Blue Library
9834 Cabala bianca – vol. I e II
Gian Dàuli. Introduction by Michel David
1973 / 2 voll. PAGES.
Language: Italian
Cabala bianca is a dreamlike epic of the Homme moyen sensual set in 1930s Milan, between travelling salesmen, suburbia and bowling clubs. Here, Dàuli describes the life of the lower middle class like a dream – or a bunch of dreams.
In Cabala bianca, we can find elements of psychological metaphysics upon which an especially brilliant narrative "progress" is built. It ranges from the protagonist's dream interspersed with “reality”, to dreams shared with other characters, to an ongoing dream parallel to “reality”, to daydreaming... Dàuli performs a true phenomenology of dreams, varying the combinatory possibilities, “experiences” and “facts” to test their consistency in the details. An interplay of Japanese flowers, of interlocking pieces, where what we perceive as real life compared to dream life slowly appears as dreamt as well, creating an effect of cabala, of magical reversal in the world of magical thinking.