to near-infinity) of the self. Ignoring, it seems, is both ubiquitous and inevitable for those without a body and, hence without a firm place in space and time. All dissolves into near-nothing.
In hindsight, it's plain to see that the title of the book: To Those Gods Beyond derives, in tone and principal, at least, from the story "An Impossible Love". Here, Hamlet (deceased) finds means to communicate with the Princess of The Princess of Cleve (also deceased) by means of a verbal catapult that launches missives across realities. But what is between and behind those realities? The answer is rather distressing.
The lengthy and exhaustive essay "Disquisition on the Difficulty of Communicating With the Dead" is precisely what the title promises. Where does one begin searching to find the dead, seeing that we have no way to measure those who have no body? Where are they hiding? And what language would we or should we use when communicating with them, once found? More importantly, do they even care? Or are they just stupid?
Now, on to my only complaint. I understand why Alastair Brotchie's afterword was, well, after the rest of the book. Here Brotchie tries to provide a framework for the volume as a whole, attributing all the references to death to an ongoing metaphor about writers and literary work. The evidence feels very thin, with Brotchie admitting as much, and I was absolutely unconvinced. Besides, the afterword saps the work of its mystery - the speculation, often with a darkly humorous twist, about what the state of the dead actually is. All I can say is that I'm glad it wasn't at the beginning, as the tenuous, yet overwrought analysis of Manganelli's work wouldn't have spoiled the joy of To Those Gods Beyond so much as polluted it utterly. I'd rather it just not have been a part of this volume.
So, excising the weak afterword, this is a strong collection of . . . well, it's not exactly easy to find an appropriate genre category for this work. It's its own thing. Unique. A bit of an enigma. And I love it for that.
Manganelli's essay "Literature as Deception" flatters the writer's vanity, crowning him buffoon, but in the sense of The Fool in the tarot. The foolishness is freedom and the buffoonery wisdom. The writer is, in essence, the trickster god of words and semantics. I wholeheartedly agree with his assessment. At least I flatter myself thusly. Call me a vain fool.
"A King" may be an existentialist shudder from the whispering of death or it may be a eulogy to solipsism itself. But why not both? In any case it is as bold and majestic as the title.
"Simulations" takes the narrator from kingship to poverty to being a renegade and, finally, to nothing but a "child's hallucination". Manganelli, like Beckett in his famous trilogy, breaks down the character to the point of less than nothing, a mere figment of imagination. The last paragraph is a masterful paradigm shift from the observer to the observed; an existentialist epiphany.
"A Few Hypotheses Concerning My Previous Reincarnations" is exactly what it purports to be, which is a baffling thing for any reader. Suffice it to say that the "S" word (-uicide) figures prominently in the narrative as the author tries to piece together his past life. It's a whimsical and tragic examination of identity and the twisted roads one can go down when reflecting on the self.
"Ignominy" sees the (yet another) dead protagonist slowly reason themself into the state defined by the title. The self-awareness of The Dead leads them to disappear in the ever-diminishing (or, rather, spreading thin to near-infinity) of the self. Ignoring, it seems, is both ubiquitous and inevitable for those without a body and, hence without a firm place in space and time. All dissolves into near-nothing.
In hindsight, it's plain to see that the title of the book: To Those Gods Beyond derives, in tone and principal, at least, from the story "An Impossible Love". Here, Hamlet (deceased) finds means to communicate with the Princess of The Princess of Cleve (also deceased) by means of a verbal catapult that launches missives across realities. But what is between and behind those realities? The answer is rather distressing.
The lengthy and exhaustive essay "Disquisition on the Difficulty of Communicating With the Dead" is precisely what the title promises. Where does one begin searching to find the dead, seeing that we have no way to measure those who have no body? Where are they hiding? And what language would we or should we use when communicating with them, once found? More importantly, do they even care? Or are they just stupid?
