California Italian Studies

This article considers the figure of the tangle (be it a garbuglio , gomitolo, gnommero , or guazzabuglio ), emblematic of Carlo Emilio Gadda’s narrative architecture and philosophy. The garbugli o and its variations, like the “vibrant matter” recently theorized by Jane Bennett, enmesh human and nonhuman matter in a fabric of relations so dense that no element can be subtracted from the global whole. Understanding uselessness not as a quality intrinsic to matter, but as a relationship of exteriority, this article examines iterations of uselessness—and accordingly, forms of subtraction—in Gadda: of human and nonhuman matter from larger tangles (whether linguistic, narrative, economic, or social). The stakes of these forms of subtraction, I argue, come into focus in La cognizione del dolore in a tension between “ethics” and “charity” that demonstrates Gadda’s disillusionment with fascism—and particularly with fascist mothers who, like Volumnia of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus , would sacrifice their sons to the “ethical” imperatives of the state.