Genesi e scrittura dei romanzi di Cesare Pavese. Il caso della Luna e i falò

T he «Guido Gozzano - Cesare Pavese» Archive in Turin houses the manuscripts and editorial materials of Pavese. Particularly noteworthy are the documents related to his novels, which allow us to observe and reconstruct the author’s writing process. This is not only through textual variants but, above all, thanks to his working notes. Both before and during the drafting process, Pavese meticulously records lists of keywords, outlines that project the distribution of narrative material within the chapters, and brief descriptions of the characters, alongside dialogue lines that help define their traits. It appears that Pavese begins writing his novels, chapter by chapter, only after having a clear idea of the sequence of events and the physical and psychological traits of his characters, while still allowing himself the possibility of making minor adjustments during the actual writing process. T his contribution focuses on the most significant case, La luna e i falò. During the preparation of his final novel, the writer did not overlook any detail. Pavese meticulously planned the relationships between the characters, even going so far as to draft a genealogical tree. He also obsessively rewrote the chapter lists, along with the corresponding events, continuously modifying both their content and their arrangement within the text.