On the run from London, through the Alps and Nordic sanctuaries

The son of an Anglican vicar, Samuel Butler (1835–1902) distanced himself from his father’s views from the very outset: a fervent opponent of Victorian moralism, Butler rose to fame with his satirical novel "Erewhon", in which he followed in the footsteps of Jonathan Swift. Now, Humboldt Books has reissued the classic "Alps and Sanctuaries" (featuring Maria Luisa Agosti Castellani’s previously unpublished 1946 translation, a project initiated at the instigation of Franco Antonicelli). The book, however, appears less as a pilgrimage through sacred sites and more as a rambling journey through the mountains that frame Piedmont, Lombardy and Switzerland. Butler is more interested in the margins, the details and the peripheral aspects; he almost seems to be waiting for the right stumble, the perfect distraction for a story that would take him away from the posturing of a travel enthusiast.

Perhaps the most curious aspect of the entire book is its almost explicit opposition to the Grand Tour so often extolled by English and Northern European writers and artists. Butler takes the opposite approach, avoiding major cities and even places considered most characteristic, such as Monte di Varallo, which, despite having visited it several times in the past, he mentions in the text. His work takes the form of a guide intended for posterity, in which distraction dominates the escape, yet at the same time enables it and sets it in motion. An escape to Chiasso predating Arbasino and straight from Victorian London – moralistic and homophobic. And Matteo Terzaghi is entirely correct in his fine introduction to the volume when he identifies this ‘appearance’ as the most vivid characteristic of a journey that remains wonderfully light, woven from notes and sketches, sudden visions and a few reflections on human nature and its contradictory, yet as evident as it is dishearteningly banal, complexity. The illustrations by the Mantua-based artist Emi Ligabue engage in dialogue with Butler’s text: monochromatic works in a copyist’s blue that evoke those Alpine sanctuaries which, whilst fundamentally relevant to the title, are not explored in great depth by Butler and his restless, amused wanderings. However, "Alps and Sanctuaries" should not be regarded as a peripheral, or even minor, work. Far from it; indeed, the initiative by Giovanna Silva’s publishing house fills a serious gap by bringing back to Italy a seminal text that laid the foundations for a literary vision which, in the twentieth century, would come to define the work of novelists: from Walser to Bischel, right through to those writers of the plains, of whom Gianni Celati stands as the finest example and also, one might say, the theorist (if one can put it that way).

Butler’s rejection is not of human society, but of its mercantilism, just as his rejection of Catholic orthodoxy is not dictated by a lack of spirituality, but by the suffocation imposed by an authoritarian institution. A spirit that reveals itself in Butler through his taste in Handel’s music and his ability to savour the moment, without further anxieties: “A holiday is the garden of the spirit; too much meticulousness in such matters is a mistake”, knowing full well that: “It is only through the ebb and flow of goodness, wickedness and all the other virtues and failings to which we are subject that we can continue to live”. And so it was in Chiasso.