9

- IN1RODUC1ION -





T
hese are without doubt some o Chandler Brossard`s most liely and intimate
reminiscences, a inal homage to the country he had long loed and where he would
hae liked to spend the last years o his lie.
But as is oten the case, lie had other plans, and this turned out to be his last isit in Italy.
It was a hot summer in 1990. Chandler was particularly anxious about making it in time to
the airport due to the traic on the dreaded tavgeviate e.t ,ring road surrounding Milan,. As
it happened, we got there ar beore his light back to New \ork. So much so, in act, that
the airport itsel still seemed to be closed !
And ortunately so, I should say now, as it gae us the time to enjoy chatting, laughing and
joking, going oer things one last time and closing the circle, unknowingly, o a long and
passionate association with Italy which had begun in 194 when Chandler came here or
the irst time.

1he project o writing something on those early years had constantly been in the air. \e
had it in mind to reisit the old places and to deelop some o the themes which had
cropped up during the time we had spent together. 1his was not to happen, but, thanks to
that conersation at the airport, the recollections o his irst two years in Italy came to be
presered in this book.

Recorded on tape, the conersation has been rendered in the orm o postcards`- oten
light hearted, at times intense, but always passionate - rom a now disappeared world. 1hey
oer a unique cross-section o post-war Italy in general, and Rome in particular, rom the
iewpoint o a promising young American writer who een on his ery irst trip here elt he
was home at last`!. Chandler would soon make a name or himsel with his irst noel,
!bo !at/ v Dar/ve... lirst published in lrance as Ciet Dv ^vit by Gallimard`s esteemed
author-editor Raymond Queneau, this work was hailed as the irst American existentialist
noel ,or antinoel,, and acknowledged as a cinematic inspiration to Jean-Luc Goddard
and the lrench New \ae.

1he perspectie oered by these memories is o particular interest as Chandler speaks o
the places and people he came into contact with, and o the experiences which inluenced
his creatie ein, helping to mould his cultural background. It is also a unique document as,
with the exception o a ew ery early short stories, he had neer written about this highly
signiicant period o his lie.
In some ways the narration echoes the spirit with which he wrote his non-ictional
masterpiece 1be avi.b ceve, published in the late sixties: about that book he states, I
1be otber rofovva effect vov v, .ev.ibitit, ra. v, fir.t tri
to vroe iv 11, ava `re beev goivg bac/ erer .ivce. cav
verer .eev to get evovgb of it ; bare beev vovri.bea b, tbe
vroeav ivtettectvat. ava b, tbe vroeav rriter.. feet vvcb
vore covfortabte avovg tbev tbav ao ritb covtevorar,
.vericav rriter..`

C. Brossard
Covtevorar, .vtbor. .vtobiograb, erie., 1otvve 2, .


10

didn`t take any notes... I hae an excellent memory... and it all came back to me almost in
slow motion... I wanted to write an elegant, loely book, almost the way someone would
write a loe poem`
1
.

Such is the immediacy o the deliery and the accuracy o the anecdotes included that the
reader inds himsel eortlessly immersed in that period o history, reliing the meeting o
two cultures through the sensibilities o the writer. 1he streets, the noise and the meeting
places come to lie again along with a series o well known ,and a ew less well known,
characters, and the vi.eria e vobitta 2 o their daily lies. 1he simple, genuine spirit o a post-
war, peasant Italy permeates the entire narration: an Italy in ruins, yet in ull, ital, social and
cultural erment.

1ime went by and, radicalized` by the sixties, Chandler ell under the spell o Noam
Chomsky`s articles and correspondence, exiling himsel to Lurope during the Vietnam war.
le went back to the US to help establish the Medical Aid Committee or Indo-China but,
eeling increasingly out o synch with lie in the States, soon returned to Lurope. In the
seenties he lied or seeral years in 1uscany, in the towns o Scansano e Sassoortino.

\hen we irst met, toward the end o the eighties, Chandler clearly realised how ast Italy
had changed, and an unmistakable hint o nostalgia or the people and places o the past
ilters through these pages. I remember a similar sense o nostalgia and loss reading his
recollection o the atmosphere o post-war New \ork, and the ,largely negatie, changes that
had taken place there oer the years 3.

Chandler let his Uniersity teaching post, horriied` at the hopelessly progressie lowering
o the cultural leel and an appalling lack o passion among his students. lis marriage had
collapsed, his adored daughter Genney was about to leae or college, many o his old
riends had gone: he was eeling ery isolated in the Big Apple. le was dissatisied with
America`s gradual existential supericiality` 4 and, once again, Lurope was calling:
Malaparte, Gide, Camus, Jnger, Mann, Schulz, Babel, Kaka, Borowski, Proust, Cline,
Joyce would be his old traelling companions.

On the literary ront he kept working with his usual isionary approach and his writing
during that period was becoming both more essential` and increasingly complex. 1he quest
to oice` the oices, along with his great passion or and with language combined with his
natural ability to be an alchemist o sounds, were bringing him to orms which grew eer
more magically reined. In preiously unexplored territories o poetry, 1he strangest thing
happened recently.... they leaped rom my brain ully written... without any desire on my part
to be a poet `, and in short prose pieces which composed themseles almost like religious
litanies or sacred songs` 5.



Chandler was a source o endless energy too big and too compressed to exhaust itsel within
one person.
1hat morning at the airport as he recounted those stories he was charged with a particular
passion, igorous and brimming with ironic humour. And like a skilul boxer he was also
continuously aware o what was happening around him, his sensors ready to pick up
whateer caught his attention Indeed, as a young man he had trained in the ring with George
Brown, lemingway`s trainer, and or a time ought semi-proessionally. le made riends
with the great middleweight champion, Sugar Ray Robinson who once told him 1he idea is
not to get hit`.


11

And Chandler was always ready to strike irst, leaing his mark with a masterul blow,
changing the course o eents.

1hen, as always happens, came the time o leaing.

\e hugged and said goodbye, then I saw him disappear through the check-in, still waing,
wearing black shorts and gym shoes and carrying his luggage`, which consisted o one tiny
long-strap canas bag.

le always traelled light, Chandler did, needing no more than the luggage o his quick
intelligence, sharp sensitiity and deep humanity.

Cioravvi 1ort


Rome, December 2002





























Notes:

1 Covtevorar, .vtbor. .vtobiograb, erie., Volume 2, p. 0
2 Misery and Nobility`, title o a classic Neapolitan play
3 Covtevorar, .vtbor. .vtobiograb, erie., Volume 2, p. 4
4 Relections on My Beat Generation`
in 1be Rerier of Covtevorar, ictiov, Vol., N.1, Spring 198.
1 Quotes rom Chandler`s letters to me