sioned writer who, though a friend of mine, has exceptionally good taste. Ardengo Soffici relates in his Logbook that on a certain occasion he and a companion were both reading novels by Carolina Invernizio. His was The Villain’s Joy; his companion’s was Mortal Passion:
Every now and then we stopped reading to compare notes.
“How many killed off so far?”
“Two.”
“Three in mine.”
“What’s the heroine like?”
“Periwinkle eyes, golden hair, pale face, sad mouth.”
“Same here.”
And the rest was what you might expect to find in Zuccoli or Ojetti or Angeli. Nor was it notably inferior.
And that is exactly my opinion, except that I would omit the “notably,” and would not hesitate to say the work of Carolina Invernizio is superior at least in that it does not bore one. But a modern Italian novelist who realized that he was interesting would think himself dishonored. I, free from prejudice and from Arcadian austerity, admire and salute in the deceased Carolina the first and only Italian rival of the immortal Ponson du Terrail.[1]
- ↑ The perception of real values is so rare among us that soon after this essay was first published I received a letter of thanks from the husband of the deceased—and her publisher, Salani, asked my permission to reprint it as a preface to a posthumous novel.
