''A Man — Finished'' (), published as ''The Failure'' in the United States, is a 1913

autobiographical novel An autobiographical novel, also known as an autobiographical fiction, fictional autobiography, or autobiographical fiction novel, is a type of novel which uses autofiction techniques, or the merging of autobiographical and fictive elements. The ...

by the Italian writer

Giovanni Papini Giovanni Papini (9 January 18818 July 1956) was an Italian journalist, essayist, novelist, short story writer, poet, literary critic, and Italian philosophy, philosopher. A controversial literary figure of the early and mid-twentieth century, he ...

Plot

Through an unnamed protagonist,

tells a fictionalised version of his life from childhood until the age of 30, when he wrote the book. The protagonist is alienated as a child and turns to knowledge, which he treats as a weapon against the world. As a young adult, he sees himself as a born revolutionary, gathers a circle of like-minded people and develops an increasingly

solipsistic Solipsism ( ; ) is the philosophy, philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemology, epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the Reality, external world ...

philosophy centred on the mind in opposition to God and humanity. He founds the journal '' Leonardo'' as an organ for promoting his views and attacking Christianity. His rationalistic views and celebration of knowledge lead him to an irrational love of power and he desires to write a great literary work that will elevate him above other humans. When all his grand plans fail, he turns to self-pity and blames his surroundings and associates. In an attempt to justify his failure and make it heroic, he writes a book: ''Un uomo finito''.

Major themes

According to Papini, the protagonist's primary sin is his inability to grasp that he is an evil person. The book parallels its protagonist's life, including Papini's autobiographical elements, with the career of

the Devil Satan, also known as the Devil, is a devilish entity in Abrahamic religions who seduces humans into sin (or falsehood). In Judaism, Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God, typically regarded as a metaphor for the '' yetzer hara'', or 'e ...

. It interweaves the Devil as a symbol for humanity's demonic sides and the protagonist's life as a symbol for the Devil.

Reception

''A Man — Finished'' is Papini's most famous book. According to Daniela Orlandi in the ''Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies'' (2007), it is "unanimously considered his greatest achievement", and its best features are "its readability, its characteristic as an epoch-making document, and, last but not least, the fact that it constitutes a sort of testament to the idealism of some intellectuals who would later subscribe to Italy's nationalist and

Fascist Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural soci ...

movements". The screenwriter

Cesare Zavattini Cesare Zavattini (20 September 1902 – 13 October 1989) was an Italian screenwriter and one of the first theorists and proponents of the Neorealist movement in Italian cinema. Biography Born in Luzzara near Reggio Emilia in northern Italy, o ...

was deeply affected by the book when he read it at the age of 17. He said he read it in one night after which he changed his lifestyle, stopped feeling aimless and began to write with an informal and seemingly spontaneous tone, adopted from Papini.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Man Finished 1913 Italian novels Novels by Giovanni Papini Italian autobiographical novels