The Panettone Was Never Enough

Dino Buzzati was no fan of Christmas. He disliked the festivities, the sham goodwill dusted off for just one day a year, and the consumerism that had increasingly become a feature of this “holiday” since the post-war economic boom. And yet, despite this aversion, he devoted many writings to Christmas. The posthumous collection entitled Il panettone non bastò, first published by Mondadori in 2004, brings together thirty-three such pieces, which originally appeared in the Corriere della Sera and other newspapers from the 1930s onwards. Edited by Lorenzo Viganò, the anthology features a series of articles, fairy tales, stories, and poems. These include Buzzati’s childhood recollections, wartime correspondence, an illustrated fairy tale, a poem about Baby Jesus, musings on spirituality, reflections on gift-giving, and insights into the importance of children’s imagination. The title story is set during the war, where the protagonist attempts to arrange a dinner on Christmas Eve as a brief reprieve from the horrors of the outside world and of the war. This fragile hope is shattered when he realises that “despite the panettone, it turned out to be just another day, with the same awful, wretched, resigned, and neurasthenic expectancy, just like all the other days of the war.” Buzzati’s writings are always intense, sometimes tender and sometimes bitter, and they capture the magic of Christmas in spite of all its contradictions.

  Il panettone non bastò
Dino Buzzati
Mondadori, 2004