Now, on to my only complaint. I understand why Alastair Brotchie's afterword was, well, after the rest of the book. Here Brotchie tries to provide a framework for the volume as a whole, attributing all the references to death to an ongoing metaphor about writers and literary work. The evidence feels very thin, with Brotchie admitting as much, and I was absolutely unconvinced. Besides, the afterword saps the work of its mystery - the speculation, often with a darkly humorous twist, about what the state of the dead actually is. All I can say is that I'm glad it wasn't at the beginning, as the tenuous, yet overwrought analysis of Manganelli's work wouldn't have spoiled the joy of To Those Gods Beyond so much as polluted it utterly. I'd rather it just not have been a part of this volume.
So, excising the weak afterword, this is a strong collection of . . . well, it's not exactly easy to find an appropriate genre category for this work. It's its own thing. Unique. A bit of an enigma. And I love it for that.
September 4, 2017
"Codesto dio può permutarsi, vendersi, anche essere lasciato ad arte in stazioni ferroviarie, luoghi di cambio di cammelli. Un ago altissimo tiene sulla cima una cruna in cui alberga un dio; infilo la palla del mondo di aghi, ed essi annuiscono e discorrono di cruna a cruna. Questo santuario è un cubo apribile nella parte superiore: contiene pasta per fare dèi; una poltiglia consistente, omogena, diradabile ove occorra; nei cilindri lungo i muri si custodiscono depositi di occhi, anche triangolari, sommamente intimidatori, se esistesse alcunché da intimidire."
"Stiamo dunque tenendo un diario di prima della fine del mondo? Annoterò con adolescente diligenza i miei terremoti come fossero billets doux, i fulmini come occhiate, le lacerazioni dei cieli come palpiti per il beneamato, i voli dei lenti uccelli infausti come presagi di lettere d'amore. Farò della catastrofe un diario di ragazza, di vergine."
"Abbiamo il diritto di dissanguare il significato di questo mondo morente per inventare un nuovo significato?"
"Vedete dunque quanto io sia esperto della mia zerità, che si ritrae dall'esser niente affatto, solo quanto basta perché sappia di non essere niente."
Azzerante. Vettore inesausto di variazioni sull'intollerabile. Fulgido. Sbilenco e sempre in caduta su ogni ferita aperta. Specie se nascosta.
"Strologatore di fantasticaggini", ma tu, tra quelli descritti, che morto sei?
(Ho sbagliato domanda. Ora vado, zitta zitta, in castigo, nel cono di luce e lo scrivo cento e ulteriori volte).
"Stiamo dunque tenendo un diario di prima della fine del mondo? Annoterò con adolescente diligenza i miei terremoti come fossero billets doux, i fulmini come occhiate, le lacerazioni dei cieli come palpiti per il beneamato, i voli dei lenti uccelli infausti come presagi di lettere d'amore. Farò della catastrofe un diario di ragazza, di vergine."
"Abbiamo il diritto di dissanguare il significato di questo mondo morente per inventare un nuovo significato?"
"Vedete dunque quanto io sia esperto della mia zerità, che si ritrae dall'esser niente affatto, solo quanto basta perché sappia di non essere niente."
Azzerante. Vettore inesausto di variazioni sull'intollerabile. Fulgido. Sbilenco e sempre in caduta su ogni ferita aperta. Specie se nascosta.
"Strologatore di fantasticaggini", ma tu, tra quelli descritti, che morto sei?
(Ho sbagliato domanda. Ora vado, zitta zitta, in castigo, nel cono di luce e lo scrivo cento e ulteriori volte).
