• Editorial Board
• Journal
• Current Issue
• Past Issues
• Monographs
• Supplements
• Reviews
• Gadda Prize
• Conferences
• Resources
• Gadda Texts
• Archives
• Catalogues
• Bibliographies
• Pocket Gadda
• Glossary
• Search Site
• What’s New
• About Us

Thinking of Robert

Franco Masciandaro

I think of Robert and more than ever I am keenly aware of the immeasurable goodness and beauty of friendship. He was a great friend, and a friend to many, within and beyond the academic world. As I join other friends in remembering him, I want to say, in the words of Alexander Pope, «How often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? In every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part». Our memories, now bitter-sweet, are medicine for our loss.

I first met Robert in the late 60s, at Harvard, where we were classmates in a number of graduate courses. Among his peers, he stood out for his intellectual agility and a calm self-assurance in the very midst of animated class discussions. This was also true of the lively conversations that Robert and I often had after classes in a coffee house near campus or at dinner parties. Although (or because?) we were temperamentally and ideologically miles apart – he a Marxist and I a Catholic – we quickly became close friends. I was impressed by his fervent belief in literary studies as a way to acquire knowledge that is deeply connected to ethical concerns and to history.

This belief later informed Robert’s entire scholarly work, which include his groundbreaking studies on Manzoni, Pirandello, Gramsci, and, above all, Gadda. Equally significant are his more theoretical studies, whose focus is the literary critic’s responsibility toward writers in promoting literary production. They include Per una nuova militanza critica (Il ponte, 1990), Moderno/Postmoderno: questioni di metodo (Allegoria, 1991), and Timpanaro in retrospect, (Italica, 2001).

Robert was also profoundly dedicated to teaching and extraordinarily generous toward his students, many of whom have gone on to university careers of their own. As is true of all great teachers, Robert put to ample use his sense of drama and natural mimetic powers – as demonstrated, for example, by his quickly acquired fluency in Italian with a distinct Florentine accent. He at once was and flawlessly played the role of the distinguished teacher. And even his scholarly work he viewed as play. Speaking of our books, he once called them our toys («caro Franco, questi sono i nostri giocattoli»). He had plans for many others, among them, a book on Marxist criticism in Italy, and another on the contemporary novel in Sicily, including the works of Vincenzo Consolo, one of Robert’s favorite authors.

One day, shortly before leaving for Paris with his wife Lucy, as Robert and I were remembering with sadness the recent loss of colleagues and friends, especially Gian Paolo Biasin and Gregory Lucente, we commented on our own mortality. When I mentioned, somewhat lamely, the word mistero, Robert quickly responded, «ma che mistero?». The silence that followed, and which Robert’s words invoked, was and still is a most eloquent way of addressing the mystery that penetrates and surrounds our life. In that moment our distinct and separate ways of speaking of mystery – materialist and otherwise – were reconciled and transcended.

I am very fortunate to have known Robert and to have been his friend. I miss him.

University of Connecticut