Cocaine

October 14, 2013
Pitigrilli will find a new generation of readers with this new edition translation of his comic cautionary tale flaunting the ludicrous excesses and depths of despair in the underbelly of Europe in the roaring '20s. Medical student Tito Arnaudi refuses on a misguided principle to remove his monocle while sitting for an exam, and is therefore unable to obtain a degree. In a huff, he leaves Italy for Paris where he declares himself a professor and doctor on his visiting cards, cons his way into a job as a journalist at a newspaper called The Fleeting Moment, and almost immediately becomes addicted to cocaine. Arnaudi becomes equally obsessed with a marginally talented dancer and accomplished party girl, Maud. Unable to write proper articles due to his nightly debauchery, Arnaudi resorts to sensational yellow journalism to fulfill his duties until the editor becomes so distraught he pays Arnaudi not to write. The novel takes a melodramatic turn after Arnaudi follows Maud to Buenos Aires only to be cuckolded and spurned after she undergoes a drastic operation to prolong her other career as a kept woman. Along the way, Pitigrilli never loses his droll sense of humor, or playful use of language, which ensures this little romp is always a pleasurable one.

January 1, 2014

First published in 1921, this novel, banned by church authorities, traces the adult life of young Tito Arnaudi, who, owing to boredom with university studies and other occupations, turns to journalism. When The Fleeting Moment newspaper commissions a story about cocaine, which is heavily used by the fashionable society people in Paris, Tito tries it and becomes addicted. Two women occupy his time--a beautiful Armenian named Kalantan, recently widowed and very wealthy; and Maud, an Italian girl he has known for many years who is a prostitute and a dancer. After a few capricious situations, Tito gets fired from the newspaper and drifts from one woman to the other. VERDICT The author Dino Segre, known as Pitigrilli, has brilliantly written a cynical novel with a good dose of black humor. Through Tito's eyes, we see postwar Europe with its poisonous climate and negative energy; Tito reaches the conclusion that the constants in life are nothing but sex, power, greed, and adultery. Mosbacher has done an excellent job with the translation, and the afterword by Alexander Stille is enlightening.--Lisa Rohrbaugh, Leetonia Community P.L., OH

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