| One, No One and One Hundred Thousand is in short a funny, thought-provoking yet highly entertaining novella worth reading. Pirandello masterfully transports you down the rabbit-hole mind of the protagonist, Vitangelo Moscarda. The whole story revolves around a seemingly innocuous yet profound realization – that one’s perception of oneself is not the same as that of the people around us. In effect each person we interact with perceives us in a unique way which is never equal to how we see ourselves. From this simple insight Pirandello has concocted a mesmerizing and delightfully hilarious story, with refreshingly creative twists and turns. As a newbie to Italian literature I found One, No One and One Hundred Thousand to be a great introduction, which has certainly whet my appetite to discover more wonderful Italian literary masterpieces. I give this book, without reservation, 5 stars since in addition to being entertaining, philosophical and gripping, it is also well written with many pages of beautiful prose, despite being a translation. |
