Luigi Pirandello Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Percy Hutchison

Critical Essay by Percy Hutchison

SOURCE: "The Short Stories of Pirandello," in The New York Times Book Review, September 9, 1934, p. 2, 12.

In the following review, Hutchison judges the collection The Naked Truth "truly great, " asserting that Pirandello conveys the messages of his stories very subtly.

The twelve stories which comprise [The Naked Truth, and Eleven Other Stories] have been selected from the series by Luigi Pirandello called Novelle per un Anno. In adopting what is the title of the second piece as a caption for the collection the translators chose wisely. Signor Pirandello has long been occupied with that illusive matter, truth; discussing the concept from various angles, probing for reality, studying effects. As You Desire Me, as those who saw the play, or the cinema based on the play, will recall, was an ingenious and intensely human dramatization of a highly metaphysical question—namely, what is one's real self? There is...
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