La Follia Improvvisa di Ignazio Rando

Ignazio Rando had been a model employee at the Land Registry Office of Ferrara for 37 years, 5 months and 4 days – a few months short of his pensionable age – when one day he climbs onto the table and walks out, leaving his colleagues and the public staring in open-mouthed amazement.

The theme of Dario Franceschini’s second novel is the nature of madness, an exploration of that subtle line that divides normality from what we regard as mental aberration. Like the skin that separates our pulsing body fluids from the air around us, or the transparent surface of the water in a flooded church – the only straight line in a building filled with collapsing columns and refracted arches. Or again, the straight line of the tables that Ignazio walked across in mid morning on an otherwise normal day. Until that morning, Ignazio’s madness – possibly a genetic trait since his brother had died in a lunatic asylum – was confined to his dreams, which were filled with colour, sensuality and violence, in contrast with a lifetime’s drudgery spent filling the yellowing files with his beautiful copperplate handwriting.

Franceschini’s novel maintains an extraordinarily creative dichotomy between the tragic lyricism of events seen through Ignazio’s eyes during the rest of that day, and the reaction of his colleagues, Ragioniere Garbioni and the Registrar himself, Conservatore Ansaldi. These are two stereotypes of Italian officialdom, consumed by petty concerns and squalid ambitions. Garbioni is the self-appointed representative who undertakes to report Ignazio’s behaviour to the Registrar, and is then asked to investigate the matter further. His main concern, apart from missing lunch at home and his afternoon nap, is how to report the incident to his wife and colleagues and how best to turn it to his own advantage. The Registrar is a thoroughly odious individual, enjoying power without lifting a finger to earn it. He knows how to press flesh at the appropriate moments and can work the “system” to his advantage. Later that afternoon, while waiting to interview Garbioni, Ansaldi flaunts the regulations by lighting a cigarette in his office, with disastrous consequences. However, using threats and influence, he succeeds in shifting the blame for the ensuing catastrophe onto the innocent shoulders of his ex-employee. The black humour that results from the behaviour of both these men highlights the magical qualities of Ignazio’s last hours.

Dreams are a rich vein for literary exploration and Franceschini deserves credit for mining it in all its technicolour and fantastic detail. His style and imagery have a poetic quality that is truly captivating. Two of the most memorable images conjured up in Ignazio’s dreams are the iridescent clouds of imagination escaping from the dissected brain of a corpse undergoing autopsy; and the brilliant green lawn surrounded by fiery terracotta walls where Ignazio realises that just by “standing upright, one’s head is already in the sky”.

Like a tightrope walker for whom a moment’s loss of concentration can be fatal, Ignazio has held his schizophrenia in check for years, dividing his existence between the monotony and sepia tones of his everyday life and the technicoloured brilliance of his dreams. When Ragioniere Garbioni’s bluffs his way into Ignazio’s flat, the shutters in the ordered part are tightly closed, shrouding it in gloomy secrecy. Only when he discovers the hidden door leading into the “dream room” is he overwhelmed by sunlight and chaos, suggesting that Ignazio’s schizophrenia is a sense more real than the half-light of the normal world. However, the book offers no neat conclusions. Readers are left wondering about Ignazio’s love for Lisa/Laura, the muse whom he abandoned but who continues to travel with him in dreams. It is to her that he turns in his last moments, having already lived this moment again and again in his dreams. Ignazio’s passage from the nightmarish turn of the afternoon’s events to the paradise that awaits him is as innocent and unblemished as his madness.

Franceschini is a lawyer and member of parliament, deputy-secretary for the Partito Democratico, a key ally in Walter Veltroni’s Margherita coalition at the last general election. It is tempting to read his latest book as an allegory of Italian society and politics, but this may be too simplistic. However, in questioning our definition of madness, Franceschini makes a valiant attempt to redefine the straight line between creativity and bureaucracy, dream and reality, normality and madness, decency and corruption, and in doing so creates some memorable images and characters.

La Follia Improvvisa di Ignazio Rando
by Dario Franceschini
Bompiani, Italy
154 pgs., €13.00

Dario Franceschini’s first novel, Nelle vene quell’acqua d’argento (2006), was awarded the Premier Roman 2007 in Chambéry, France, and in Italy the Premio Opera Prima Città di Penne and Premio Bacchelli. The novel has just been published in France by Gallimard under the title Dans les veines ce fleuve d’argent (May 2008). For Italian reviews of both novels, see the Bompiani website.

Lucinda Byatt translates from Italian into English and reviews books for Scotland on Sunday and other publications.
Contact: mail@lucindabyatt.com