#fenoglio speaks

[janiedean]

Heyyo! Hope you're doing great, I'm sorta coming back to Tumblr after a while so this feels like randomly calling on a person's home without warning 😂 but I was speaking to a friend about something and it made me wonder - do you know of some really cool books in Italian (or if you read other languages too) that have never been translated to English? (Friend and I speak different non English languages and realised this is true although both of us read only in English sadly)

hey anon!!! welcome back too and haha please i’ve been terrible at keeping up so it’s two of us 😭 and thanks for the well wishes, i’m… well let’s say I’m in the middle of mental health bullshit so i could be doing better but really thanks for asking in the first place TVT ❤️❤️

aaand concerning your question….. I mean I’m somewhat positive that 90% of current good italian narrative doesn’t get translated much but tbf I read more italian classics than contemporaries and i think most of those got translated but one i really liked recentlyish is named (translating the title) the boar who shot liberty valance and you already guessed WHY i went and picked it up given the reference to my favorite western movie ever in the title 😂 it’s a very good one though! and uuh lemme check no okay both maurizio de giovanni and giancarlo de cataldo aka two mystery writers i generally enjoy got translated, camilleri of course did as well so nope, BUUT i checked smth else and apparently not all of cesare pavese’s work was translated into english and I am extremely disappointed in hearing it because he’s one of the best italian writers in existence nor to mention one of the few people whose poetry i immediately enjoyed from the get go which is not a given for me, they only translated moon and bonfires but like all the others are amazing as well, also Iemme check beppe fenoglio other great post wwii writer only got two of his books translated and post 90s and i doubt his wuthering heights theater adaptation was which truly saddens me, i’m not 100% sure of how much of verga was translated but while answering you i found out lawrence translated one of his novels which i had no idea of and now i kinda want to check it.. anyway ngl probably 90% of what won our most prestigious literary award here did not get translated but I also have stopped paying attention to it since a book I considered an utter piece of trash won so i’m out of the loop 😭 but if i can think of anything else or if any italians want to chime in go off!

[lostandbackagain]

here's my running list of things I'd like to see in the color of revenge:

roxane being like an actual actual witch. idk if cornelia is still using the word bufana but that's my #1. can sing so beautifully she makes the rocks cry? can make anything grow in her shitty soil? indescribably beautiful? her kids being really really good at everything?? (not to take away from jehan's dedication to his craft but there's no way there's not smth supernatural going on with him) I think I'd prefer dustfinger and the prince knowing (and dustfinger being like "....yeah jehan knows witches bc of roxane lol" leans into this imo) and getting to watch the kids have a crisis over whether they're human or something else, getting pissed at the adults for keeping it from them, but I will also take roxane having kept this a secret from everyone. I will likely cry blood if this doesn't come true at all but it's fine I'm normal and well-adjusted about roxane it's fine!

the bracelet stays. I'm on my knees begging

I think cornelia said she's got a queer in the book?? forming a prayer circle that's it's brianna but I'll take anyone (new or established) as long as they're written well. several queer characters would rock though would love that 4 me

fenoglio dies. badly.

farid and jehan having that adhd and autistic solidarity where they're best friends but also each other's worst nightmare

jehan dealing with a lot of (valid) frustration and jealously wrt farid and dustfinger. I'm almost definitely reading too far into it but the part where he's like "dustfinger promised he won't try to replace my birth father but he totally can bc I don't remember him lmao" is like. he's so glad to have a father again but farid's been out and about for so long that jehan hasn't really seen the extent to which dustfinger can be a father to a kid who isn't his biologically, and it was honestly very ugly watching jehan panic trying to take care of dustfinger during his mental breakdown but the second the prince says farid is fine, dustfinger calms down? like you have another son right there who needs you so badly, douchebag. anyway while this is not the fault of either kid I want jehan to be Pissed.

unwrite the part where it says roxane is pale because No She's Not 💗

DRAGON LORE¡¡¡¡¡¡ the laughing prince was said to have hunted dragons and I've been going crazy for 15 years over the way that was just said in passing?? I don't think living/awake dragons match the mood of this series but FUCK I could see nyame and the witch girl stumbling onto a graveyard or something and she'd get her stereotypical tiefling rant about how humans suck for killing beautiful creatures for their own gain and I would be cheering her on because I'm a whore for dragons

