After the first few pages of Quer Pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana, the reader is struck by Gadda's skillful and, in certain instances, even unorthodox handling of the Italian language, a fact which immediately distinguishes him from most contemporary Italian authors. Gadda's language is a potpourri of archaic and learned words, dialects, highly specialized terminology and neologisms, all blended together in a framework of standard literary Italian. The result Gadda achieves demonstrates the rich expressive potential of the Italian language in its broadest sense.

It therefore becomes obvious that Gadda's view of language differs from literary Italian. He openly rejects formal linguistic restrictions because such conventions conflict with his definition of language. For Gadda language is a continuum; while, on one hand, it synthesizes human experience from by-gone centuries, it must, on the other, be capable of recording contemporary man's achievements and aspirations. (p. 139)

Gadda's language may thus...