Vittorini, who has no time for Vittorini and the founding myth of youth

For Elio Vittorini, this is a year of anniversaries. 2026 marks the sixtieth anniversary of his death, and the ninetieth anniversary of the fascist censorship of his novel – now more accessible to readers – "Il garofano rosso", which appeared in instalments in the magazine "Solaria" between 1933 and 1936, and was subsequently published in book form, with a famous preface, after the Second World War. The Vittorini of "Il garofano rosso" remains untouched by that false American refrain, which, in any case, is difficult to separate from his true talent – the talent of someone who knows how to blend the most lyrical suggestions with a fully articulated poetic vision. Consequently, this early work seems less dated; and in these weeks of chaotic events, it appears remarkably relevant.

Like much literature from the interwar period, “Il garofano rosso” revolves around the myth of adolescence. In this case, it is an adolescence set in secondary schools. The story is set in 1924, in a town in eastern Sicily. Alessio, Tarquinio and the others are fascinated by everything that presents itself as violently anti-bourgeois: the most vitalistic form of fascism, but also the Bolshevik revolution. Vittorini imbues his protagonist with his own extreme rhetoric, his eagerness to transform every intense sensory experience into a banner of rebirth. Hence his instinctive belief that words can change things instantly. But this is merely the illusion of a young man accustomed to renaming familiar surroundings with student-like enthusiasm to make them seem magical. Thus, in the city of the ‘pink mountain’, a printing works becomes a mythical ‘quarry’, a fenced-off area where the ‘Mato Grosso’ is fought out, and the revolution a Western seen at the cinema.

In Alessio’s upbringing, the turning point is his first ‘conscious’ summer spent in the village: there he realises that, as the son of the brickworks owner, he can never be like the workers, and that beyond the limbo of childhood lies nothing but a wasteland. When he returns to the city streets, the school of night-time occupations and great love is reduced to a place of death. In the end, like Borgese’s Rubè, Alessio joins a procession of flags without knowing where he is going, and listens to the macabre, Saint-Just-style oration of a scrawny ‘lad’: History is a dream that infects the immature, driving them to shed blood. A particularly telling passage is the one summarising a clash between the teachers – who represent the old liberal state – and the students, who, armed with ideologies they have only just picked up, attempt to justify their hooliganish, romantic, rootless zest for life.

The protagonist recalls “the cold of the revolver pressing against my thigh”, and transforms his brawls into fatal duels with his female companions, who play the role of mischievous rivals. Then the name of that year’s martyr surfaces, perceived as a relic of a past to be buried. With Tarquinio, “people joke and laugh, and nothing is heard of the man commemorating Matteotti somewhere in the square. We only know that he is speaking, that there is this emotional, slightly nasal voice—at times shrill, like the closing arguments in the Assize Court—and that there is this ‘Anointed One of Bourgeois Justice’ gesticulating over one conscience after another as if to make them give birth—but we do not see him, and we whistle ‘Giovinezza’ amongst ourselves”. There you have it; we must never forget this: youth was a quintessentially Fascist myth. But also a Victorian one.

It is a myth that prevents one from achieving a fully realised form, forcing one to constantly strive to capture the spirit of the times. “From James to Joyce, to Saroyan, to Faulkner, to Hemingway, Vittorini moved, step by step, from one to the other, yet always remained in a perpetual state of avant-garde,” wrote Geno Pampaloni. “Each of his books beats, in Italy, a beat ahead of the ‘pulse’ of militant literature, and to a large extent determines it. I find myself wondering at this point whether Vittorini will find time for Vittorini himself.” This is perhaps the most poignant – and most affectionate – description of one of the central figures of twentieth-century Italian culture. And today it still rings out as a warning – both cultural and political – for those who write or campaign.