{"id":8478,"date":"2013-01-04T06:54:08","date_gmt":"2013-01-04T13:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/?p=8478"},"modified":"2013-01-04T07:45:02","modified_gmt":"2013-01-04T14:45:02","slug":"anti-work-the-secret-is-to-tell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/anti-work-the-secret-is-to-tell\/","title":{"rendered":"(A)nti-Work: The Secret Is To Tell"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Journalism<\/em> is printing what someone doesn’t want published, everything else is Public Relations!” -George Orwell-<\/p>\n

\u201cThe gypsies rightly believe that one must never speak the truth except in one\u2019s own language; in the enemy\u2019s language, the lie must reign.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>-Translator’s Introduction by Bill Brown-<\/p>\n

When the Scriblerus Club of Verona, Italy first published Il segreto \u00e8 dirlo (\u201cThe Secret is to Tell\u201d) in 1983, it was an anonymous work. In the words of the very brief text on its back cover, this novel is the story of the \u201clife and adventures of Salvatore Messana,\u201d who is \u201ca thief, sinner, adulterer, sailor, bank robber, militant of the extreme left, swindler and, finally, a \u2018specialist in getting sacked\u2019 who amassed a large fortune.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before going any further, allow me to remark that, though I can certainly understand why someone would want the story of downtrodden Salvatore Messana (a kind of Savior Messiah) to have a happy ending, that last idea is false. Though the novel\u2019s hero may have \u201cearned\u201d money by being such an intentionally bad worker (a saboteur, in fact) that his employers were forced to buy him out of his work contracts, he certainly didn\u2019t \u201camass a large fortune.\u201d His various scams only netted him enough money (no more than $10,000 at a time) to be able to live without having to have a steady job.<\/p>\n

Normally, such people \u2013 scam-artists, con men and the like \u2013 do not reveal their secrets. As Guy Debord says in Panegyrique, which is the story of his own life and adventures, \u201cThe gypsies rightly believe that one must never speak the truth except in one\u2019s own language; in the enemy\u2019s language, the lie must reign.\u201d This is why the hero calls himself Salvatore Messana (it appears that his real last name is Upim) and why the author of Il segreto \u00e8 dirlo wanted to remain anonymous. To be safe from police prosecution, they both did not want to be correctly identified. (Note well that my use of the word \u201cboth\u201d assumes that Upim and the author aren\u2019t one and the same person.)<\/p>\n

But Salvatore Messana is not a typical scam-artist or con man. Unlike his friend Piras, who chose \u201cto take the money and disappear,\u201d he is dedicated to the education of his fellow proletarians, who, thanks to him, \u201clearned more in an instant than they had learned their whole lives.\u201d To educate as many people as possible, Messana opens Il segreto \u00e8 dirlo with a short statement entitled \u201cPreliminary Points.\u201d In it, he explains that the secret (the ultimate secret: not just a particular one) is not to keep everything a secret. Telling one\u2019s secrets is a very good way to piss off \u201cthe prudent cowards, who are always ready to whisper appeals to stay silent, and the muddled minds that get bogged down in the details, murmuring that the secret is to say nothing,\u201d as well as his own \u201ccunt of an attorney [\u2026] who immediately advised me to not divulge the systems that have allowed me to increase my revenues at the expense of the bosses.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is what distinguishes Salvatore Messana from his friends in the extreme Left. Unlike them, he knows \u2013 and wants it generally known \u2013 that engaging in militant class struggle isn\u2019t simply \u201cthe right thing to do\u201d and that it doesn\u2019t require one to renounce the acquisition of money and the good things that it can buy. If done in a certain way, class struggle pays. \u201cIf you went through the necessary negotiations,\u201d Messana says, \u201cthis accursed modern society was able to provide even the outcasts with a salary.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1989, Il segreto \u00e8 dirlo was translated into French as Le Secret C\u2019est De Tout Dire! (\u201cThe Secret is to Tell All!\u201d) by Monique Baccelli and published by Editions Allia. Apparently informed of this translation, and supposedly involved in its preparation (\u201cthe majority of the footnotes were created following the author\u2019s indications\u201d), the creator of Salvatore Messana decided that the time had come to identify himself. In the words of a short text that appears on the back cover of the French edition,<\/p>\n

Gianni Giovannelli was born in Ferrara in 1949. An attorney, he lives and works in Milan. He has published Svaraj Gandharva (Bianca e Volta, Milan, 1982; second edition: Tranchida, Milan, 1986); Confessioni di un uomo malvagio (Tranchida, 1988); and, under the pseudonym Palmiro, Lettera al Giudice Forno (Machina Libri, Milan, 1981) and Poesie dalla latitanza (C.T.A., Milan, 1982).<\/p>\n

