Imagine, or think back to, The Little Prince (be it the Woods, Morpurgo, Testot-Ferry or any other translation). Now imagine how that story, born in the immediate aftermath of authoritarianism, war, and censorship, might find new roots in a very physical, reachable small mountain area in central Italy. The story maintains its whimsy, its fairy-tale qualities, and its dual audience of children and adults; it also gains a darkness, an exploration of the uncannily familiar, and of the more secluded areas that exist dotted outside of Italy’s main metropolitan centres.
The result is Francesca Matteoni’s Io Sarò il Rovo (‘I will be the thorn’), published in 2022 by independent publisher effequ. The title of the collection comes from a line in one of the stories, ‘Forest of Wings’ (my translation below):
‘Mum, I’m afraid of everything,’ I’d reply.
‘You are afraid of the world, and rightly so. This is no place for you. It draws you in and promises things, it seduces you with the shape of another human being, it asks for your devotion. It drains the colour from your face, it twists your eyes in its misery made of quiet indifference. Its words are Deceit, Betrayal, Abandonment, Pain. But I have found a way out for you.’
‘Where?’
‘Here, in this house. Our house by the woods. One day this house will be taken over by thorns and the thorns will seek your body. They will cradle it, protect it, and when they will reach your heart your wings will come back to you. The wings you can already feel prickling your shoulder-blades, the wings you feel ruffle like feathers in your breathing when someone hurts you and you want to flee but you cannot, you stick to the ground.’
‘I really want to fly, Mum. Will we fly away together?’
‘Oh, that isn’t possible. But don’t think too much of it: angels have no memory of our earthly existence, we remember only light and air as they push us to dance.’
‘And where will you be?’
‘I will be the thorn.’
The darkness is clear, I hope, even just from this single passage, and it captures some of the earlier expressions of folklore and tales of the European tradition. Throughout the stories, wolves are a recurring element, both as animal and as symbol. Likewise, so are foxes, trees, witches, a few boars, and small towns (perhaps the same small town) in the hills or just below a low mountain. What Matteoni deftly deploys is a series of realistic settings with decidedly supernatural or uncanny elements seeping in. Using these elements as symbols means that the stories – more specifically, these fairy tales, as the author and the blurb call them – do not have a single, unequivocal meaning, but rather are open to reception and interpretation from the readers. An openness which does not come as a surprise, given the author’s interest and research into folklore of different kinds, tarot deck and readings, and contemporary mythologies and religions.
The realistic settings on the other hand help grounding the stories and define the places where they happen by their outlines. Matteoni has used this technique previously, and is perhaps a recurring one in her work: her novella Tutti gli Altri outlines and silhouettes the narrator through the people they meet, know, and interact with; in Io Sarò il Rovo, she draws the shape of a place (my translation below).
Walking is good for your thoughts, it tunes them, gathers them in the heart. And that’s where they breathe: they become thought-step, thought-ground, thought-tree, thought-sky. As I walk the town disappears, piece by piece, roofs for last, until it’s nothing more than a buzz, a voice that rises every now and then from the club’s courtyard or a rag of smoke swelling and narrowing from the chimneys. I walk up to the woods. It’s a summer afternoon and Freak, the old dog, is with me; he limps but never stops and sometimes, I think, we should all try the simply loyalty of animals that only need that touch of affection to be happy. Human and canine on the same haphazard road and it doesn’t matter which one speaks, which one pants, which one lunges into the green, which one barks, which one shakes their head, which one wags. We head for the Prataccio and as we walk I tell him a story in the language of lovers. He sniffs, notices everything I say, because his senses are still superior to mine.
Sometimes the place is multiple places, and sometimes the place is the people that live in it, but the shape of the place remains visible, tangible, it can be felt and found and even traced on a map if you know where to look. Admittedly, it may help that Matteoni draws some of her topographical inspiration from the same area I was born and grew up in, but my point stands.
There is a bubbling fire beneath the dark surface of these stories, and one that Francesca Matteoni is not coy or shy about: it is entirely intentional that the stories contain people and natural elements in contrast with human products, paving for the sake of building, and causing woods and creatures to retreat and become symbols. Her opening text and the closing poem coalesce that anger, the children in the stories become fierce and monstrous, other characters gain animal traits and disappear. ‘Once upon a time,’ the line with which the book opens, becomes pregnant with melancholy; but there is hope even in the descent, there is enchantment in the anger, and there is innocence in the monstrous.
By Alex Valente
IO SARÒ IL ROVO (‘I will be the thorn’)
by Francesca Matteoni
Published in Italian by effequ (2021)
Translations from Italian by Alex Valente
Francesca Matteoni teaches history (history of religion, anthropology of magic and witchcraft, mysticism and magic in the Renaissance) at a number of American Universities in Florence and holds workshops on Tarot cards, fables and poetry. She lived in England, where she earned a doctorate and conducted researches in modern history, elaborating the processes of witchcraft, the magic of bodies and medical folklore. She is the author of a number of publications.
Alex Valente (he/him) is a white European currently living on xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ land. He is a literary translator from Italian into English, though he also dabbles with French and RPGs, and is co-editor of The Norwich Radical. His work has been published in NYT Magazine, The Massachusetts Review, The Short Story Project, and PEN Transmissions.
Read previous posts in The Italianist series:
THE ITALIANIST: Riveting Italian Books You Need to Know About by Katherine Gregor. One year on
THE ITALIANIST: From QUEL TIPO DI DONNA by Valeria Parrella, translated by Katherine Gregor
THE ITALIANIST: From QUEL TIPO DI DONNA by Valeria Parrella, translated by Katherine Gregor
THE ITALIANIST: From FIORE DI ROCCIA by Ilaria Tuti translated by Katherine Gregor
THE ITALIANIST: From L’ARTE SCONOSCIUTA DEL VOLO by Enrico Fovanna, translated by Katherine Gregor
THE ITALIANIST: From IL GIOCO DI SANTA OCA by Laura Pariani, translated by Katherine Gregor
THE ITALIANIST: From PONTI NON MURI by Giancarlo Ascari & Pia Valentinis, translated by Katherine Gregor
THE ITALIANIST: From ANDRÀ TUTTO BENE, translated by Katherine Gregor