Those good Veneto writers!

Published: 2008 - June/July, Culture, Venetian Itinerary

Romolo Bugaro, Roberto Ferrucci, Marco Franzoso and Tiziano Scarpa: are four Venetian writers, their age range between 45 and 47, together they have supervised the collection of texts ‘I nuovi sentimenti’, the new sentiments, published by Marsilio Editors. They look at the world with inquisitiveness, but also with criticality. Seems that their thoughts go beyond the pages of the novel, beyond the writing itself. The same ten questions posed to each of them, starting from Bugaro and Ferrucci, just to get to know them a bit more.

To be a writer, how much talent, technique and “acquaintances” are worth? 
Bugaro: “80% technique intended as application, perseverance, craftsmanship, 10% talent and 10% acquaintances, the luck of living this or that life, to live experiences, which are an extraordinary narrating material.”
Ferrucci: “80% talent, 19% technique and 1% acquaintances, perhaps zero percent”.

Is it easier to write professionally or as a hobby?
Bugaro: “It is harder to write as a hobby: for the professional writer the gift of writing is a wonderful and exciting thing.”
Ferrucci: “Writing as a hobby does not imply the conceited and fetishist anxiety of publication. When, instead, you must publish, you then have quite a bit more implications.”

Does having a comfortable financial situation facilitate becoming a writer?
Bugaro: “In spite of mass education, middle class conserves a substantial hegemony over the thought. It is rarer that an underprivileged person approaches writing, in spite of the fact that exceptions are endless and often with extraordinary importance and caliber.”
Ferrucci: “Not having ever experienced “the good family” status and having always worked, I believe that work experiences enriches. Talent instead, is clear, it can even be gotten by the rich son.”

When you write a novel, besides inspiration, do you ever think about what will the reader think? Conditioned by?
Bugaro: “Despite that the books are perfectly autonomous organisms, with a life of their own, writing is an intimate exercise, which deals with inner thoughts. However I am a bit conditioned by, you cannot pretend  that the reader does not exist.” 
Ferrucci: “No, because the novel should find its own path, regardless of the reader, whose opinion for me is important in the subsequent phase, meaning when the book has already been written: evaluation can also be an incentive .”

Is it true that this is a narrative generation dedicated to sentiments, good or bad they may be?
Bugaro: “Absolutely yes! It is what the philosopher  Günther Anders defines as Promethean gap’: around us everything has evolved fast, but our inwardness, our sensible apparatus can not keep-up with this speed”.
Ferrucci: “I agree. Each one of us has been faced with the aspects of sentimentality, has tried to see how this is conditioned and at the same time it conditions, more than the past, our lives. I try to tell about  the incomprehensibility  of our times and in some ways unacceptability with which however we must come to term.”  

An advice for the young who want to get close to writing.
Bugaro: “Not to be alone, look for a circuit of friends, of people interested in writing with whom trade advices, ideas and even criticism. In other words, join-in a fertile environment.”
Ferrucci: “Read, read and read, because today nobody reads anymore. And then write not before reaching 30 years of age, after having experienced life, and when there is truly something to write and tell.”

Three titles amongst poetry and prose that you believe essential.
Bugaro: “I’ll mention some strange titles: ‘I detective selvaggi’ by Roberto Bolaño, an authentic masterpiece of modernity, ‘Guerra e pace’ by Tolstoj and ‘I racconti di Dublino’ by Joyce. All narrative.”
Ferrucci: “Not poetry, because I have read it by the tons when I was young and now I cannot handle it any more. Aside the classics, which I believe as a given, three are the books that have incited me to write: ‘Lo stadio di Wimbledon’ by Daniele Del Giudice who has portrayed the return to the  beauty  on narrating in this country, ‘La stanza da bagno’ by Jean-Philippe Toussaint and Peter Handke, who has a very slow writing capable of even entering the micro-things.”

Is there something that unites you of the latest generation of Venetian writers?
Bugaro: “I have noticed in many of my dearest friends who work in this area a great sensitivity toward perceiving the changes of this time, aim their look toward the authentic new things of the time.”
Ferrucci: “What unites us is friendship, passion for literature and writing, but we have never exploited any intellectual power, nor do we want to become a classic group of editorial-literary power.”

What does it mean being Venetians?
Bugaro: “Being Venetian means being sons of an ancient land, whose heritage is of an almost unbearable beauty. Venice is a concentration of all this. It takes courage to face Venice, because its beauty can break you.”
Ferrucci: “Unfortunately 9 times out of 10 I am ashamed of being Venetian, because it is    the most backward, racist, most self-centered and most egotistical in the absolute meaning, region. I cannot manage to see positive things about Veneto, for example the voluntary work, because boorishness is pressing. I can stand Veneto only because I live in Venice. Being Venetians means belonging to another story, one of opening and not of closing. What Venice does not know how to do is tell about itself and  maybe  us writers too should start to write how things really are, to denounce them, and tarnish them.”

What is the word?
Bugaro: “It is the most precious gift for men, it is all, and it is what allows us to exist.”
Ferrucci: “Word is my daily nature, and thus …my life”.