Il turno pirandello

Il Turno (eng. "The Turn") is the name of Luigi Pirandello's second novel. Originally published in Catania in 1902 by the editor Niccolò Giannotta, it was republished by the Fratelli Treves publishing house, along with the novella Lontano, with the subtitle Novellas of Luigi Pirandello in 1915. The author seems to have considered it to be a long short story rather than a true novel, and, in the introduction to the 1915 edition, explained that the two stories were written in his early youth and judged them in these words:. the one is gay if not light-hearted, and the oher is sad. " He maintained that their greatest merit consisted in "the open vivacity of representation. ne dal negarlo; ma, quanto a concedergli la mano di Stellina, no via: non voleva se ne parlasse Il turno di Luigi Pirandello I Giovane d'oro, sì sì, giovane d'oro, Pepè Alletto! - il Ravì si. "

Plot summary

The story is divided into thirty very short chapters which permit the author to rapidly change situations and environments, bringing alternatively to the forefront the different subjects involved in the singular plan conceived by Marcantonio Ravì, the cause of odd and unpredictable events. This overweight, tenacious father of Stellina has an idee fixe which will, he believes, bring about the happiness of his daughter: establish a turn. That is to say, he will give her over as wife to the aging and well-off Don Diego Alcozèr, and then, after his death, consign her, fabulously wealthy and contented, to her desperate but dirt poor admirer Pepè Alletto. Marcantonio is so convinced of the efficacy of this idea that he goes around the city talking about it to everyone in order to get their consent, obstinately insisting that he's right with the comic intercalation "ragioniamo!" (let's reason about this!). But the majority of the people he meets, as soon as they hear the name of the decrepit Alcozèr, "spit out a laugh. Giovane d'oro, sì sì, giovane d'oro, Pepè Alletto! - il Ravì si sarebbe cap.