Translated by
Lawrence Venuti
Translated by
Lawrence Venuti
PASSION: A Novel
THE TEMPLE
OF ICONOCLASTS
Fiction
5½ x 8½, 240 pp
b & w illustrations
Paper, $14.95
1-56279-119-2
US & Canada
“Compellingly whimsical, alienated, pseudo-scientific, bizarre: all these adjectives describe this fiction in the form of a short reference work, the first book by admired Argentinian-Italian novelist Wilcock to be published in English.... This book (his best-known in Italy) consists of short essays describing the lives of obsessive eccentrics, some real and some imaginary.... Venuti renders Wilcock’s Italian into lucid, captivating English, and offers a biographical introduction. [Perfect for] lovers of postmodern mind games.” This publication
was made possible thanks to a generous grant by the National Endowment
for the Arts.
— Publishers Weekly
FANTASTIC
TALES
Short Fiction/Translation
5 x 9, 200 pp
b&w illustrations
Cloth, $25.00
1-56279-020-x
US & Canada
Illustrated by Jim Pearson
Winner, 1993 PRINT CERTIFICATE OF DESIGN EXCELLENCE
“These
stories are macabre curios that have unexpected power.” The first Gothic tales published in the Italian language, Tarchetti's
strange stories recall and sometimes imitate those of Edgar Allen Poe,
E.T.A. Hoffmann, and Mary Shelley. In “A Spirit in a Raspberry,”
a nobleman is possessed by the soul of a servant girl; “The Letter
U” recounts a man's mysterious phobia about that letter; the unexpected
gift of everlasting life becomes a dreaded, endless curse in “The
Elixir of Immortality.”
William Weaver, translator of Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco, writes:
“While current Italian literature in English translation is closely
followed by publishers, critics, and readers, the Italian writers of the
past ... are largely ignored. Lawrence Venuti now presents the nineteenth
century writer Iginio Ugo Tarchetti—a strange, romantic figure now almost
forgotten even by Italian readers. But, as Venuti's probing introduction
to this collection of tales indicates, Tarchetti is emblematic, the child
of his times and their taste. These stories are enjoyable to read simply
for themselves, but they also illustrate a literary culture of notable
fascination. The translations flow, yet retain the flavor of their period
and are true to the style and personality of their curious, gifted author.”
Mercury House is pleased to present the first English translation of
Fantastic Tales, in a fine edition illustrated by San Francisco
artist Jim Pearson.
“Tarchetti's beguiling fantasies are triumphs of imagination as
well as masterfully told stories. A kind of Italian Poe, Tarchetti writes
with comic bravura and surrealist invention that make him a cousin, at
least, of Kafka and Isak Dinesen.” “Never fails to entertain.” “With a distinctly moody cover, copper page edges, and a ribbon
bookmark sewn into the binding, this edition is wonderfully Gothic itself,
with illustrations ... suitably atmospheric and peculiar.”
LAWRENCE VENUTI ON HIS TRANSLATION OF Fantastic Tales:
"I sought
to mimic the archaic lexicon and syntax of an English-language writer whose
work Tarchetti had himself imitated, namely Poe, although as unobtrusively
as possible, without producing the stylistic excess that would tip the translation
into self-parody. The goal was a translation that seemed strange, removed
from current English usage, yet recognizable and very readable."
—the New Yorker
—Guy Davenport
—New York Times Book Review
—Los Angeles Reader
PASSION
Fiction/Translation
216 pages,
5¼ x 9, Paper, $12.95
1-56279-064-1
US & Canada
This Italian classic, now available in English for the first time, has inspired a film and the Tony-award winning Broadway musical “Passion,” with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.
Set in mid-nineteenth-century Italy, Passion tells of a love triangle involving Giorgio, and officer in the Italian army; Clara, a robust young married woman with a child; and the groteque, vampire-like Fosca, who embodies the romantic macabre. The relationships, one involving adultery and the other a flouting of social conventions, are treated with warped extremity, at once serious and ironic.
Passion, in all its power and mystery, pulses through the novel. With morbid wit and a satiric edge, Tarchetti explores themes that will resonate with contemporary audiences—relating the erotic with disease, celebrating illicit love, and questioning the bourgeois ideal of feminine beauty.
“Tarchetti's striking novel ... has it all—obsession, deception, sex, death, and passion in many ineluctable forms ...” “A literary, intellectual twister.”
—Kirkus Reviews
—New York Times Book Review
