his books on the kiosk at “Corriere” – Corriere.it

A literature that manages to be at the same time insightful and enigmatic, imbued with realism and completely fantastic: this is one of the reasons why the work of Alessandro Baricco (Turin, 1958) has a character that makes it difficult to put it in the to classify present narratives. His characters are modern heroesEven when they appear in a carriage or on horseback, their heroines are slender but as unassailable as a diamond; the major supporting characters are priests, adventurers, strange explorers, or all of the above; The jolly Bouvard and Pécuchet often appear in his solemn Faust. And conversely, bearers of truth appear among his comic characters.

A metaphysical storyteller, adventure writer, magical realist, Baricco is much more: playwright, musician, great storyteller in the theater or on television and great innovator, even for the intuition of the Holden School, founded in 1994 (and sold to Feltrinelli in 2024; Baricco is still managing director). In order to present and describe such a complex author, the new series of “Corriere della Sera” offers 12 titles by the writer on newsstands every week from Friday March 15th: a selection of his most important novels, monologues and essays, which are suitable for the Understanding the diversity of his themes and his writing is essential. The first title on the kiosk is ocean seathe narrator’s second novel (1993) and one of his most important works, will be available in stores on March 22nd
Castles of rage
with which he made his debut in 1991 for Rizzoli (later Feltrinelli).

Baricco himself recently commented on Marco Missiroli in an interview on “la Lettura” #641, who asked him to define the “lightness” that is noticeable in his works – and that he seems to embody Lightness, as Italo Calvino understood it, with which, however, it is impossible not to compare it – Baricco responded by recalling a phrase from Friedrich Nietzsche: “I could not believe in a God who could not dance.” Baricco’s writers love dance. There Complexity of reality and life is very present in the author’s novels (as for life, “in principle one is called to face it in a state of absolute and radical unpreparedness”) reflects the character of Pehnt
Castelli
of anger
), but literature has the task of following its twists and turns without shying away from the unusual, the error, the sublime, the comic. Or to the new one. And to do this it must be flexible, free and able to follow the musical dance of reality.

Dancing, also between the sexes. His most important essay appears in the series at the kiosk,
The game
(on newsstands April 5), in which Baricco talks about the technological age and new media, the changes we are experiencing, but in the language of a theatrical monologue (“Take the icon that has carried this for centuries Meaning of our civilization: man-sword-horse. Compare it with this: man-keyboard screen. And you will have the mutation before your eyes. And in the series there is also (on April 12th in newsstands) his most famous monologue,
Twentieth century, which inspired the film
The Legend of the Pianist on the Ocean
directed by Giuseppe Tornatore: cheerful tragedy of a musician trapped in the claustrophobic world of a ship, but free in the cosmic dimensions of music. Music, words, actions, thoughts and imagination: vessels that communicate with each other, almost “multimedia”, like the languages ​​and stimuli of contemporary reality.

But strictly speaking, the worlds of Baricco’s novels are almost never contemporary for us: foggy and “analog” beginnings of the 20th century, where letters arrive on horseback, travelers rest in inns, where gunslingers, explorers and captains of sailing ships still live. It is actually a summary of the worlds of Alessandro Baricco ocean sea, which opens the series. The location of the event, the Almayer Inn, on the beach, It is a cross between literary and cinematic suggestions: a mysterious sea like Herman Melville and an absurd and dense fog like Federico Fellini. But that name, Almayer, brings back memories
Almayer’s madness
by Joseph Conrad, and the stories that overlap in Baricco’s book contain a lot of weirdness: there’s Plasson, who paints white pictures; the maiden Elisewin, so fragile as a butterfly that the sea could kill her; Father Pluche, who secretly invents thousands of prayers; Bartleboom, who knows everything; Adam, almost an animal on the hunt.

On the fugitive coast, it is not surprising that the inn is run by children who read the guests’ dreams, or that Elisewin, so transparent, can hear the thoughts of the wild Adam: all the characters, in fact They dance their dance to the end, whether tragic, funny or crazy. Hoping, as Baricco writes, to encounter “a garden in which the chaos of life became a divinely precise figure.”

€7.90 per volume

Twelve works by Alessandro Baricco (Turin, 1958), including novels, essays, monologues and collections of articles, form the new series that “Corriere della Sera” is bringing to the kiosks (graphic project by XxYstudio; each volume costs €7.90 plus cost). the daily newspaper). On March 15th we start with the first volume in the series, the novel
ocean sea
, published by Rizzoli in 1993 and republished by Feltrinelli in 2007, is considered one of the writer’s most important works. The second release on March 22nd will be with Baricco’s literary debut, Castles of rage, from 1991, also innovative in its form: the incipit resembles a large theatrical dialogue, the text contains frequent anaphoras (repetitions of words or expressions) that are so characteristic of Baricco’s style. To be continued on March 29th
Seta
, from 1996, one of the writer’s great successes, on which the film of the same name by Frenchman François Girard was based. The famous essay about the digital revolution
The game
, released by Einaudi in 2018, will be the fourth release on April 5th; The monologue followed on April 12th Twentieth centuryfrom 1994, which inspired the 1998 film The Legend of the Pianist on the Ocean, directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. Homer says: It is the idea of ​​the narrative
Homer, Iliad
, which will be available on newsstands April 19. In the following weeks: the novels
Without blood
(on newsstands April 26), City (3 months), This story (10 days),
Smith and Wesson
(May 17) and the tetralogy The bodywhich collects the four novels

Emmaus, Mr. Gwyn, Three times at dawn e The young bride

(on newsstands May 24); Finally, there is a collection of articles and interventions on contemporary society
The new Barnum


(31. May).