The misunderstood genius occurs more commonly in other creative fields far from literature such as painting or music. I say it because maybe in Giovanni papini let's have a Van Gogh. In demonstrating the genius evidence of Papini he put a lot of effort himself Jorge Luis Borges, who soon saw in Papini the rare sight of ingenuity without possible sifting.
Nobody better than Papini to chronicle his days in the most lucid and interesting way, far beyond disappointing political affiliations and immediate labels.
Because beyond the Papini character, we can find in his work very different tastes of the variable imprint of the gifted spirit above the mediocrity of thought and imagination. From a critical intention disguised as satire, to a metaphysical will from parody or a mystical scope from the atheist conviction.
Surprising for any reader of any age. Avant-garde then and now. To get lost in Papini's bibliography is to take a bath of new literature in the crystalline waters of the lucidity of an illustrious narrator.
He studied to become a teacher, but worked for a few years before working in a library, where he surrounded himself with what he most enjoyed: books. It was then that he began his career as a writer, and he did so with short stories such as The twilight of the philosophers (1906), in which he criticizes the philosophy of Kant, Hegel o Schopenhauer and proclaims the death of thinkers; The tragic everyday o The blind pilot (1907), in which he hints at features of Futurism and Modernism.
Top 3 recommended books by Giovanni Papini
Gog
The substrate of this curious novel is, How have we come to regress so much having so many gifted minds? That's what Goggins wants to know. And it will be for money. Goggins has no problem devising his own plan towards the synthesis of the world. An excuse under which the author offers himself as the great creator of sentences that he is, plaguing each Goggins interview with the characters that will happen in front of him with unforgettable quotes.
But Goggins's need to know is not that of the altruist in search of the solution. Only that of the cynic who longs for wisdom with which to feel even more at the top of the watchtower from which he can see the rest of his fellow men lost in innocence. At least Goggins admits it, there is no invisible hand of Adam Smith that works for good in the world. And he can be considered one of those who gives good faith to the predicates of good Smith. But the question is not that.
The important thing for Goggins is to know what other humans like him think that everyone turns to to know. And this is how we speak with Lenin himself, with Edison or Freud, with Einstein or with Gomez de la Serna. Perhaps what those other wise men tell you will not convince you at all. But the point is to gather opinions. Because when all this explodes, when the world is reduced to ashes, Goggins wants to know how it could have happened.
The blind pilot
If Papini's virtuosity is that kind of synthesis made into literature, how could he not also preach in the form of a story or tale? Let's add a volume focused essentially on the fantastic and we end up enjoying a different work. Master of Dino Buzzati and disciple of Edgar Allan Poe, "if Papin's stories do not reflect the terror or morbidity of Poe's themes, it is evident that strangeness and metaphysical reflection overflow in them, treated with a greater or lesser degree of irony and sarcasm together with a magnificent practice of suspense, which ends up causing in the reader an overwhelming effect of surprise, confusion and confusion.
In all these stories, "wrapped in the caustic humor of Papini", the melancholy that emanates from skepticism is reflected. This is what Borges was referring to when he stated: "These stories come from a date when man reclined in his melancholy and in his twilights ...".
The devil
The wrong done figures. Protagonist of more stories than good, goodness or God. The attraction to the demonic and the perverse coexists with the human being, from the childish temptation of an apple to the insane claim of the devil as the last will of Christ before pain and madness.
How could Papini not talk about him? Despite the fact that a lot of ink has been smeared to give shape and substance to the devil. Despite the fact that many other writers like Poe have already resurrected him for twisted readers. We all worship the devil at some point. If only for the morbid fact of knowing what can await us in the end if we do not act as we should, or as we have been taught to intervene in our passage through this world.
Papini teaches us where the devil is and who communes with him. Evil is a huge crucible where all our vainglories and twisted desires become hatred and manias. Reading this book is taking that famous turn to the wild side, a la Lou Reed Papini version, with the same musical cadence towards the discovery of the more than possible pact of everyone with him, with the Devil himself.
