SOURCE: "Myth and Mortal," in Partisan Review, Vol. LIX, No. 1, Winter, 1992, pp. 155-60.

In the following excerpt, American critic Birkerts asserts that Dialogues with Leucò addresses "primary existential questions " through myths in an attempt to discern universal patterns and paradigms in life.

In his superb essay on Cesare Pavese, "The Silence of Origins," W. S. Di Piero reports that the author had a special fondness for his book of mythic dialogues—indeed, that on the day before he was to take his life he sent a special delivery letter to his friend and biographer, Davide Lajolo, in which he wrote: "If you want to know who I am now, re-read 'La Belva' in Dialogues With Leucò."

The reader who would attempt to make sense of the man and his suicide will naturally hasten to the piece in question (translated .. . as "The Lady of the Beasts"), as I did...