Wandering. A dialogue between two nomads
Antonio D’Aprile interviews the writer and walker Antonio Moresco
I met Antonio Moresco in June 2016, when I joined the Trieste-Sarajevo walk organized by the Associazione Repubblica Nomade; I was fascinated by this particular project called Il Sogno dell’Europa (The Dream of Europe) Antonio Moresco was one of the founders of the Associazione Repubblica Nomade in 2011 and has always taken part in these “hyperbolized” walks that the Association organizes ever since. I, too, have never stopped attending Repubblica Nomade, and as such, I meet him at least once a year on the occasion of the summer walk. Having thus known Antonio’s works and thought, it was easy for me to dialogue with him on the theme of wandering.
I will try to take you on a journey through space and time by taking advantage of Moresco’s great narrative ability. The first stage of this hypothetical journey is the last tour organized by Repubblica Nomade in October of last year with an itinerary starting from Martina Franca and ending in Matera, while retracing some sections of the ancient tracks of transhumance. A somewhat “short” path compared to the usual ones of the Association, which was necessary for the meaning it wanted to convey, realized in a period when it was not easy to organize events of this nature.
The last journey of Repubblica Nomade from Martina Franca to Matera allowed you to return to the south and discover some places you did not know. What struck you most about the places we passed through and the people we met?
I have come back many times to Puglia and Basilicata: to launch books, to walk, even to shoot a film … So I feel a strong bond; I know and love this part of Italy in a particular way. As for the last journey, many things impressed me: the generosity and hospitality received, Lecce, the Locorotondo bookshop, where there was a beautiful and crowded event, the places seen along the way, the Murge, the rock churches. But the thing that most impressed me is the stage during which we skirted the impressive chasm of the Laterza ravine for hours, under a deluge of rain. A gorge of extraordinary beauty, an underworld, an image that takes us back to the primaeval ages of human life and at the same time to the future. I had already seen that ravine during our second journey of Repubblica Nomade (Stella d’Italia, Star of Italy); we had even slept in a small building not far away. But walking through it like this, up close, for hours, in that great silence, was an experience hard to forget.
I immediately shared the spirit of Repubblica Nomade. But, as one of the founders, how important is “nomadism” to you, and how does it relate to wandering?
Our whole civilization was born from a clash between nomadic hunters and settled farmers and from the victory of the settled over the nomads, seen then as an uncontrollable source of threat. We see it well even now with the migrants, the gypsies. In this dramatic period, also in terms of species, the time has come to re-evaluate nomadism by taking the good aspects, which could serve us in the future of great upheavals and mutations that we face. And then … moving around, wandering around, is always a source of knowledge, invention, discovery.
How important is the physical and metaphorical dimension of wandering for a writer?
In my opinion, it is vital. Things are often discovered when you get lost, when you venture into streets that, had you not made a mistake, you would not have taken. Even Christopher Columbus came across a continent by setting out for somewhere, while he mistakenly arrived elsewhere. So writers too are – or should be – travellers, discoverers, inventors, and so they also need to wander, take unknown roads, and come across things that otherwise they would never encounter. In my life, it has happened many times. By making mistakes, living unforeseen and unexpected experiences, I took paths that led me to meet people and worlds that otherwise I would never have met, which enriched my experience as a man and as a writer.
The verb to err is not so often used; it personally takes me back to school when I had to learn by heart Leopardi’s poem “Canto notturno di un pastore errante dell’ Asia”. So, moving back in time and speaking of Leopardi, you have a strong tie that binds you to the poet of Recanati. Can you tell us about this?
Yes, Leopardi was the first writer and poet I met and loved. When I was little more than a child, I did poorly in school, I struggled to learn. His voice was the first to touch me through the lines of L’Infinito (The Infinite) that I had found in the school anthology. He broke through my loneliness, my traumatic closure. From that moment on, I began thinking that, perhaps, in the world, there was a place for me, too.
Leopardi was certainly not a man who travelled.
But he did, with his mind and with feelings. However, he physically travelled quite a lot for those times and considering his physical condition: from Recanati to Bologna, where he lived for some time, to Pisa, Rome and Naples, where he died.
I would like you to talk about Don Quixote, which now takes us further back on our hypothetical journey. At the same time, it projects us into current events as you have recently published your latest book on the famous “errant knight ” and you are also about to shoot a film, inspired by the novel, in which you are the protagonist. Why did this character and this literary masterpiece fascinate you so much?
Because Don Quixote unites forces that are generally thought of as separate and opposite: reality and imagination, reality and desire, reality and dream. And it is precisely this explosive coexistence that we need today to overcome the impasse of the species we have turned into, to initiate a metamorphosis and invent a new life. He was a central character for all this and more, and now I felt the need to reinvent him and embody him in a book taking place in the present and – hopefully soon – in an unleashed poetic, comic, dramatic film.
