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The (post)modern labyrinth and the Minotaurs
An investigation into Quer pasticciaccio

Francesca Hector

This essay will offer several different approaches to Gadda’s Pasticciaccio, entering the novel via historical, political, literary, linguistic, psychological, scientific and mystical passageways, on the grounds that the first half of the 20th century marked a paradigm shift in all these branches of epistemology, a movement away from Aristotelian logic and the traditional quest to discover Absolute Meanings behind the façade of immediate perceptions.

Gadda’s Pasticciaccio can be considered to belong to a transition phase in which individuals previously tied to rigid belief systems and institutions (represented by characters such as Ingravallo) are awakened, through shock and experience, to concepts of relativity, and the arbitrariness of their world.

Such transition can be seen in Gadda’s life (Dombroski 1999: 20-42), and in many lives affected by the First World War – what has been termed as the crisis of the crisis of modernism. This period was heavily imbued with the search and creation of myth, symbolism and collective identity (partly in reaction to alienating social and economical conditions). Gadda, however, does not belong really with this school of thought, instead presenting the reader with discontinuous information, fragments, plurilinguism. Can this tangle be considered postmodern? Postmodernism has always been conceptually problematic, to say the least. Since an investigation and analysis of postmodernism is beyond the scope of this essay, I shall focus the discussion on one particular aspect:

The only certainties about postmodernism are that it is deeply sceptical and that this doubt derives from an obsession with language and meaning. (1)

Any system of language or representation of reality can be considered a labyrinth. There are potentially infinite ways through it («reality-tunnels» of meaning), although for a social community to function there must be a consensus-reality, or agreed meaning, which is generally considered Reality (yes, with a capital R). However, the use of language as a tool for defining meaning is also a method of manipulation and indoctrination. Pasticciaccio investigates at least two levels in the labyrinth and the multiple reality-tunnels within them: contemporary Roman society (with is different dialects and different possible reconstructions/explanations of the events) and Ingravallo’s mind, and his increased awareness of other ways of thinking). Since the crime is based on a true event, the duality of fact and Gadda’s fiction also becomes an issue.

From a historical point of view, Gadda’s emphasis on and exposure of such relativity could largely be a reaction against the totalitarian regime of Mussolini (who based his society on Absolute Values). This counter reaction is an awareness that «total explanations lead to totalitarian societies» (Robinson 1999: 42) and its consequences. These are the Minotaurs that patrol any labyrinth: they represent totalitarian/single perspective dogmas and the individuals that enforce and embody them. Throughout history, these have been powerful institutions and people wanting to keep their power – the Church, political leaders and their official censorship, etc., which leads to self-censorship and the perpetuation of the reality-tunnels created. However, the paradigm shift after the First World War generated suspicion of these organised authority-systems, and a growing awareness of their arbitrary rather than essential nature. (2) Ingravallo’s uncertainty at the end of the novel may indicate that the Minotaurs are loosing power…

Throughout the novel, Gadda draws the reader’s attention to how language creates the meaning which determines our definitions of reality – whereas all that can correctly be said is what is observed. In the Pasticciaccio, the main event is Liliana being found dead. However, everyone immediately talks of «l’assassino», which catapults us straight into the linguistic reality tunnel of ONE, MALE, who INTENDED to kill her. The previous crime in via Merulana could be Gadda’s way of preparing and warning the reader, hinting towards possible alternative interpretations. Although this time the event was the robbery of widow Menegazzi’s jewels, everyone talked of an «assassino» – Ingravallo draws attention to this linguistic trap:

«Ma qua’ assassine si nun ce sta ’o muorto». La sora Liliana (Ingravallo trepidò), sola in casa […]. (RR II 29)

However, the narrator echoes this, describing the suspect as «L’assassino era un giovane alto […]».

This is one of the first examples of Ingravallo becoming aware of the function of thought process. The relation between language and meaning can be probed by investigating the significance of the names chosen for the characters. Whilst the critic Contini considers the symbolism of several of Gadda’s name choices and dialectal distortions, I shall focus here on Ingravallo:

(WARNING: this is a cut’n paste ideas-jam)

ingravidare = to become pregnant. Ingravallo becomes pregnant with his fixation, and dogmatically needs to see it through.
ingarbugliare = to muddle.
gravame = burden, load, encumbrance.
gravitare = (around a fixed idea?).
gravare = to be supported by.
engramma = medical term; engram = memory-trace, supposed permanent change in brain accounting for existence of memory (from Greek: en = in + gramma).

