Tiziano Scarpa is a Venetian writer who certainly needs no introduction. We met for a coffee on a cold Wednesday morning. The day was cloudy, with that misty light I love so much.
I wanted to chat with him in a lighthearted way about Venice, as I consider him one of the figures who has always been rather honest about the situation, without ever failing to prove his love for his native city and always offering unconventional and original perspectives, in addition -of course- to being a great writer.
Here below, our brief interview.
1) Dear Tiziano, tell us a little something about yourself.
As a boy, I was a writer in disguise, as telling others what I would have liked to be in life would cause me some embarrassment. I came out in the open when I was around thirty, with some stories published on a journal and a monologue at the theatre. Fortuitously, my first book coincided with me moving to Milan, where I lived for about twelve years. Thus my -let's call it so- official literary career started with an existential and rather strong change for me. Anyhow, I moved back to Venice about twenty years ago. I make a living with my writing, not only with my books but also with all the other opportunities that revolve around this job: theatrical readings, writing workshops, the copyright of my screenplays, interventions in art catalogues and some articles on the newspapers.
Damiano Michieletto has recently directed a movie, Primavera, inspired by my most famous book: Stabat Mater.
2) A while ago I heard a radio interview of yours and felt the same way when you mentioned that Venice tends to always get the better hand, get all the attention. You spoke about Ian McEwan and how in his "Comfort of Strangers", set in Venice, he avoided ever mentioning the city's name, exactly not to distract the reader from the plot. How do you live your relationship with this city?
Well, I am definitely not the first one to realize that Venice has such a strong carisma to impose herself on everything else. If one thinks about it, this contradicts an essential rule of our culture, or better said, of our perceptive system. According to this rule, the figure stands out from the background, which becomes secondary. With Venice, the opposite happens: the backdrop overrules. Thus, it is difficult to keep it at bay. If one wants to invent some stories, figures moving in a space, it often happens that the Venetian setting imposes itself on the rest. This awareness should refrain me from writing about Venice, yet her appeal is so strong that I cannot help it. Recently, I did it again with "A catalogue of waves", a book where words and images (with photos by Anna Zemella, published by Wetlands) describe the lagoon and its urban canals, with the peculiar shapes of Venetian waters. Sometimes, Venice causes me to have rejection crisis. The strongest one happened when I was around thirty: I thought it was too small a city, asphyxial even with regard to social relationships, I needed to widen my horizon and so, I moved to Milan. Now it is different, perhaps because I am twice the age and perhaps also because, with regard to people, I have met too many.
3) Venice is a fish. Twenty years distance between the first (2000) and second edition (2020). What changes have struck you the most?
The first edition was rather short. Twenty years later, in 2020, I decided to enrich it with many of the things I have learned in the meanwhile: anecdotes, information, unusual news, the same ones I share when friends visit the city and we wander around. They remain impressed and so I decided to write them. As for the rest, we all know how the city has changed, I won't be the one telling you anything original on this regard. I feel that within me, a sense of precariousness has sharpened. I look at Venice and think: how long will it last? Will she still be here in thirty years' time? How long will it take for the palaces and houses to crumble, with all these waves eating them up, with the -ever more numerous- boats that transport food to supermarkets, construction materials for renovation works, tourists, laundry for hotels, garbage and parcels to deliver? Will Venice be submerged by the sea? I look at her in a similar way one may look at an elderly person who doesn't have too much time left to live.
4) In the essay published on the journal The Passenger (Iperborea) you underlined the effect that garbage has on the environment of the lagoon. Why do you think there is so little sensitivity on this aspect?
The problems are so many that we can feel overwhelmed. The world and the way our everyday lives are organized should be re-designed from the start. Garbage is only one of the consequences of the world we live in, which we should be seriously questioning. But I can't see a real desire for change.
5) I often ask myself why tourists love places that I perceive as fake (for example, the Acqua Alta bookshop or the candy stores). Have you ever felt the same? If so, have you ever tried to find an answer?
Well, I have found some great books at Acqua Alta, I made some bargains buying some rare and out of print editions, which could not be found anywhere else. Also, it's a couple of years that the booksellers do a really good job at organizing the books into categories, by author, even in alphabetical order, something that is not so common in second hand bookshops. If I were to mention something fake or annoyingly artificial, that bookshop would not come to my mind. Perhaps it is exaggerated to include it in the top 10 most beautiful bookshops in the world, as we often see on those lists that go around the web, but the example you have just made should make us think: clearly, it responds to the desires of visitors, of foreigners and people who do not live here: they may have an exotic idea of the city and for us it can be difficult to actually realize that we do live in a reality that can be rather peculiar for others. Our normality, our everyday life is quite absurd for the rest of the world, estranging, fascinating and even comical. As for all the rest, it is a matter of taste, of being able to distinguish what's good from what's Kitsch, and taste... is something one either has or doesn't have. Depression can take over when all things Kitsch become prevailing. All those shops, with ultra-white walls, selling pseudo-Muranese glass, not to mention the fluorescent candy stores, make me sad. I prefer to promote other things, other mentalities, but then who knows which ones are the right ones.