I sorta want dustfinger to have to give up his ability to speak to fire to bring everyone back. it's very fullmetal alchemist-stan of me but my f a v o r i t e type of sacrifice is the surrender of power

I'm already heads over heels in love with nyame but I want to be feral over him the entire time I want to be in his head I want to be in his past and his future and I want to see him brought to his knees and tempted with the power to bring about the change he so desperately craves and i want him to know in his heart and with metaphorical blood pouring from his eyes that replacing one reign of tyranny with another is not the solution he wants but hell does he want it and I want him to have the most beautiful conclusion any character has ever had and still get to make the world a better place on a large scale because he's the only one who consistently cares!! and hes so fucking tired.I love him so fucking much. nyame

would enjoy nettle showing up just to call dustfinger a bitch and leave. want that to be a running gag

loved the discussion about religion coming in and criminalizing reproductive healthcare. I feel like that was not the most appropriate time to have been having that conversation but I want it to stay and contribute to the theme of autonomy and agency that have always been at the heart of the inkworld.

[haljathefangirlcat]

And now, for something completely different... a few Inkheart headcanons, specifically about Smol Feral Trash Cat-Dog With A Knife. Così, de botto, senza senso, as we say here. Some I've picked up through the years by reading other people's headcanons or fic and then developed (if you can call any of this stuff "developed", lol) by building up on ideas I liked, others date back all the way to when I read the books in middle school.

I think it's safe to say that most of the fandom knows "basta!" means "enough!" or "stop!" in Italian. Which... yeah, pretty great name for the kind of violent criminal whose victims would be screaming that kind of thing, at least in a book series for kids. But, like other people who've spent probably too much time thinking about it at some point or another, I do like to imagine a more Watsonian explanation for it being a real, if surprisingly well-fitting, name rather than a nickname he earned during his time as a fire raiser. Mine actually hinges on the fact that, back in the day, before reliable contraceptives or safe abortifacients or even just the idea that there was nothing weird or bad about being married while not having children or sex or not being married at all, couples who ended up with more kids than they could feed would sometimes name the hopefully last one of them Ultimo or Ultima, meaning "last", as a sort of... auspicious name, if for a given definition of "auspicious." I've even heard a story (which, admittedly, might be a urban legend, as I've seen it mentioned in a few places but with no source) about a couple who called their last children Ultimo, Definitivo ("definitive, conclusive, final"), and Finiamola ("let's get it over with!", or "let's stop this!"), each time hoping the new kid would also be the very last... so, yeah. Long story short, I imagine Basta as the youngest child of poor parents living in a small, crowded house, who by the time of his birth were just about ready to say, "Enough with this! If we get another after this one, we'll just carry it into the woods and leave it there, and then it'll be up to whatever animal/fairy/kindly passerby to kill it or raise it!" I also like to think he actually has an older sister named Ultima, running around somewhere in the Inkworld... even if, for both obvious reasons and more headcanon-y ones, he hasn't kept in contact with anyone from his family ever since he officially joined Capricorn.

About the "more headcanon-y" reasons: I once read a fic (I thiiink it was on Fanfiction.net? Probably not AO3) where, as a boy, Basta killed his own father, an abusive drunkard, to prove his loyalty and ruthlessness to Capricorn. Needless to say, I loved it! And went on to incorporate part of it in my vision of Basta as a character. In my own headcanons, I'm not sure if I really see Basta's father or even both of his parents as that actively hateful or violent towards him (if only because I'm not quite sure if singling out just one boy among so many children in that way would quite work, realistically speaking about an in-universe Medieval-ish fantasy world... unless some of those many children died young due to hunger, illness, or simple lack of supervision. Again, in-universe Medieval-ish fantasy world) but as I love that bit in Inkheart where Fenoglio talks about Basta's unhappy childhood, how worthless he thought he was, and how easily he clung to Capricorn, I do picture him being severely neglected and receiving very little in the way of kindness or affection both inside and outside of his family. Perhaps being either dismissed or unfairly blamed for being the runt of the litter and not big and strong enough to help more around the house, or in the fields, or in whatever failing business his father might have owned, given how he's not exactly tall and physically imposing even as an adult? Anyway, I do find the idea of him being miserable in his early life and initially clinging to Capricorn as both a magnetic, irresistible symbol of what neither him nor anyone in his family ever had and his one real hope for money, power, and generally something better, then coming to see him as this godlike figure, as well as a new, better father he'd be willing to exchange his perhaps equally distant but much less impressive (and much less interested in finding some actual use for him) old one for (even at the cost of a very cold take on "out with the old, in with the new"), incredibly fascinating.

