I recently found a blog in a reflection of my brother Antonio about Giuseppe Marotta, the author of Students of Sun . My brother says Marotta has been forgotten and snobbish because the Catholic guilt that the mainstream community in Italy in the Sixties and Seventies has obviously not forgiven. I think my brother was exaggerating, because it is true that Marotta has been blindly pushed aside, but not as a Catholic, rather than as a writer with a genuine interest in the fate of small people, whose narrative vein sweet, charming, fun and detached, never prevaricating or be merry, was perhaps regarded as evidence of that form of provincialism that dominate the squares of Naples edifying or poor that was, with that characteristic imprint color of the landscape and anthropology Neapolitan. Clichés perverse and difficult to dispose of (and also to bear, now).
remains, little consolation for those who love Marotta as my brother (who has dragged me into this unconditional love), the satisfaction The children of the sun (perhaps even more than Gold of Naples ) have proven, and that all production of Luciano De Crescenzo, for example, would not exist even without the model Marotta: Bellavista is just a Federico Sorice a bit 'more evolved. Except that beats Sorice Bellavista in human energy, of which he is free because the son of another era. Sorice out winning for the increased seriousness with which you sew on the mythology and classical culture, trying to adapt well to Rosario Nepeta Don hump and horns of greengrocers Salvatore Cademartori, guappo and beak, two of the students moving and caretaker of the legendary Sorice, ascended the pulpit to the streets of Naples.
Dear Anthony Marotta of the trouble is that the literature has uncovered no noise, has reversed the epic melodrama in sociology and mythology without ads spectacular or cause some gullible journalist. It is supported by the left that has been lacking, but the support of television, and this is an advantage in the long run.
But we come to the book. The issue is that of Bompiani, 1952, I found a library in Naples a few years ago. I bought it to give it to my wife. It bears the following dedication:
"Dear Nazzaro, here's pupils your old pupil Giuseppe Marotta. January 1954 »
The one in my possession is the first edition, which followed, Only in 1952, two other well reprints: sign of the great success of this volume extrovert and intimate. Few now remember it, even if the title was later made famous by the Group of Grizzly .
I spent many evenings to read to my wife, Milan, Naples this book, just as we did for boys. We met three or four (my brother Anthony, who played the janitor Sorice), Franco (his friend actor, impersonator and follower of Eduardo De Filippo), sometimes Thomas (my companion endless adventures big and small) and I (which change character from time to time). Read and interpret Pupils of the sun aloud was a pleasure to walk a thin and continuous. Certain formulas of expression, certain absolute superlatives and some daring combinations make the language a form of baroque Marotta tamed and softened, which is precisely the language of Naples. An example: "Who was that? Saturn? My children, that was without doubt constituted authority, an absolute ruler, a founder greek-roman who had created the world of that time when nobody even thought about! Before Adam and Eve, before Muhammad, Saturn come, look, see that there is neither heaven nor earth, says: "But this is a deposit or a customs?", takes off his jacket, takes off his vest and gets to work. Gentlemen, that in three days made the Hall and Thessaly and the globe according to ancient mythology "(p. 8)
How little it takes to transform ' erudition in invention!
What I find amazing, and a form of guarantee of immortality little of this text and its author, is that the same effect of participation, fun drama and emotion that this was unlikely to us fans actors, is now revived by a young Milanese who do not even know the existence of Giuseppe Marotta, before I filled the house of his books.
I, for my part, I will not stop identifying with the young Vincenzino, the telegraph delivery boy who is the youngest of pupils in the school janitor Don Frederick and like all young people was particularly attracted to the erotic elements of mythology . When he feels that circulate nude nymphs, Vincenzino questions concerned the master
"Nude, Don Federico, stripped naked?" (P. 16)Domanda che mette a nudo, per così dire, il sublime fascino della natura idealizzata, della carnalità sognata. La spiegazione che don Federico fornisce come risposta non lascia dubbi in merito:
«Figlio mio, era l’epoca. Tu vai nei quadri e che vedi? giovani o vecchi, uomini o donne al naturale, bianchi e lisci, precisi come la mamma li fece. Tutta mitologia, mi spiego? la mitologia e la pittura sono speciali e non debbono dar conto a nessuno... tu anche oggi se vuoi pittare una bella giovane senza camicia la pitti, salute a noi, e chi ti dice niente?» (pp. 16-17)In questo desiderio mitologico e pittorico, che da ragazzo condividevo with Vincenzino, I still recognize today, because what we actually hooked to this impulse to union with things, their gestures, their faces, with the earth. Vincenzino And I can still say
"Don Federico, I'd do me here, honored on the grass, an hour of absolute mythology" (p. 17)
To those who can read, this book, which collects the little lessons on Greek mythology Sorice caretaker to a group of semi-destitute Naples, is a profound treatise on the two cultures, civilizations on the union of the two instances of the nature and reason, the need to unite and not divide the ancient and modern, with the right human weakness, the sublime with the ordinary, the freedom with the need, with the massive ignorance.
This book, as well as being an enjoyable read and intelligent, is a must because it teaches that the true culture and participation and that the essence of human life always comes to the surface. In essence, the truth is like a sunny day: you can close the shutters, but a "Senga" (slit) of light filters always (I take the picture from my Well, my heart Eduardo De Filippo). This is, I think, more than just the exaltation of the Sun that educates and Paturnie frenzy of the populace, the ultimate meaning of the title Pupils of the sun .
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band From the book:
A grocery store, a cobbler, a coal merchant, a barber, a telegraph messenger hear the former janitor who tells Frederick Sorice In its own way, the record of the horns of Jupiter and Juno, the triumphs of the wiles of Venus and Mercury. This happens in the streets, or boat, or on the walls of the garden, or at the fountain square in a remote, or front of a tavernelle of Saint Lucia, because the friends of the students are funny, evocative of myths, in fact, the magical southern sun. The trouble Tescione Don Alfredo, Don Antonio Pagliarulo, Don Rosario Nepeta, mingle with those of Minerva, Neptune, Hercules, in the game u smiling and bitter vivid contrasts: a further genuine "Gold of Naples" sparkles and tinkles in this new book by Marotta.
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