Don Quixote has been called the first modern novel. In your opinion, what is genuinely contemporary about this work?
There is the enlargement of the cognitive and psychic dimension, the breaking through of possibilities. In this sense, Don Quixote is a modern but also an archaic character. Like the characters of Homer, who had this primitive power, he is a perennially timeless character, who encompasses past, present and future.
Why do you often use the fable scheme in your literature to tell about human events?
Because fairy tales break the reductive rigidity of so-called realism. Because a fairy tale is revolutionary, it overturns and upsets plans. It is the kingdom where possibilities can be reversed: a wooden puppet becomes a child, a harassed lass becomes a princess, a little girl rises from the belly of a wolf disguised as the child’s grandmother, who had just been eaten. For this reason, even if it might sound like a contradiction, fairy tales are closer to life, tragic and open at the same time. They do not hide the presence of evil in the world, but they also give you the strength and the courage to fight it.
One dominant cultural aspect is linked to “efficiency” in all fields (currently, also energy): modern man must obtain the predetermined results in established times and methods, and erring is no longer allowed in social processes, with occasional exceptions. Do you share this thought? And how much has this damaged the human essence?
What you are talking about is one of the many myths that have established themselves in modernity, bringing us to where we are now. An acceleration and an inflated sense of superiority have upset the relationship between man and nature. The myth of efficiency, maximum profit, abstraction, and the economy erected as the main dimension of life have led to the arrogant and obtuse Man. He is now gambling his own survival on planet Earth, which is ready to expel us and continue on its own course for a few more years. Or until the sun burns out.
Sometimes your books, even if in fairytale form, are pretty tough. Is it a way to give readers access to authentic experiences and facts they wouldn’t usually come into contact with?
The trauma that I sometimes subject the reader to is the same that I experience. If you do not share things with this intensity, they do not come back to you in the same way, even in writing. If you do not see the world as an apparition, you cannot make it reach others in the same manner. If necessary, even experiencing trauma, which is a wound but also an opportunity,
I hope to open the minds and hearts of my readers.
To close, let’s go back to where we started our journey. The day before the departure of the last walk of Repubblica Nomade, we ate asado prepared by an Argentinian magistrate, who lives between Brindisi and Ceglie Messapica, in the home of a Sicilian, who works in Rome but lives in the countryside of Ostuni. What do you think about this unusual combination?
And you forget others, like the photographer Manoocher Deghati, who also lives nearby, if I understand correctly. I remember that day as a magical day: the beauty of the house where we were hosted, the courtesy, generosity and naturalness of our host, and then the guests … Even at that moment there was a bunch of unexpected possibilities and of encounters, people who did not know each other before and who came from faraway places and from entirely different experiences found themselves together for a moment, because sometimes, on the surface of life, eddies open up.
He was born in Mantua in 1947. He is the author of fiction, and non-fiction pubblications as well as plays. At the age of 46, he published his first collection of short stories, Clandestinità (Bollati Boringhieri, 1993). Since then, he has published numerous works with various publishers, including La cipolla (Bollati Boringhieri, 1995), Lettere a nessuno(Bollati Boringhieri, 1997), Gli esordi (Feltrinelli, 1998), Lo sbrego (Holden Maps – Rizzoli, 2005), Scritti di viaggio, di combattimento e di sogno (Fanucci, 2005), Zio Demostene (Effigie, 2005), Vita di randagi (Effigie, 2005), Merda e Luce (Effigie, 2007) and Canti del caos (Feltrinelli, Rizzoli and Mondadori). Mondadori has also published Gli incendiati (2010), La lucina (2013), Fiaba d’amore (2014) and Gli increati (2015). His latest books include L’addio(Giunti, 2016), La mia città (Nottetempo, 2018), Il grido (SEM, 2018), Canto di D’Arco (SEM, 2019), Canto degli alberi(Aboca, 2020), Chisciotte (SEM, 2020).
Antonio D’Aprile
Architect, designer, often also a photographer, he graduated in Architecture in Rome in 1992, where he began working to design sports facilities, commercial spaces, residential buildings and hotels. For some years now, he has returned to live in Lecce, where his studio operates mainly in restoring prestigious buildings (farms, historic houses, etc.), architectural design, and interior design. Since 2015 he has been a member of the Board of Directors of ADI (Association for Industrial Design) – Delegation of Puglia and Basilicata. Since 2019 he has been a member of the ADI “Exhibition Design” Thematic Commission for the Compasso d’Oro selections.