Luigi Pirandello’s Novellas for a Year constitute one of the largest short story collections of the 20th century. The exceptional scope of this collection, which was to contain 365 short stories; its dual nature as both a form of retrospective organisation and an ambitious writing project; and the fact that it remained unfinished: these are all traits which distinguish Pirandello’s work from other, single-volume story collections. The organisation of Short Stories for a Year assumes an emblematic value for literary modernism: the search for an all-embracing structure is at the same time linked to the rejection of a totalising meaning. These two opposing forces contribute, I argue, to the apparently paradoxical structure of the collection: in its rejection of traditional forms of cohesion, the Novellas for a Year becomes itself a symbol of a general loss of meaning.
From Paola Casella, “Les Novelle per un anno de Luigi Pirandello : entre projet macrotextuel et réalisation inachevée”, dans Interférences littéraires/Literaire interferenties, n° 12, “Cycles, Recueils, Macrotexts: The Short Story Collection in Theory and Practice”, s. dir. Elke D’hoker & Bart Van Den Boss Che, Feb 2014, pp. 89-102.
Link: http://interferenceslitteraires.be/index.php/illi/issue/view/16
Direct download link: http://interferenceslitteraires.be/index.php/illi/article/view/289/205
Note: The main article is in French.
Novella per uno anno entry on Linkedshortstories.com (with links to more resources – e.g. translations)