Towards the Rivers Mouth (Verso la foce), by Gianni Celati

(Hardback)

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Italian writer and filmmaker Gianni Celatis 1989 philosophical travelogue Towards the Rivers Mouth explores perception, memory, place and space as it recounts a series of journeys across the Po River Valley in northern Italy. The book seeks to document the new Italian landscape where divisions between the urban and rural were being blurred into what Celati terms a new variety of countryside where one breathes an air of urban solitude. Celati traveled by train, by bus, and on foot, at times with photographer Luigi Ghirri, at others exploring on his own without predetermined itineraries, taking notes on the places he encountered, watching and listening to people in stations, fields, bars, houses, squares, and hotels. In this way the book took shape as Celati traveled and wrote, gathering and rewriting his notes into stories of observation (9). Celati attempts to find meaning by seeking the uncertain limits of our ability to discern everyday surroundings. Every observation, as he puts it, needs liberate itself from the familiar codes it carries, to go adrift in the middle of all things not understood, in order to arrive at an outlet, where it must feel lost. At the forefront of the then-nascent spatial turn in the humanities, Towards the Rivers Mouth is a key text of what in recent years has been variously termed literary cartography, literary geography, and spatial poetics. Its call to carefully and affectionately examine our surroundings while attempting to step back from habitual ways of perceiving and moving through space, has resonated as much with literary scholars and other writers as with geographers and architects. By now a classic of twentieth-century Italian literature, it has in recent years garnered increasing attention, especially with the growth of ecocriticism and new materialism within the environmental humanities. This edition, translated into English for the first time, features an introduction that places Towards the Rivers Mouth in the context of Celatis other work, and a selection of ten scholarly essays by prominent figures in comparative literature and Italian studies.

Reviews

Gianni Celati is one of Italys principal contemporary authors, and one of the worlds leading ecological writers. His Toward the Rivers Mouth, in the crisp and fluid translation by Patrick Baron, explores the deterioration of the physical and social landscapes of the Po Valley. The literary text, consisting of four travel diaries or stories of observation, is accompanied by lucid essays by some of the foremost Italian scholars of the environmental humanities and eco-criticism. -- John P. Welle, University of Notre Dame
Patrick Barrons timely English translation and critical edition of Gianni Celatis Verso la foce is an inspired and remarkable accomplishment. To open this book is like being affectionately escorted along the Po Valley countryside with a group of old friends and simultaneously taking a journey along the misty paths of one's own soul. Barrons informative introduction and the accompanying critical essays skillfully guide us through these multidimensional physical and emotional landscapes. An important and most welcome work. -- Enrico Cesaretti, University of Virginia
Largely uncelebrated and mostly unknown, Italys great river Po and its delta are the backdrop for Gianni Celatis musings about land and life. Here lie reclaimed marshlands alongside abandoned factories where scattered farmhouses disappear behind windblown hedges. We see how this broad river flowing to the sea, braided here and diked there, often abused and always vulnerable, continues to nurture the human spirit. Patrick Barrons sensitive translation joined with critical assessments of Celatis work allow us to explore some of Italys least beaten pathways. -- Marcus Hall, University of Zurich
Gianni Celatis Towards the Rivers Mouth meanders through the hybrid landscapes of the vast Po River Valley, voicing stories at times cosmic in scope, at others painstakingly local. Patrick Barrons elegant translation flows with the energy and grace of the river. His introduction and the accompanying essays by leading scholars of literature, philosophy, posthumanism, and the environmental humanities frame Celatis poetic stories, situating them in vibrant intellectual and geographic contexts and creating convivial dialogues with other texts and traditions. This critical edition is an invaluable resource for scholars and students, and a joy to read. -- Elena Past, Associate Professor of Italian, Wayne State University

Author Bio

Patrick Barron is associate professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Boston and the author of Terrain Vague: Interstices at the Edge of the Pale.