For something less dark, more crack unless you consider the implications: building up on the fact that yes I realize we're never given anyone's exact height in the books, no I won't get over the idea of him being essentially a pint-sized menace and Capricorn's very angry, very menacing chihuahua, it amuses me (way more than it should) to think that at some point, probably when he was still one of the youngest among Capricorn's men in the Inkworld or when he and Capricorn were on their own in our world, someone definitely tried dismissing him as a threat (maybe even by making fun of him) due to his height and build... only to immediately, sorely regret it.

Still on the possibly disturbing crack side of things: he makes a big show of hitting on women, particularly the maids in Capricorn's village, and there might actually be some desire under him just liking to pose as this Big Intimidating Man showing off his power by making women in an already inferior or subservient position to him squirm in discomfort... but if any of them should ever respond positively, even just in an attempt to get protection or some sort of special treatment out of him, he wouldn't know how to handle it. Like, it would temporarily short-circuit his brain. The closest he ever got to getting a woman to acknowledge his flirting in any significant way besides pulling back from him and reaching the nearest exit as fast as possible is probably that time a girl rejected him by telling him he had bad breath and then he killed her with snakes and resolved to chew mint leaves for the rest of his life because he's such a confident person. Even Roxane probably never exchanged more than five words (mostly to the effect of "get lost!" and "fuck you!" on her side) with him.

For the last one, a bittersweet one: Basta actually liked Fulvio, the black jacket who got read into One Thousand and One Nights in exchange for Farid. A lot of Capricorn's men did, really, but I like to picture Fulvio as a boy from our world, probably coming from a poor, dysfunctional home, that Basta in particular kind of took under his wing (as much as Basta could do that for anyone...) because he saw something of himself in him. This is, ofc, based on nothing but my hazy memories of reading the Italian translation of Inkheart, where I'm 90% sure a bunch of black jackets are ready to beat Mo to a pulp as soon as they notice Fulvio has disappeared and Basta himself gets all in Mo's face and tells him he will personally make him "pay dearly for Fulvio."

[painted-fanbird]

Thinking about the Inkworld trilogy and Mistborn Era 1, and how they handled books 2 and 3 and why I like the Inkworld better lol

Why compare them? Because Inkheart was the last series I read before Mistborn, and I adored it, but more relevantly they’re formatted similarly. both trilogies have first books that function as standalones, followed by two connected sequels turning them into trilogies

The actual analysis is under the cut both because of massive spoilers for both series, and because this is long and I’m not about to be clogging up your dashboard lol

I adored The Final Empire (book 1), but Well of Ascension (book 2) and The Hero of Ages (book 3) were both major misses for me. Though I didn’t love tWoA, I did find it generally fine. tHoA on the other hand I actively dislike. Contrasted to the Inkworld trilogy, where Inkspell (book 2) is actually my favorite! With Inkdeath (book 3) as my second favorite. Inkheart (book 1) comes in third, but I still love that book. The other two just speak to me XD

