Luigi Pirandello, the winner of the 1934 Nobel Prize for literature, is widely renowned for his plays. However, these eleven short stories that depict life in southern Italian villages are truly remarkable gems! My personal favorite is the intricate "Mrs. Frola and Mr. Ponza, her Son-in-Law." In this complex short story, one of the two characters is insane, yet neither the townspeople nor the reader can determine which one is truly insane. In the final lines, Pirandello states, "One thing is certain anyway: that both of them manifest a marvelous, deeply moving spirit of sacrifice for each other; and that each of them has the most exquisitely compassionate consideration for the presumed madness of the other." Later, it is to the "dismay of the people who study them, scrutinize them, spy on them, but - no use! - cannot yet in any way manage to understand which of the two is the crazy one, where the illusion is, where the reality." This is truly fabulous!
Pirandello, the recipient of the 1934 Nobel Prize for Literature, was an incredibly prolific writer, penning over 230 short stories. This dual-language collection of eleven stories serves as a wonderful showcase of his remarkable talent. In particular, his ability to delineate characters with great precision and his keen appreciation for irony are on full display. As is the case with most story collections, the quality here is somewhat uneven. The collection ranges from "Little Hut," which Pirandello wrote at the young age of 17, to "A Character's Tragedy," which is the forerunner to his most famous play, "Six Characters in Search of an Author." My personal favorite among these is "Mrs. Frola and Mr. Ponza, Her Son-in-Law." In this story, one of the two main characters is insane, yet neither the townspeople nor the reader can definitively determine which one it is. The text states, "[We] cannot yet in any way manage to understand which of the two is the crazy one, where the illusion is, where the reality." The Italian language in these stories is often quite complicated, so for the most part, I opted to stick with the English translation. However, when I did take the time to compare the two texts, Appelbaum's translation seemed to be of a very high quality.