It has been described as one of the great works of twentieth century literature,[2] comparable with James Joyce,[3] and in line with the tradition of Rabelais, Sterne and Diderot.
[4] The novel is set in 1934[5] in the fictitious South American state of Maradagàl but is a thinly disguised portrait of Fascist Italy,[6] and the landscapes are those of the Brianza area, north-west of Milan.
The village of Lukones is modelled on Longone al Segrino where the Gadda family owned a villa; likewise Pastrufazio is Milan, Novokomi is Como, and Terepàttola is Lecco.
His father is now dead, his brother was killed in a war with the neighbouring state of Parapagàl, and he and his mother live alone in the villa, though he spends much time away in the city of Pastrufazio, where he works.
Around the mother and the son we meet the local doctor, the night patrolman, the fish seller, the peon, the carpenter, the sacristan's wife, and the owner of the neighbouring castle, who provide the comic element of the novel, in contrast to the tension inside the villa.
Many ex-soldiers have found work as patrolmen in provincial associations for night vigilance (Nistitúos Provinciales de Vigilancia para la Noche).
The village of Lukones is patrolled by a man known as Pedro Mahagones but an itinerant cloth trader recognizes him as Gaetano Palumbo who had fraudulently claimed a war pension on the grounds of being totally deaf.
One villa had been occupied by the famous poet Carlos Caconcellos and is now said to be haunted by his ghost, but its owner has managed to rent the caretaker's lodge to Colonel Di Pasquale, a military doctor who had been responsible for unmasking Palumbo's false pension claim.
The Señora remains there until she hears the cats waiting to be fed and the peon's clogs upstairs on the brick floor.
The peon comes in to light the fire but his noise and his complaints irritate the son, who orders him out of the house, telling him not to come back.
Its owner, Caballero Trabatta, had refused to sign up with the Nistitúo de Vigilancia despite repeated visits from its most loquacious and brilliantined propagandists.
Peppa comes to visit the Señora, then Poronga the carpenter with a basket of mushrooms and a filthy dog, followed by Beppina the fishwife, carrying an enormous yellow tench dangling from a metal hook.
[8] Italo Calvino described The Experience of Pain and That Awful Mess in Via Merulana as novels that "seem to need only a few more pages to reach their conclusions".
[13] Despite his conflict with his mother, he found it hard to live without her: “The picture comes back to me of her, old and helpless, and above all the indescribable feelings I have of remorse at my outbursts, so pointless and vile.