Inkspell expands on the loose ends left in Inkheart very naturally, and I love that! Inkspell opens with Dustfinger returning home, which works perfectly since he just vanished into the night at the end of Inkheart with Farid. It additionally sets up Orpheus, and once we’re in the Inkworld we meet up with the rest of our loose ends! Basta and The Magpie. Additionally, Inkspell has the advantage of the Inkworld being generally unknown to us the reader. Cornelia Funke has basically free rein to do what she wants as long as she doesn’t violate the whimsical, magical vibe she’s already established in Inkheart. Which she does not, and Dustfinger’s initial return to his world is literally my favorite scene in the whole book <3

tWoA, by contrast, doesn’t really do this imo. The biggest loose ends we’re left with in TFE are allomancy as a whole, the missing atium, and low key OreSeur specifically. tWoA chooses to focus on literally none of this in depth, instead focusing on the government and the Siege of Luthadel. Which is logical, obviously rebellion take overs will have some kinks they need to iron out, but it doesn’t pay any serious mind to what TFE set up and I find that to be a let down. We get a little bit of Allomancy exploration in Duralumin, but that’s it. The atium is relevant exclusively because the invading armies think Luthadel has it, but there’s no anything about it outside of that. OreSeur is just straight up dead! Though I did love Vin and TenSoon, that was my favorite part of the whole book <3

tWoA also squanders one of the things I adored about TFE, the character dynamics. The whole crew was so fun, and it was such a delight to see interact with each other and Vin. In tWoA they’re barely even there! Dockson, Kelsier’s best friend, has literally three scenes in the entire book. He dies in the third one. Clubs? Also has like three scenes, including where he dies. Ham is marginally more present, but Spook is only in like two scenes himself. We see the most of Sazed, which is cool because I like him <3 Instead of focusing on the crew, tWoA introduces new characters! Which are… hit or miss. Tindwyl and TenSoon and Allrianne my beloved <3 Then there’s Zane. Whom I can only describe as a Gary Stu and frankly I want to pick Sanderson’s brain and find out what the hell he was thinking when he made Zane because by all accounts he makes no sense lol

Inkspell and Inkdeath however, introduce new side characters without usurping the focus on the main cast. This is admittedly helped by Inkheart having a smaller cast in general XD But Dustfinger, Mo, Farid, Fenoglio, Resa, and Meggie if you squint (her squandered potential is another post lol) all remain major players, and continue to interact with each other like the did in book one. It’s great <3

tHoA is where things get particularly dicey for me lol. In tone and in plot. I just found it to be depressing, boring, and I do not like Ruin and Preservation. I don’t generally enjoy plots on a cosmic, god fighting scale to begin with, and I actively hate twist, “it was him all along!” villains. I find them to be boring, and feel that they remove agency from the villains prior to them. Also, I think they were set up poorly. If you removed them from the plot, literally nothing changes with TFE, and very little would change in tWoA. Not ideal for a villain you’re about to claim was here the whole time.

This book also continues the trend of no one talking to each other by scattering our protagonists to the four winds! Vin literally only talks to Elend, and maybe Ham once this book. Spook is in Urteau with Sazed, Breeze, and Allrianne, and his message never makes it to her. They literally don’t talk once and that’s a damn shame considering what they could have had. Tonally it’s just death and distraction all the way through, and that’s just,, blegh. No thanks.

Also everyone is so grim faced and boring, I hate this version of Elend, there’s no sass, no bite to him anymore. Just a grim and dutiful general who insists he’s struggles with doing hard things but then does them anyway. I also hate that his character arc goes unfulfilled! My man spends the entire book being worried about his inability to keep people safe, then he gets beheaded after watching an entire squad of soldiers get slaughtered by koloss. Like sure he saved the world but uhhhh yeah that’s not a satisfying conclusion. (Elend as a character was actually just generally not utilized well by the narrative imo. Raise your hand if you remember that this man was forced to sleep with a skaa girl at 13 years old she avoided romance because of it!)

Vin is also kind of boring, which is deeply upsetting because she was a fav in TFE and tWoA. She’s just so,, grim. And nothing else. It sucks. Also I don’t think her arc was done well here either. I love the idea of her finally coming to terms with the two parts of herself, but it felt forced! Vin spends basically no time as Valette after book 1, so it feels dragged out. We did not have to wait to book 3 to resolve this, we could’ve sorted this our way earlier lol

Also the whole thing with Sazed and the prophecy is just,, wut? I’m not a fan of the implication that Sazed is less of a man because he’s been castrated, and since I just generally don’t like Ruin and Preservation in general turning Sazed into god is just not where it’s at for me. It felt bizarre and out of place tbh