The latter term is used in certain branches of psychology in the following way: «[many psychologists believe that] impulses travelling over neuronal engrammes are the basis of each and every cerebral engrammes […]. It certainly seems true that electroshock and insulin shock perform miracles of improvement by their action on the neuronal engrammes […]». (3) Engrammes can be most simply considered units of self. The sensory information that travels over and interacts with this self results in a specific cerebral function. This self is not static, unchangeable. Diseased engrammes – i.e., in a state of mental pathology – can be corrected, cured by shock treatment.

All this can represent Ingravallo’s experience: he lives with the mask on, he feels he is a unit (i.e., one entire unit) within the system – although acknowledging multi-cause approach, he still refers to the motive…

Ma il termine giuridico «le causali, la causale» gli sfuggiva preferentemente di bocca: quasi contro sua voglia. (RR II 16)

In other words, although he is already aware of the grey area within the black-and-white system that needs a cause, he unconsciously modifies his language to conform to the system. It is only through the shock of Liliana’s death that he is forced to see himself as part of the situation instead of an objective investigator. Zooming out onto a universal scale – Liliana can represent sad innocence, suffering from situations that are out of her control (e.g., being childless, and being murdered…), like the many innocent soldiers and people that suffered, were killed by the two world wars. Ingravallo is not presented as a bad man. Yet he has been so strongly conditioned into a certain reality-tunnel, or single-cause, so thoroughly hypnotised by language, that although on some level he is very aware of the fallacy he goes along with it anyway. He can therefore be seen to represent the many people who have accepted domination by Minotaurs, whilst knowing it is not right – most obviously, a comment on Mussolini’s regime.

Gadda often wrote of «la catena di cause». (4) His belief in multiple causes is clearly stated in his Meditazione milanese:

«Ogni effetto ha la sua causa» è un’asserzione che non comprendo assolutamente. Io dico «ogni effetto (grumo di relazioni) ha le sue cause».

This supports the idea that Liliana’s death is also possibly due to a huge range of situational, political and social factors – e.g., she is rich and this could have provoked the jealousy of her maid Tina, or resentment by one of her nieces (even la Gina?), who might well have been involved with Mr Balducci. On the other hand, her death could have been due to the random misfortune of living in that house at that time… Widow Menegazzi, for her part, feared that her house would be broken into. And according to Ingravallo:

La lunga attesa dell’aggressione a domicilio […] era divenuta coazione: non tanto a lei e a’ suoi atti e pensieri, di vittima già ipotecata, quanto coazione al destino. La prefigurazione d’ ’o fattacce s’era dovuta evolvere a predisposizione storica […]. (RR II 31)

This is further explained as:

Perché Ingravallo […] attribuiva un’anima, anzi un’animaccia porca, a quel sistema di forze e di probabilità che circonda ogni creatura umana, e che si suol chiamare destino. (RR II 31-32)

Ingravallo seems to consider destiny as just one of the many factors that contribute to an event, which at least partially depends on the mindset (in this case, fear) of the individual.

Amigoni’s following observation suggests another interesting interpretation:

L’Io per Freud e per Gadda non ha sostanza propria: è una funzione, è pura attività coordinatrice, una macchina interpretativa che deve lavorare coordinando «piccoli indizi», verificando i «fatti poco appariscenti», i «rimasugli del mondo dei fenomeni». (Amigoni 1995a: 16-17)

This seems a good description of Ingravallo’s role in the justice system: collecting evidence and fragments – even destiny is no more than another contributing factor. No wonder his life character seems to lack sostanza propria: his own life revolves round his work and consists in processing information according to a rigid scheme.

Applying Ingravallo’s analysis of widow Menegazzi’s destiny to his own, it is not merely due to coincidence that his relationship with the Balduccis shifts from social to professional – since his life revolves around his job, he somehow has brought this about. Much can be said of Ingravallo’s repression, which is defined by Freud as:

[…] the essence of repression lies simply in turning something away, and keeping it at a distance, from the conscious. (5)

Ingravallo represses what he fears, and Liliana’s death is the perfect embodiment of these fears (which according to his logic makes him at least partially responsible for her death). Her death forces him to confront the physical reality of her body: pure body without a mind, and the very sexual impact this has on him. If Ingravallo had previously functioned as the ego of the state – a mere co-ordinator –, then he must have repressed the subconscious: emotions, impulses and sexual desires. The shock of Liliana’s death shakes his detachment as he realises that he had cared for her. Indeed, Amigoni describes Gadda and Freud as «distruttori novecenteschi dell’Io», and suggest that in the io lurks «la fonte di tutti i mali: il narcisismo» (Amigoni 1995a: 14, n. 18).