6) My blog is about food, so may I ask you what is your favorite dish, the foods of your childhood memories?
Dishes that my mother and grandmother used to make and that I never prepare are pasta e fagioli (pasta with beans), or risi e bisi (rice with peas), dishes I never think of preparing and so maintain the strength of sealed memories, unchanged by excessive routine/habit. Another risotto I have never eaten since those times is the one with chicken's kidneys. White polenta too is a food that has vanished from my horizon; my grandmother would make it in a copper pot, pour over a three-finger thick cutting board and slice with a seamstress' thread. I loved the pieces of polenta that would become slightly burned over the boiling hot kitchen stove (cucina economica), the one with the concentric metal circles for the different diameters of the pots. Something rare and exquisite to eat were acacia flowers, inflorescent bunches first floured, then fried. As you can see, these dishes are typical of Treviso, because my mother and my grandmother came from there. My dad, instead, was from Giudecca, and he would make for us some excellent bigoli in salsa.
7) Which Venetian museum or art work do you feel most close to?
It depends on the moment. Currently I am particularly intrigued by Giambattista Tiepolo and his son Giandomenico, painters I started to appreciate only as an adult, especially in the last 10 years. I love them because they are modern, ironic, they don't believe in myths anymore, nor in religion, they paint for rich commissioners, for the church, for the aristocracy, but in each image they put their own thoughts. At the Fine Art Academy, for example, there is The three angels appearing to Abraham by Giandomenico: looking at that painting, one realizes that the real theme is not the biblical episode, but the power of the beauty of youth, in front of which Abraham -representing old age- bows down, in an adoration that is not just erotic, but ontological (the Prado version by Giambattista is ever more powerful).
I like to walk into Venetian churches and look at the statues, there is no need to queue for the ticket or leave down bag and backpack, the entrance is immediate. Maybe because it is close to my house, when I have a quarter of an hour or some spare minutes, I go to the San Polo church; as a resident I am not required to pay a ticket: I love the Via Crucis painted by a twenty-year-old Giandomenico in the Oratory, especially the way he represents the crowd and the thousands of human reactions. Then, you know, you must consider that in elementary school I was an altar boy at the Frari's, I celebrated Mass in front of Titian's Assumption or Giovanni Bellini's triptych, sitting just below those supreme artworks, closer than everyone else, even closer than the priest and the rest of the worshippers. My masses, really, consisted in those long contemplations. You can imagine how attached I feel to such masterpieces.
8) A mandatory reading for those who live and/or visit Venice?
There are so many good books about Venice. If I were to choose an author, I would say Venezia, l’anno del mare felice by Paolo Barbaro, or his Venezia, la città ritrovata. If I am not mistaken, the publisher Wetlands will re-propose it in the coming months. In the meantime, there is Le ultime isole, for which I wrote the foreword. A beautiful novel, clear and moving, set in the city and also on the island of sant'Erasmo is Le ultime lezioni by Giovanni Montanaro (Feltrinelli); yes, because as Roberto Ferrucci writes, Venezia è laguna, another reading not to be missed, together with Venezia e io by Marilia Mazzeo, published by Helvetia Editrice.
9) What approach would you suggest to those visiting Venice?
I would suggest to adopt a place of their own, circumscribed, limited in space, and really get to know it, visiting it more than once, deepening its history, paying attention to its details and its hideouts. A campo, a palace, a church, maybe close to their hotel or apartment. But you know, I have already given so many suggestions in Venice is a fish: I am often told that what makes that book different is not the information, nor the tips themselves, but the different perspective I offer, which tries to change the attitude and gaze of those visiting the city.
10) Last question. Three reasons to stay, three reasons to leave.
For staying: friends, the water and the absurdity of the city. As for leaving, I have no reason to go, although I am afraid it will be the city itself to send me away, evicting me. Living here has become too expensive, unsustainable.
[Tiziano Scarpa, December 9, 2024]
I cannot but feel grateful for the time Tiziano dedicated to me and I hope his new edition of Venice is a Fish will soon be translated in English.
Thank you for reading and talk soon.
Yours sincerely,
Nicoletta XXX
Fabulous interview, thank you!