It is 1890 and the Wild West Show, Buffalo Bill's great circus, lands in Rome. Not far from where the circus troupe camps lies the local West, the Maremma, a harsh territory, the kingdom of the butteri, the herdsmen on horseback. Among them are Penna and the young Donato. After contributing to the arrest of Occhionero, the most dangerous brigand in the country, Penna and Donato suffer a horse theft by the Sioux working for Buffalo Bill. The two cowboys set out on their trail, but the escape from prison of Occhionero, who is being hunted by the inept carabiniere Orsolini, and the revenge of Gilda, a very young coal burner victim of Occhionero and his accomplices, trigger a series of events from 'fatal outcome.
A choral novel that adapts the western genre to the Italian context, “Selvaggio Ovest” (NN Edizioni, 2024, Euro 18, pp. 368. Also Ebook) is a great adventure of gallops and thefts, chases and shootouts. Daniele Pasquini, in fact, is inspired by the American tradition of Larry McMurtry and his Lonesome Dove, to tell the reality of the Maremma, a harsh and frontier world, suspended between the arrival of modernity and the constant call of primitive nature. We ask Daniele Pasquini how the idea of taking inspiration from the western genre for his novel came about.
«The idea of writing a western novel was born from various suggestions accumulated over time. Lover of American literature, in the last ten years I have been fascinated by the frontier novel several times. I wanted to exploit the narrative potential of the western genre to address issues that were crucial to me, while avoiding the pitfalls of autobiography. I found the idea of imagining a story set in the American West absurd, from my position. Then some trips to the western USA and the Maremma highlighted landscape similarities. The discovery of the Maremma butteri first, and the story of Buffalo Bill's Italian tour, made the idea of an Italian western narrative concrete."
What does the Maremma represent in your novel and what does it represent for you?
«For me, the Maremma is the place of childhood, of summer holidays, of games and cicadas in the pine forest. Later in time it was the place to breathe after the pandemic lockdowns. A happy place. The Maremma of the novel is very different, because at the end of the nineteenth century the land reclamation had not yet arrived, because malaria killed, because life expectancy was very low. It was effectively a land where modernity – and more precisely the Italian state – had not yet arrived, and which could resemble, at least for literary purposes, a land lost in the American West."
Which of the protagonists of your novel are you most attached to?
«It's a very difficult choice, because each character gave me a lot. At first glance I would say Donato or Gilda, even if it was Giuseppe who made me think the most, and without a doubt the brigand Occhionero was the most fascinating to conceive. Among the minor characters there is the journalist Cigaretta, who in some ways resembles me a lot. But in the end, having to choose only one, I would say Carabiniere Orsolini: in his ridiculousness, in the mix of fearfulness, clumsiness and vainglory there is much more than a speck."
Is there a contemporary "Wild West" where you would like to set a novel?
«It depends a lot on what you mean by “Wild West”. The West often recalls two opposing ideas: one is that of a lawless place. Far-West is often used in newspaper headlines when referring to a criminal event. The other is instead a "Hollywood" idea, made of honor, thirst for conquest and civilization. These are aspects that have fortunately been problematized and widely questioned in recent decades. I must say that I am actually interested in the western narrative opportunities given by the genre, and in particular by the concept of the frontier: a remote place in which the characters move, poised between life and death. Not a land to colonize, but a cardinal point to move towards, a continuous search. Some places lend themselves better than others to this type of reflection, and those that retain an archaic dimension, not totally anthropized, work better than others. It is no coincidence that the Maremma, as well as Sardinia and some areas of the Apennines or in the South, lend themselves or have lent themselves to being sets for literary or cinematographic westerns. It is there - in the woods, in the prairies, in the countryside - that the western is still possible."
<p>The cover</p>