I have checked: these books really exist. But of course this does not rule out the possibility that, in the same way that \u201cPalmiro\u201d is a pseudonym for Gianni Giovanni, \u201cGianni Giovannelli\u201d is a pseudonym for someone else. I say this because there is in fact a well-known Italian politician by that name, and he is closely affiliated with the notorious crook Silvio Berlusconi. As such, he would make an excellent target for a disrespectful parody.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy book appeared anonymously,\u201d the man calling himself Gianni Giovannelli says in his preface to the French edition, \u201cso as to avoid confusion with the bands of little opportunists who published ambiguous and insidious chronicles of the Italian struggles in the obvious hope of obtaining some crummy job.\u201d This is reasonable, I suppose: an anonymous author cannot hope to use his book to obtain \u201csome crummy job.\u201d But there are problems with this explanation. On the one hand, Il segreto \u00e8 dirlo is not an \u201cambiguous and insidious\u201d chronicle of the class struggles in Italy during the 1970s: it is in fact quite clear and open about its intentions. On the other hand, I know of two books that are \u201cambiguous and insidious chronicles of the Italian struggles\u201d of the 1970s \u2013 The Truthful Report on the Last Chances to Save Capitalism in Italy and Letters to the Heretics \u2013 and both of them were not anonymous originally, but were passed off as the works of authors who did not in fact write them (a conservative capitalist who called himself Censor and Enrico Berlinguier, the head of the Italian Communist Party, respectively). And, just like Il segreto \u00e8 dirlo, these books (which were actually written by Gianfranco Sanguinetti and Pier Franco Ghisleni, respectively) were tributes to the anti-work politics of the Situationist International and clearly intended to destroy Italian capitalism. (Note well that Il segreto \u00e8 dirlo is in part dedicated to someone named \u201cGianfranco\u201d and that Sanguinetti seems to be alluded to in the book\u2019s last chapter: he is the \u201cstrange character, who had made the art of wreaking havoc into his philosophy of life.\u201d)<\/p>\n

There are a couple of other odd details in the French preface to Il segreto \u00e8 dirlo. Why does it refer to the person who printed the original Italian edition (Marino Mardersteig, who runs Stamperia Valdonega), but not its original publisher? Why does it make such a big deal about \u201cthe adventures of a strange client of my services, the worker Stabile Fioravante,\u201d when it appears that Stabile Fioravante doesn\u2019t exist? I am reminded here of Salvatore Messana\u2019s reference to \u201cProfessor Lapo Meneghetti,\u201d who is thanked \u201cfor having the patience to correct my manuscript, which was written haphazardly, for having respected its spirit, and for having been happy to translate it into good Italian,\u201d but who in fact doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it was these \u201ctells\u201d \u2013 or the book\u2019s publication by Editions Allia, which has published several situationist-related titles \u2013 that caused Guy Debord to believe he recognized Gianfranco Sanguinetti behind the name Gianni Giovannelli. \u201cDo you know the recent book by Gianfranco?\u201d he asked Charles Vincent on the back of a postcard dated 25 February 1991. \u201cThere are pleasing things in it.\u201d A footnote that was affixed to Debord\u2019s possibly mistaken but certainly positive evaluation by either Alice Becker-Ho (aka \u201cAlice Debord\u201d) or the book\u2019s publisher refers to \u201cLe secret c\u2019est de tout dire, by a [sic] Gianni Giovannelli (published by Allia),\u201d and explains that Le Secret is a \u201cfraud that, in a picaresque mode, mixes real facts with the \u2018adventures\u2019 of a known informer.\u201d It is abundantly clear that the person who wrote this offensively stupid footnote never read the book in question (it is certainly not a fraud [supercherie] nor is there any reason to believe that either its author or its hero is a known informer [un indicateur av\u00e9r\u00e9]) and wishes his or her readers to think the worst of Gianni Giovannelli, that is to say, Gianfranco Sanguinetti, who, ever since 1981, had been on Guy Debord\u2019s shit list. (Note that the identification of \u201cGiovannelli\u201d as a pseudonym used by Sanguinetti \u2013 which is something that Gianfranco himself has denied \u2013 is repeated by the index included in the very last volume of Guy Debord Correspondance, published by Librairie Artheme Fayard in 2010. Under \u201cGiovannelli, Giovanni\u201d is says \u201csee Sanguinetti, Gianfranco.\u201d)<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

As the reader will see from the footnotes (all of which are mine, as are all phrases that appear within brackets [thus] and the subtitles given to the six sections of Part One), there were a good number of significant discrepancies between the Italian original and its translation into French. Sometimes whole passages were left out; other times, passages were inserted. Even worse, sometimes the French translator changed the meaning of particular passages. It is my opinion that, though she knows Italian much better than I do, I know the book\u2019s politics much better than she does, and thus my version is easily the better of the two.<\/p>\n

NOT BORED!
\nNew York City
\n28 December 2012<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Secret is to Tell All!<\/h2>\n

<\/center>

<\/p>\n

by Gianni Giovannelli<\/h3>\n

<\/center>

Dedicated to Gianfranco, Caterina and Bruno<\/center>
\nPreface to the French Edition<\/a>\u00a0(1989)
\nPreliminary Points<\/a>\u00a0(1983)<\/p>\n

First Part<\/i>\u00a0*<\/p>\n

I<\/a>\u00a0(The war)
\nII<\/a>\u00a0(Street urchin)
\nIII<\/a>\u00a0(Maria)
\nIV<\/a>\u00a0(The\u00a0Sultana<\/i>)
\nV<\/a>\u00a0(In the chain locker)
\nVI<\/a>\u00a0(Return to Liguria)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Second Part<\/i><\/p>\n

Living in Milan<\/a>
\nThe Hunt for Money<\/a>
\nReturn to the Factory<\/a>
\nOperation Super-Cleaning<\/a>
\nOperation Splendor<\/a>
\nThe Blitz and Operation Salve<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Conclusion<\/a><\/p>\n

Text on Back Cover<\/a><\/p>\n

Translator’s Introduction<\/a><\/p>\n

*The subtitles were not part of the original edition and have been added by the translator<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

To Contact NOT BORED!
\nInfo@notbored.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Journalism is printing what someone doesn’t want published, everything else is Public Relations!” -George Orwell- \u201cThe gypsies rightly believe that one must never speak the truth except in one\u2019s own language; in the enemy\u2019s language, the lie must reign.\u201d\u00a0-Translator’s Introduction … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8478"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8480,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8478\/revisions\/8480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}