Just like in a library: A posthumous novel by Carlo Sgorlon

Abstract

This contribution examines the latest novel by Carlo Sgorlon, completed on June 24, 2008, but published posthumously, ten years after the author’s death: L’isola di Brendano (Brendano’s Island). The book introduces character types dear to the Italian writer: Brendano Mac Finnegan, a hard-working and creative architect of Irish origin, who comes from abroad to Vallorsaria, an imaginary town in the Alps, where he falls in love with Antonia, a local woman; Antonia’s young daughter, Jole, who gives birth to a boy endowed with extraordinary powers: Bindo; an Afghan baby sitter, called Fatma, who joins the three above mentioned characters, forming with them a strange but happy family; Brendano’s friend, Amos, who represents a man incapable of positive attitude towards life and destined for a tragic end. With L’isola di Brendano, Sgorlon paid homage to a literary tradition he considered the most genuine, close and familiar to him. In the novel it is possible to identify many references, both explicit and implicit, to various writers, including Samuel Beckett, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Elsa Morante. In this way, L’isola di Brendano resembles the mirror of a small but well-chosen library.