Inkdeath, on the other hand, does not have these issues. It’s villain, The Adderhead, was firmly established and was also the primary villain of book 2. He is not a god. He’s a king who was seeking immortality and was kind of foiled. A man, at his core lol. Tonally it is pretty grim at the beginning, but when Dustfinger is brought back, about 1/3 of the way through, the plot takes a notable hopeful upswing. Things aren’t easy, but they’re looking better now <3

I’ll also be the first to admit that Inkdeath’s clear cut happy ending is my preferred story ending lol, which is absolutely major points in its favor XD

I also think Inkdeath handles its characters well. Meggie and Farid do kind of end up on the side, but Mo, Dustfinger, and Resa all really shine. This opinion is helped by the fact that Mo and Dustfinger are my favorites, but I think it holds merit outside of that. They’ve been primary characters since book 1, are continuing to participate in the main plot together, and I find their arcs to be constant and wrapped up very nicely <3

TL;DR: I think tWoA and tHoA squandered their potential by introducing new plot threads instead of focusing on established loose ends, and committing several character assassinations by book 3. Inkspell and Inkheart did not do this, they followed up on their loose ends directly, kept the focus on the characters introduced in book 1, and did not go suddenly off the rails in the climax, instead ending with my preferred traditional fairy tale ending <3

[gaygollum]

notes on inkheart: dustfinger is my blorbo lol

notes on inkspell: was fenoglio destined to write this story? do cosimo and dustfinger prove that characters have agency in their stories OR is cosimo only proof that fenoglio truly cannot conceive of a good person and subconsciously creates evil characters even when he tries to create good? what does that say about fenoglio as a person? how does fenoglio’s sense of ownership and entitlement complicate the story? does destiny exist or is destiny created or is it possible to pave your own path, despite the power of the writer? how does a story fill in the gaps from an authors oversight? are all stories alive like the inkworld? are they alive the moment a writer writes them down or does it take a silvertongue to read it out loud and speak it into existence? how does grief and parenthood drive the story?

notes on inkdeath: i hate fenoglio so much its unreal. and dustfinger is my blorbo lol

[silvertonguedaughter]

Meggie can see the anger and bloodlust swirling in those too dark eyes. He has always scared her. Basta. Even his name is sharp. To the point. Basta - Capricorn’s loyal hound.

Eager to do anything that man says. Or … said. Capricorn is gone, she reminds herself. Gone and never coming back. Her and Fenoglio made sure of that. Consumed by a beast known as The Shadow. Even thinking about the creature sends a jolt of fear up her spine.

But she is older now.

Gazing at Basta he is not intimidating. Slim, and average height … but the madness in his eyes speaks for itself - the pure evil, and the hand hovering over his knife. That is how he makes people fearful of him. And Meggie is.

Not fearful enough to keep quiet, though.

“I said, do you never get sick of this? This role you play?”

Her body is tense, even if her voice is (somehow) unwavering, unfaltering. She is a woman, no longer a quivering child, yet she finds herself longing to run from Basta, and hide herself away.

| Open Basta Starter |

"What the hell did you just say to me?"

Basta had been itching for a fight all day. He let the pent-up frustration flow freely, allowing the smallest slight to send him over the edge into anger without trying to restrain himself in the slighest.

His hand was already clenched at his hip, just begging for an excuse to draw his knife and get his blood really pumping.

[inkweaver]

"Nobody can bring back the dead, Meggie"

Funniest sentence ever, Mo

[inkweaver]

Please reblog this for sample size

[inkweaver]

No spoilers!! but who have bought the new book already??

[inkweaver]

Something inherently trans and queer about Dustfinger. Here is this vagabond figure. He doesn't belong here, he never will. But does he belong fully in the Inkworld? He is changed. He is othered. He doesn't even belong fully to himself. He will always be different

[inkweaver]

The first time I'm writing a There's Only One Bed Oh No! and it's Basta and Dustfinger, and they're both miserable

[inkweaver]

You can say whatever you want about the 2008 inkheart movie, but darned Paul Bettany nailed that sad man look

[inkweaver]

So funny when I mention to people irl that I'm writing a fic and they ask "for which fandom?" Friend I live in the Inkheart world