By the end of the novel, Ingravallo has confronted many possible interpretations of the crime («i confini di un sistema», Gadda writes in Meditazione, «sono sempre arbitrari e determinabili in base al grado di approssimazione delle analisi che ci interessa di istituire»). When he finally faces Tina, he lacks his initial certainty – he sees other possible ways through the labyrinth? Perhaps at the end Ingravallo does realise that he is in a fractal loop, that to find Tina guilty would merely strengthen the system. Roscioni refers to «la storia possibile»: the point that remains unactualised. In detective novels, the point is to differentiate between la storia accertata and la storia possibile, yet the process and methods of investigation create the truth, rather than uncover it. This could be part of Ingravallo’s final revelation: that he has an active role in establishing what is true. Having become more aware of some emotions through Liliana’s death, he is more aware of Tina’s fear of his authority, the power he yields over her.

The suggestion also echoes the book’s opening, when it is already suggested that a single culprit cannot (and therefore will not) be identified:

Ingravallo sosteneva, fra l’altro, che le inopinate catastrofi non sono mai la conseguenza o l’effetto che dir si voglia d’un unico motivo, d’una causa al singolare: ma sono invece come un vortice, un punto di depressione ciclonica nella coscienza del mondo, verso cui hanno cospirato tutta una molteplicità di causali convergenti. (RR II 16)

This strongly suggest chaos theory, with its features of some degree of non-linearity, based on endlessly looping feedback (in the non-linear manner of the detective genre which starts with a crime then reconstructs the possible events leading up to and after it). Roscioni observes that according to Gadda, «alla radice stessa del disordine c’è un principio di attività, di creatività, di ordine possibile: c’è insomma l’incoercibile pulsare della vita» (Roscioni 1975: 82). In other words, «Chaos is not mere disorder – it is the deeper order within apparent random, non-linear systems». (6) This active force within chaos can be considered in the following way:

When a system has gotten so complex that it fails to be predictable by linear means but exhibits the emergent behaviour of chaos, it is called a dynamical system. (Rushkoff 1997: 23).

Human societies can be considered such a system:

The tiniest change within the tiniest detail of a dynamical system can implicate huge changes on a higher fractal order.

Every labyrinth can be considered a dynamical system. Throughout the novel, Liliana is treated more as an object than an individual. Her apparently random, illogical death acts as a catalyst to the dynamical systems (or labyrinths) of both Roman society and Ingravallo’s investigation. Although within the scope of Roman society, Liliana’s death is but the tiniest of details, the knock-on-effects are huge (like the ripples of a stone is a pond...).

Another approach to the Pasticciaccio, as suggested by the critic Cattanei, is to consider it a neorealist work, much in the cinematic-narrative style of the early Fellini, Pasolini, Vittorini, due to its focus on everyday people and reactions to events, the use of dialects, and the strong undercurrent of struggle against fascism. However, in the short essay Un’opinione sul neorealismo, Gadda had pointed out that «nei temi cari ai neorealisti egli riconosceva solo una parte dei motivi che la realtà propone, diffidava degli schematici personaggi-simbolo e della “tremenda crudeltà del referto” neorealista» (Cattanei 1977: 14).

Gadda, that is, renounced the idea that (neo)realism (or any realism for that matter) faithfully reproduces reality, suggesting instead that like all language systems it merely sheds light on a particular aspect of the human condition (and a particular socio-economical and historical situation), its truth, meaning, importance, just as relative as any other.

Many comparisons have been made between Gadda and Joyce. As in Joyce’s case, it has often been said of Gadda that only through deforming the language he could portray the multiplicity of reality. The following warning may also be useful when reading Gadda:

«Here», said Mr Joyce to the Paris intelligentsia of 1922, «I offer you a shockingly realistic novel». And everybody nodded sagely, appreciating the genius of Joyce’s prose and swallowed up the realism claim… In the 72 years since then, we have gradually noticed that the ultra-realistic Ulysses, parodies every other realistic novel, parodies romantic novels and epics also, even parodies itself, and contains 102 synchronicities, three case of ESP [extra-sensory-perception], one case of precognition, one ghost walking in the broad daylight of a Spring afternoon and more uncertainty than quantum equations […] most readers had simply mistaken satire (or something else…) for objective reporting, just because they believed in labels – «travel books» or «realistic novel» respectively. (7)

Applying such analogy to Pasticciaccio is very revealing since this book can be considered un giallo in the same sense the Ulysses is realist. If, as Lyotard claims in his essay The Postmodern Condition, all the grand narratives of Western civilisation have been demolished, then perhaps Gadda is at least partially responsible for challenging the expectations and preconceptions of detective fiction, and the very process of investigation leading to a truth or definitive outcome.

This idea is seconded by Roscioni, who writes that:

Le cose quindi non sono altro che le infinite relazioni, passate e future, reali o possibili, che in esse convergono: relazioni che attuano, nel mondo effimero delle «immagini» prestabilite idee o forme.

