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 Click for words events NONFICTION REVIEW Fo Real
Dario Fo may have left university without a degree, but judging by "My
First Seven Years," his hilarious and ribald new memoir, he received a
first-rate education long before entering the halls of academe.
Growing up in the tiny Italian fishing village of San Giano, Fo
describes, was like attending a master class in storytelling.
Fishmongers regaled children with tales of their exploits, while Fo's
grandfather, Bristin, made the women titter with saucy stories about the
vegetables he sold.
"Everything depends on the masters you have had," says one man to
the young Dario, after noticing how closely the young boy studied
storytellers. "But watch out. Often you do not choose your masters,
they choose you."
Fo evidently got chosen by the right ones, as he went on to become
one of Europe's most influential political playwrights. His classic,
"Accidental Death of an Anarchist," written in 1969 in response to the
death of anarchist railway man Giuseppi Pinelli, used absurdity to point
out the falsehoods behind the investigation of his death. It played for
more than thirty months in London and featured prominently in the
citation for his 1997 Nobel Prize.
If you want to know where some of that political fire came from,
read "My First Seven Years." Among young Dario's tutors was his
smart-mouthed father, Felice, who worked as a station master at the
local train depot. As the country builds up to war, fascists routinely
stopped people like Felice Fo to question their credentials. In
response, he liked to drop his trousers and reveal the leg injury he
sustained in the First World War. "Who do you think's going to take
the chance of dragging a haul of trophies like that before a court?" he
liked to ask his giggling son.
In addition to his father and grandfather, Fo learned how to tell
stories from local village people, for whom spinning a fine yarn was a
point of pride. "Galli--a poacher by profession--presented tragic tales
with the nonchalant air of a man who analyzes the details of a disaster
without fully being aware of the disaster itself." Another man spoke
"flippantly" while fishing, often beginning with an absurdist preamble
which made it impossible for the children gathered around him to leave
without hearing what he would say next.
Writing from a child's perspective is a deceptively difficult thing
to do, but Fo pulls it off beautifully here. His younger self is all
curiosity and exclamation points, a buzzing rocket of bottled sexual
energy. He and his siblings pilfer fruit from orchards, splash in Lake
Maggiore, ogle women's breasts, and adopt an undeveloped Great Dane
whom they name Gog, who, in contrast to his biblical name, is no fierce
beast of the apocalypse.
Fo understands that a book constructed entirely of rapscallion
adventures would grow tedious. So he deftly moves back and forth from
historical events to the innocence of childhood, from the wistfulness of
old age to the whimsy of being a boy. The result is a book that tells
the story of a sentimental education, without ever being maudlin. By the
end of "My First Seven Years," we feel attached to the personalities
of San Giano and the boy they've nurtured. Indeed, when Fo starts to
grow up and leave for proper schooling, we almost don't want to let him
go. "My First Seven Years (plus a few more)"
By Dario Fo
Translated by Joseph Farrell
Thomas Dunne Books, $23.95, 256 pages
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