Fifteen Things I Learnt About Beppe Fenoglio
(1922-63), Italian Resistance Author,
from Donatella C. (Museum Curator) When I
Went to Visit Fenoglio’s Old House in Alba
and Which I Didn’t Put into My PhD
Thesis
By Dr Ian Seed
1.
His father, Amilcare, an atheist, ran the family butcher’s from their house.
His mother, Margherita, a Catholic, sold condoms under the counter.
2.
As a twelve-year-old, Margherita was sent as a domestic servant to Marseilles,
but wept and wept until she was sent back home.
3.
Beppe often quarrelled and broke up with Luciana, his fiancée. Sometimes he
wouldn’t stop weeping until a mutual friend got them back together.
4.
Luciana was faithful to him after he died, but not while he was alive.
5.
Beppe was jealous of Cary Grant and tried to imitate him with the overcoat he
wore and in the way he held his cigarette.
6.
Luciana’s family was much wealthier than Beppe’s. She lived on the other side
of the square from Beppe, the posh side. They could see each other from their
balconies.
7.
After the war, Beppe illegally kept hold of his rifle, pistol and British army
belt, ignoring the Allies’ demand that all weapons be handed over. Like many
other partisans, he was ready for the call if the Fascists tried it on again.
8.
But he also held on to them because he was a romantic who spent the rest of his
life reliving the experience of the Resistance, including all its traumas,
through his writing.
9.
Beppe’s role in the Resistance was a minor one, but he was the only partisan
his friend and commander Piero Ghiaccio said he could rely on one hundred percent.
10.
‘Schegge di bronzo’ – bronze shrapnel. Not just one of Beppe’s metaphors: the
church bells, almost next door, are made of bronze and are ear-splittingly
loud.
11.
Contrary to popular opinion, Beppe was not anti-clerical. He had a deep respect
for the clergy, and that is precisely why, in spite of the conformity of small‑town
1950s Italy, he refused to get married in church. As a non‑believer, he did not
want to insult the local priest by acting hypocritically.
12.
In one of the photos, Beppe and Luciana are wearing trousers and skirts made
from the same material. ‘Si usava molto in quei giorni.’ That’s what people did in those days. From whence the expression,
‘cut from the same cloth’.
13.
Donatella knows the Fenoglios well. When her phone rings, its author’s
daughter, Margherita. Giving me a complicit smile, Donatella tells her that
she’s with an Englishman who’s come all the way to Alba for his PhD research.
14.
Margherita, who works as a lawyer and who was born in the year her father died,
doesn’t look her age, Donatella tells me, wondering with envy how Margherita
keeps herself looking so young.
Citation:
Ian Seed, ‘Fifteen
Things I Learnt About Beppe Fenoglio (1922-63), Italian Resistance Author, from
Donatella C. (Museum Curator) When I Went to Visit Fenoglio’s Old House in Alba
and Which I Didn’t Put into My PhD Thesis’, Notes
on Literature: For Readers and Writers,
www.notesonliteraturechester.blogspot.co.uk [accessed Day Month Year].
About the Author:
Dr
Ian Seed is Senior Lecturer
in Creative Writing, Department of English,
University of Chester. He is programme leader of the BA (Hons) Creative
Writing, on which he teaches the modules: Life Writing; Poetry: Other Voices,
Other Forms; Writing Poetry for Publication; Writing the Past; and The Writing
Project.
On the MA Creative
Writing: Writing and Publishing Fiction, he teaches on the modules: Writing
Novels
for Publication; Getting Published; and The Writing Project.
He is editor of
the Department of English’s online magazine Pandora’s Inbox
and general editor of its sister print magazine, Pandora’s Box.
Ian’s books of
flash fiction and prose poetry include New
York Hotel (2018), Identity
Papers (2016) and Makers of Empty
Dreams (2014), all from Shearsman. Distances
(2018) was published by Red Ceilings. His short stories include Italian Lessons (LikeThisPress, 2017)
and Amore Mio (Flax, 2011). Work has
appeared in a number of anthologies, including The
Valley Press Anthology of Prose Poetry (Valley Press, 2019), The Best Small Fictions 2017 (Braddock Avenue Books) and The Forward Book of Poetry 2017 (Faber
and Faber).
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