The concept of a-causal interrelatedness is not new. But since predominant Western reality-tunnel (the Minotaur) has throughout history been governed by hierarchical authority systems claiming the right to power (since they have Reason, Rationalism and Facts on their side…), concepts such as relativity and that the significance of tiny details can override and influence the established order have largely either been suppressed or ridiculed. Such investigations were therefore considered occult – meaning hidden.

With the Pasticciaccio in mind, compare the following three quotations:

[…] rien ne passe ici qui n’ait quelque dépendance insensible des choses qui sont à cent mille lieues d’ici. (Leibniz – quoted in Roscioni 1975: 64)

The idea of everything being the cause of everything is central to Taoism and I Ching… this idea enables one to perceive a basic unity among all things. (8)

The Einstein-Rosen-Podolski demonstration (1935) indicated that if quantum mechanics is true, some particles are in instantaneous contact even if at opposite ends of the universe (CT1, 191):

Quantum inseparability Principle […], which is accepted by some and denied by some other physicists, holds that every particle does affect every other particle, somewhere. (Wilson 1995: 44)

Although I cannot expand this point within the scope of this essay, Gadda’s novel seems to be written about a state of higher consciousness and awareness that before the 20th century would have been considered esoteric – i.e., the examination of consensus-reality game rules (labyrinths).

Through Ingravallo’s investigations, Gadda exposes many facets of obscenity of situations and systems, in the typically postmodern sense of the second half of the 20th century, as described by Baudrillard:

It is no longer the traditional obscenity of what is hidden, repressed, forbidden, or obscure; on the contrary, it is the obscenity of the visible, of the all-too-visible, of the more visible-than-visible. It is the obscenity of what no longer has any secret, of what dissolves completely in information and communication. (9)

One of the focal scenes in the Pasticciaccio is the grotesque horror of the description of Liliana’s body. Not only is she reduced to a mere lump of flesh and blood, but her lifted skirt exposes her sexuality. Given her social position as a lady, this is even more significant an exposure of the hidden and repressed (especially for Ingravallo…). Once the investigation is underway, much else also gets exposed – mechanisms such as the corrupt police, inefficiency of system (e.g., rivalry and tension between the police and the carabinieri), frequent misunderstandings, muddles with names, assumptions treated as fact. The crime itself, as Baudrillard would suggest, dissolves in information and communication: information as the inverse of knowledge.

I would therefore conclude that it is perhaps more useful to read Gadda’s Pasticciaccio as an investigation into the labyrinths of potentials, both in terms of the State and systems, and into the linguistic expression of Ingravallo’s thought processes, rather than trying to find a culprit. The following quotation perhaps best sums up the main direction in which I have tried to take in this essay:

[Gadda] highlights modernism’s concern not so much for concrete or stark reality (as in the 19th century novel) but for the motion or even the vortex that starts with reality but that re-creates itself in the language of literary fiction […] with its immediate roots in the modernist crisis of reality and linguistic mimesis. (10)

Distinctions between consensus reality and experiential reality is seen through the novel, as is the danger of them drifting too far apart, and when Ingravallo finally confronts Tina, the two could almost be considered to fuse together:

Egli non intese, là pe llà, ciò che la sua anima era in procinto d’intendere
……………………………………… quasi.

The pasticciaccio of the title does indeed refer to many things: the crime itself, the human body, the instrument and object of the crime, linguistic pastiche of the narration and its attack on the formal body of language, and the surplus of information. It could also refer to the seemingly inescapable situation of uncertainty and relativity of the postmodern era – the quasi state in which the mind and spirit cannot quite correspond.

Notes

1. D. Robinson, Nietzsche and Postmodernism (Cambridge: Icon Books, 1999), 5.

2. Gadda would have been influenced by his studies of Leibniz’s philosophy, notably his investigation of necessary and contingent truths.

3. J. Nielsen and G. Thompson, The engrammes of Psychiatry (Banterstone House, Ill.: C.C. Thomas Publishing, 1947), ix.

4. Roscioni 1975: 31. Roscioni notes that this theme recurs in La cognizione del dolore, Le meraviglie d’Italia, I viaggi la morte.

5. P. Gay (ed.), The Freud Reader (London: Vintage Press, 1995), 69-70.

6. D. Rushkoff, Children of Chaos (London: Flamingo, 1997), 23.

7. R.A. Wilson, Cosmic Trigger (Tempe, Az: New Falcon Publications, 1995), 162.

8. S. Reifler, I Ching (London: Bentam Books, 1974), 2-3.

9. J. Baudrillard, The Ecstasy of Communication – in L. Cahoone (ed.), From Modernism to Postmodernism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 131.

10. From an online review of A. Sbragia’s Gadda and the Modern Macaronic by Gregory Lucente.