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September 22, 2024il libro è come altri scritti di m. patria d'elezione di sovrani toccatelli e boriosi, intenti a baloccarsi con le espressioni della loro sovranità. poi però ci sono dei capitoli che racchiudono l'essenza sardonica di manganelli, come il carteggio tra amleto e la principessa di clèves, in cui il protagonista shakespeariano non smette un attimo di fare il provola, neanche quando ciarla di voler commettere un supremo atto di disobbedienza verso i fantomatici "dei ulteriori"; oppure il "discorso sulla difficoltà di comunicare coi morti", che in pratica è una fenomenologia sui luoghi e le forme che occupano i defunti, con tanto di teorie scientifiche per acciuffarli, educarli con metodi bizzarri e poter comunicare con loro... lmao
+ lista di alcuni neologismi che mi hanno fatto ridere:
eternaccolo s.m. ‘essere eterno di infimo livello’
verbobalista s.f. ‘macchina per lanciare parole’
spaccalampioni s.m. ‘chi si diverte a rompere i lampioni, teppista’
defuntofono s.m. ‘congegno attraverso il quale i morti possono parlare’
+ lista di alcuni neologismi che mi hanno fatto ridere:
eternaccolo s.m. ‘essere eterno di infimo livello’
verbobalista s.f. ‘macchina per lanciare parole’
spaccalampioni s.m. ‘chi si diverte a rompere i lampioni, teppista’
defuntofono s.m. ‘congegno attraverso il quale i morti possono parlare’
May 26, 2023
Manganelli presents a wonder: a theoretical cascade of the limitations of universes constructed by literature—it is only through irony and ecstasy those limits can be tested, their heights concealed to be mere microcosms, their halls of mirrors to be the suffocation of a singular consciousness. It’s preceding essay sets the tone as that of a Trickster God, but Manganelli’s lack of faith is signaling only: truly he loves the descents, the constructions, the endless machinations, and the *humor* therein, for much of this work is caught between the smile of the dispossessed and the pathos of a deep existentialism. Wherein lies our limits if the only conceptualism we can bring can only lead to dead ends within the labyrinth, a labyrinth with no center that grows like a cancer to consume reality? And yet that world of ruins, of chasms and fissures, is beguiling nonetheless, perhaps, by its very corrupt nature, we can truly see ourselves.
October 1, 2017
"... e tutto ho scritto intingendo la spennata penna del mio ingegno nel mio negrissimo inchiostro interiore; così come gli uomini compilano i propri sogni, intingendosi, pennini di se medesimi, nel calamaio della notte." (p. 134)
February 15, 2020
Giorgio Manganelli scrive sempre divinamente e questo libro è, come al solito, geniale. Però secondo me non è il suo migliore, la lettura è molto faticosa e spesso quel suo raffinatissimo stile sembra un po' artificioso. Donde le sole tre stelle questa volta.
December 22, 2012
Basta l'attacco: "Che io sia il Re, mi pare sia cosa da non dubitare".
February 22, 2026
“Perché vi scrivo? Perché sono fantastico e malinconico, e vi suppongo malinconiosa e mite. Perché cerco gesti frenetici e chiassosi, mentiti capodanni, epifanie artificiali[…]”
un Calvino più barocco e meno spumeggiante. questo è il secondo Manganelli che leggo, ma il primo che mi conquista davvero. consigliato!
un Calvino più barocco e meno spumeggiante. questo è il secondo Manganelli che leggo, ma il primo che mi conquista davvero. consigliato!
December 30, 2022
Meravellat per Centúria, he anat seguint Manganelli amb resultats decebedors. L’estil és finíssim, s’hi barreja sensualitat, erudicció i barroquisme, però en conjunt és massa abstracte. Una palla mental, vaja. Potser no és el moment.
May 7, 2020
An indescribable collection which reminds me a bit of Borges. Some of it is pure genius, but some are a bit like rhetorical arguments in the form of fiction, so I found the collection a bit mixed which is why it fell a little shy of my best-of-the-best.
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January 31, 2020Borges fatto male da uno che "oh pure io sono psicotico che bello ora scrivo".
Cito solamente perle come : "ottengo il self-behaviour dell'aquila" e "Medito il Leone"
Cito solamente perle come : "ottengo il self-behaviour dell'aquila" e "Medito il Leone"
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews