«It was no longer a mystery»: the problem of the end in Beppe Fenoglio's «Trucco»

Abstract

The theme of the ‘end’ is central to all Beppe Fenoglio’s work and is decisive in defining his very identity as an author. Rarely, both in unfinished novels and in works licensed by the author, does the conclusion allow the meaning of the story to be determined retrospectively. And the suspension of the ending is even more pronounced when it coincides with the thematisation of the ‘end’, that is, the death of a character. Death is a recurring event in Fenoglio’s stories, sometimes the subject of an obsessive precision, sometimes of an evident desire to remove it. This mechanism appears particularly pronounced in Il trucco (‘The trick’), from I ventitré giorni della città di Alba. Here death is the central theme, but also the instrument of a narrative experiment: death is announced, discussed, awaited but, ultimately, not represented. The ending thus becomes the place where a ‘trick’ is revealed that even involves the reader. This article proposes to tackle the ‘problem of the end’ in Fenoglio’s Il trucco, combining an analytical investigation of the text (aimed mainly at the use of shifting focalization and reticence) with some observations on the way in which the author reworks the potential of the short story, which by its very statute envisages the placement of the accent precisely on the ending.