Kaos

Aroview: Marvellous but rarely seen compendium of four tales (and an epilogue) by Luigi Pirandello set in the parched landscape of Sicily.

'The Other Son' concerns a an old woman nearly driven mad by the sufferings of her life. 'Moon Sickness' is about a young couple disturbed by the husband's lycanthropic sickness. 'The Jar' sees a master potter trapped inside a gigantic jar, 'Requiem' concerns poor villagers taking land to use for a cemetary.

All are crafted with stark, intense imagery and seem to capture the wild 'folk' flavour of the peasants' lives they depict. However, the final epilogue 'Conversations with Mother' caps all the previous episodes with a brilliantly evoked sequence of memory related by the ghost of Pirandello's mother.