From the Bookshelf of NYRB Classics

That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana
by
Start date
September 1, 2019
Finish date
October 1, 2019
Discussion
Group Book Club

Find A Copy At

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 38 topics — 648 comments total
+ Group Book Club
This topic has been closed to new comments. * Past Book Club Selections
By Trevor · 1 post · 296 views
last updated Mar 18, 2014 12:14PM
October book nominations
By Sam · 6 posts · 32 views
last updated Sep 18, 2025 11:46PM
showing 6 of 6 topics    view all »
Other topics mentioning this book
This topic has been closed to new comments. Choosing a book for September/October 2012
By New York Revi… · 24 posts · 91 views
last updated Oct 02, 2012 04:14PM
That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana, by Carlo Emilio Gadda
By Trevor · 47 posts · 92 views
last updated Oct 07, 2019 04:02PM
This topic has been closed to new comments. Choosing a book for January/February 2019
By Louise · 92 posts · 102 views
last updated Dec 17, 2018 05:21PM
Choosing a book for April 2019
By Louise · 60 posts · 53 views
last updated Feb 18, 2019 11:39AM
Choosing a book for June 2019
By Louise · 25 posts · 45 views
last updated Apr 15, 2019 05:54PM
Choosing a book for August 2019
By Louise · 27 posts · 54 views
last updated Jun 28, 2019 07:25PM

What Members Thought

Nicholas During
Aug 27, 2013 rated it really liked it
A woman is elderly widow is robbed of her very valuable jewels, then across the hall, a young, beautiful sophisticated wife is brutally murdered. The murder victim is, in fact, good friends with the smartest detective in Rome. Think you'll learn the criminal at the end of 400 odd pages? [Spoiler alert] (view spoiler) This is a mystery as if Joyce wrote it. Except Joyce is only concerned with one idiom (I'm thinking Irish English, but that probably isn't true), and Gadda ...more
Cynthia
Jul 18, 2013 rated it really liked it
Shelves: crime, nyrb, 2013
Imagonnabe thinking about this one for a while. Gadda and this novel had a mention in Enrique Vilas-Matas' totally wonderful Bartleby & Co. as a book the writer couldn't/wouldn't finish.

That awful mess a crime novel without resolution--an armed robbery plus a murder that may or may not be connected. It's a cutting misanthropic/misogynist social satire of Rome circa 1927, in the early days of Mussolini's reign. It's an exercise in playing with language from puns and near obscenities to dialect,
...more
Featherbooks
May 19, 2016 rated it it was amazing
Shelves: italy
Baroque, ornate, dense, tangled, funny, brilliant unfinished 400-page rant from Carlo Emilio Gadda Carlo Emilio Gadda thwarts logical conclusions and forces the reader to go along for the ride in the many-layered, stinky, cacaphony of corruption and magic depicted as 1927 Rome. Ostensibly a detective novel, there's a theft, a murder, and a host of descriptions of Mussolini-era Italy in 1927 including the memorable references to Il Doochay as "Death's Head," "Fierce Face," the Shit...the syphilitic Swaggerer." ...more
Trevor
Aug 01, 2008 rated it liked it
Shelves: nyrb-classics, 1957
I didn't know what I was getting into when I started this book! Think of picking up Ulysses with no idea what it was all about.

For my complete review:

http://mookse.wordpress.com/2008/07/3...
...more
John
Jan 05, 2008 rated it liked it
Stewart
Mar 27, 2008 marked it as to-read
Shelves: italy, nyrb-classics
Giovanna
Nov 23, 2008 marked it as to-read
Shelves: italy, nyrb
Julie
Jul 28, 2009 rated it it was ok
Kimley
Jan 17, 2010 marked it as to-read
Ryan
Mar 28, 2011 marked it as to-read
Shelves: nyrbc
Jacob
Dec 03, 2011 marked it as to-read
Jimmy
Dec 19, 2011 marked it as to-read-fiction
Maureen
Feb 11, 2012 is currently reading it
Shelves: 2012
Brad
Mar 24, 2012 marked it as collection  ·  review of another edition
Heather
Jul 22, 2012 marked it as to-read
Shelves: own, nyrb
Michael
Aug 23, 2012 marked it as to-read
Chad Post
Jan 19, 2013 rated it liked it
SarahC
Nov 04, 2013 marked it as to-read
Mark
Sep 09, 2014 marked it as to-read
Ben Peyton
Aug 04, 2015 marked it as to-read
Matt
Nov 14, 2015 marked it as to-read
Laura
Nov 15, 2015 marked it as to-read
Abby
Jan 03, 2016 marked it as to-read
Liz M
Jan 21, 2016 marked it as own
Shelves: __to-read, nyrb
Sean
Apr 10, 2016 marked it as to-read
Shelves: nyrb-classics
Danielle McClellan
May 13, 2016 rated it really liked it
« previous 1 3 4