A Ghost in Trieste

Cary ( Three Modern Italian Poets: Saba, Ungaretti, Montale ) had originally envisioned a book titled Literary Trieste , built around a trio of writers who had lived in this Adriatic city between 1905 and 1915--Italo Svevo, James Joyce and Umberto Saba. The problem was that on arriving in the real city, Cary discovered ``There was no actual literary Trieste. It was dead and gone.'' He decided to soldier on, creating a rather hallucinatory guide book/testament loosely constructed on triads. Cary's city has three historical stages: early independent, Austrian (mid-18th century to early 20th century), and Italian. It has three martyrs: patron saint San Giusto; famed antiquarian Johann Winckelmann; and irredentist agitator Guglielmo Oberdan. And at the root of all evil, its history is beholden to three nationalities: Italian, Austrian and Slovene. This is a workable, if whimsical, way to present the city's rich cultural past which is further aided by inclusion of literary excerpts, bibliography and a dramatis personae . Trieste's present, however, is another matter. Having been in the city three (!) weeks over a five-year span, the loquacious Cary becomes tongue-tied when describing the contemporary landscape, labeling buildings, people, skies, weather and sensibility alike as ``grey.'' Perhaps a little more time there would have allowed a more vivid description. (Oct.)