SOURCE: Tench, Darby. “Quel Nòme Storia: Naming and History in Gadda's Pasticciaccio.” Stanford Italian Review 5, no. 2 (1985): 205-17.

In the following essay, Tench warns against any simplistic reading of Quer pasticciaccio brutto de Via Merulana, noting that comparisons to the Aeneid in the work are muddied by the dualities Gadda poses.

“Se so' sparati a via Merulana”: and don Ciccio, investigator for the Questura di Roma, feels a lump in his throat, a palpitation of the heart, a fear that the magnificent Signora Liliana Balducci is involved. The victim of the present crime—a jewel heist—is however not Signora Balducci, but rather her across-the-hall neighbor, the Countess Menegazzi. Only three days later, Liliana Balducci will be dead, herself the victim of an assassin's knife.

Two crimes, one address: via Merulana 219. This is the “ambo non auspicato”¹, the unexpected bothness of the crime, which, in its implication of...