One, None and a Hundred Thousand

The novel had a rather long and difficult period of gestation. Pirandello began writing it in 1909. In an autobiographical letter, published in 1924, the author refers to this work as the “...bitterest of all, profoundly humoristic, about the decomposition of life: Moscarda one, no one and one hundred thousand.” This novel which accompanied the most significant years of Pirandello’s productive career signals the absolute apex of the narrative tension of the writer. It is not by chance that the search for authenticity, a predominant theme of Pirandellian narrative writing, culminates precisely in the adventures of Vitangelo Moscarda, the protagonist of this novel.