SOURCE: Guglielmi, Guido. “Gadda and the Form of the Novel.” In Carlo Emilio Gadda: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Manuela Bertone and Robert S. Dombroski, pp. 25-42. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1997.

In the following essay, Guglielmi uses Gadda's compositional notes from Racconto italiano di ignoto del novecento to explore the philosophical principles underlying Gadda's approach to narration and the form of the novel.

In his preface to the Einaudi edition of Gadda's Racconto italiano di ignoto del novecento, or Cahier d'études (1924), Dante Isella reminds us that in Les faux-monnayeurs (1925) Gide laid the theoretical foundation for a kind of novel no longer conceived as a tranche de vie and no longer based on plot, but rather constructed en largeur and en profondeur (as opposed to en longueur). In addition to self-reflection, the materials making up the new novel were the attendant circumstances of its composition. The notebook...