A Fictional Inquiry - Daniele Del Giudice

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A Fictional Inquiry

by
Daniele Del Giudice

general information | our review | links | about the author

Title:	A Fictional Inquiry
Author:	Daniele Del Giudice
Genre:	Novel
Written:	1983 (Eng. 2025)
Length:	138 pages
Original in:	Italian
Availability:	A Fictional Inquiry - US
	A Fictional Inquiry - UK
	A Fictional Inquiry - Canada
	Le stade de Wimbledon - France
	Lo stadio di Wimbledon - Italia
	from: Bookshop.org (US)

Italian title: Lo stadio di Wimbledon
Translated by Anne Milano Appel
A Fictional Inquiry was made into a film, Le stade de Wimbledon (2001), directed by Mathieu Amalric

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Our Assessment:

B+ : appealing literary quest(ion)-tale

See our review for fuller assessment.

The complete review's Review:

In A Fictional Inquiry, the unnamed narrator chronicles a quest. It opens with him on his way to Trieste -- not quite there yet, and the train having broken down; it's typical of the novel that the approach to a destination is halting, the final part of it completed in an unexpected way, as the narrator follows another passenger and they walk on the tracks the last bit to the station. Typical too is a kind of reserve the narrator maintains, not blurting out what he's after and what he hopes to get out of it:

During the last stretch I dodge a couple of indirect questions about why I've come here. I don't want to talk about it and in any case I haven't arrived yet.

The reason he has come to Trieste, and later travels to London, is that he's on the trail of Roberto Bazlen (1902-1965), a near-legendary figure in Italian literary circles and publishing. What he is specifically interested in, as he tells one of those he seeks out who knew him:

"What is it you want to know about him ?"
"Why he didn't write."
I chose the most salient issue, in any case.

Or, as the narrator later puts it:

"How did he hit upon the fact of not writing ?" I ask. "I mean the fact that he only wrote in private."

       Bazlen is famous for not having published anything while he was alive; he did write -- but, as the narrator notes, only 'in private' (and/or also never completing his biggest fiction project, 'The Sea Captain'); see also the collection of his (now published) Notes Without a Text.
       As the narrator is told by someone who knew him: "We all expected something brilliant to come from him", and it's this great seemingly unrealized promise and potential that makes up much of the fascination of the figure of Bazlen -- to the narrator, too.
       Another acquaintance sums up:

He himself understood it ... that everything is naught; he realized that in the end he wouldn't leave so much as a trace. Nothing. Writing, he didn't write anything. Oh yes, I have those three little books. They're of no use. Had they been published while he was a live, he would never have shown his face again, he would never have left the house. All that remains of him are the friends who loved him, and in whom he still exists, like myself.

       The narrator, too, seems to believe this -- presumably the reason he seeks out those with first-hand experience of Bazlen, rather than engaging simply with the leftover texts. As Bazlen's best friend said of him: "his life, such as it was, was his masterpiece" -- though of course only the shadows of it remain now, in the loose memories of those the narrator encounters.
       Place is also significant: Balzen is famous as a Trieste-figure -- and the original title of the novel is very different from the English one: 'Lo stadio di Wimbledon' (though one can certainly understand that the Wimbledon-associations would be too strong for US/UK readers -- even as Del Giudice also uses them in his account). The narrator describes his wanderings in some detail, and while they have purpose, there's also a random element to them; A Fictional Inquiry is also somewhat of a flâneur-text.
       Written in the present tense, there is an immediacy to A Fictional Inquiry; we plod along with the narrator. But he too remains an enigmatic figure, often coy about what exactly he's after in his interactions with various people. And even after he's spoken with several who have intimate knowledge of Bazlen he finds: "I have never been so close to the answer, and so indifferent to the question".
       An exploration of: 'why write ?' and the meaning of the activity, of writing, A Fictional Inquiry, effectively uses place and person (Bazlen and his legacy). Presumably, the narrator's quest resonates much more strongly among Italian readers, more familiar with the larger-than-life figure that is, in literary circles, Bazlen, but even without familiarity with the figure this is an intriguing 'fictional inquiry', as the not-inappropriate English title has it.

- M.A.Orthofer, 3 June 2025

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Links:

A Fictional Inquiry:

New Vessel Press publicity page
Einaudi publicity page
Seuil publicity page
Excerpt
Lo Stadio di Wimbledon by Daniele Del Giudice - translator Anne Milano Appel on the novel
My White Whale: Translating Daniele Del Giudice by Anne Milano Appel

Reviews:

Le stade de Wimbledon - the film:

IMDb page

Other books of interest under review:

Roberto Bazlen's Notes Without a Text
See Index of Italian literature
Other books from New Vessel Press

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About the Author:

Italian author Daniele Del Giudice lived 1949 to 2021.

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