Un piatto d’argento è tratto dalla raccolta Quello col piede in bocca (1984). Intanto, fatto raro per una short story, è costruito sull’incrocio di diversi piani temporali, con uso abbondantissimo del flashback: il protagonista Woody Selbst, sessantenne agiato produttore di piastrelle, ci viene presentato il mattino successivo alla morte del padre, avvenuta mentre lui quasi lo abbracciava sul suo letto d’ospedale per impedirgli di strapparsi via i tubi delle flebo. Il suono delle campane in quel mattino domenicale innesca una serie di ricordi in apparente disordine, resi in una terza persona molto a ridosso di una prima, ognuno dei quali suggerisce una storia diversa, sia nel tempo che nello spazio. “… papà si accostò alla credenza o étagère in stile cinese, provò ad aprirla, dopo di che fece scattare la lama del suo temperino e in un attimo forzò la serratura della porta di vetro. Ne tirò fuori un piatto d’argento. «Papà, cos’è quello?» disse Woody. Papà, calmo e distaccato, sapeva esattamente che cos’era. Richiuse l’étagère, attraversò il tappeto, si mise in ascolto. S’infilò il piatto sotto la cintura e lo spinse nei pantaloni…” “… Pop went over to the Chinese-style cabinet or étagère and tried the handle, and then opened the blade of his penknife and in a second had forced the lock of the curved glass door. He took out a silver dish. «Pop, what is this?» said Woody. Pop, cool and level, knew exactly what this was. He relocked the étagère, crossed the carpet, listened. He stuffed the dish under his belt and pushed it down into his trousers…”
Author
Saul Bellow was born in Lachine, Quebec, a suburb of Montreal, in 1915, and was raised in Chicago. He attended the University of Chicago, received his Bachelor's degree from Northwestern University in 1937, with honors in sociology and anthropology, did graduate work at the University of Wisconsin, and served in the Merchant Marines during World War II. Mr. Bellow's first novel, Dangling Man, was published in 1944, and his second, The Victim, in 1947. In 1948 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and spent two years in Paris and traveling in Europe, where he began The Adventures of Augie March,, which won the National Book Award for fiction in 1954. Later books include Seize The Day (1956), Henderson The Rain King (1959), Herzog (1964), Mosby's Memoirs and Other Stories (1968), and Mr. Sammler's Planet (1970). Humboldt's Gift (1975), was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Both Herzog and Mr. Sammler's Planet were awarded the National Book Award for fiction. Mr. Bellow's first non-fiction work, To Jerusalem and Back: A Personal Account, published on October 25,1976, is his personal and literary record of his sojourn in Israel during several months in 1975. In 1965 Mr. Bellow was awarded the International Literary Prize for Herzog, becoming the first American to receive the prize. In January 1968 the Republic of France awarded him the Croix de Chevalier des Arts et Lettres, the highest literary distinction awarded by that nation to non-citizens, and in March 1968 he received the B'nai B'rith Jewish Heritage Award for "excellence in Jewish literature". In November 1976 he was awarded the America's Democratic Legacy Award of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, the first time this award was made to a literary personage. A playwright as well as a novelist, Mr. Bellow was the author of The Last Analysis and of three short plays, collectively entitled Under the Weather, which were produced on Broadway in 1966. He contributed fiction to Partisan Review, Playboy, Harper's Bazaar, The New Yorker, Esquire, and to literary quarterlies. His criticism appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Horizon, Encounter, The New Republic, The New Leader, and elsewhere. During the 1967 Arab-lsraeli conflict, he served as a war correspondent for Newsday. He taught at Bard College, Princeton University, and the University of Minnesota, and was a member of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.
