# What is Pirandello's One, No One and One Hundred Thousand about? Canonical: https://zestasy.com/wiki/pirandello-one-no-one/ Section: Zestasy Wiki > Books & ideas · Updated: 2026-10-13 · Publisher: Zestasy *Zestasy Wiki: our reference answers. Checked for facts and sources; less curated than the magazine.* One, No One and One Hundred Thousand (Uno, nessuno e centomila, 1926) is Luigi Pirandello's last novel. Vitangelo Moscarda's wife casually mentions that his nose tilts slightly, he realises he has never noticed, and from that tiny remark he concludes that everyone around him sees a different man, none of them the one he thought he was. The rest of the book is his comic, unsettling attempt to find out who he really is. Plenty of novels begin with a death, a letter or a stranger arriving in town. This one begins with a nose. It is one of the great opening gambits in Italian literature, and it is typical of Pirandello: something trivial, examined closely enough, turns out to hold up the whole building. The novel first appeared in instalments in the magazine La Fiera Letteraria between December 1925 and June 1926, and as a book in 1926. It was the last novel Pirandello wrote. ## The set-up Vitangelo Moscarda, nicknamed Gengè, is a comfortably off man living on money inherited from his father. One day his wife, Dida, remarks that his nose leans a little to one side. He had never noticed. If he had missed something so obvious about his own face, what else about himself does everybody else see that he does not? From there the thought runs away with him. He realises that to his wife he is one man, to the townspeople another, to the people who manage his money a third. There are, in other words, a hundred thousand Moscardas walking around in other people's heads, and perhaps no single real one. Hence the title. Moscarda narrates all of this himself, in the first person, talking directly to the reader as if pulling up a chair. ## What happens Having discovered the problem, Moscarda sets out to dismantle the versions of himself that other people hold, one by one, through increasingly odd choices. Without spoiling the details: the attempt costs him a good deal, unsettles everybody who knows him and takes him somewhere very far from the comfortable life of the opening pages. The ending is less a solution than a release. The book is divided into eight short "books", each made of brief titled chapters. That fragmented shape suits a man whose thoughts keep doubling back on themselves, and it makes the novel easier to read than its reputation suggests. ## Why it still lands **It describes something everyone has felt.** Hearing your recorded voice. Seeing yourself in a photo someone else took. Learning what a colleague really thinks of you. Moscarda just refuses to look away from that small jolt. **It is funny.** Pirandello is a philosopher of identity, but he is also a comic writer. The narrator's logic is relentless and slightly absurd, and the tone is closer to a raised eyebrow than a lecture. **It feels modern.** A man worrying about the gap between how he sees himself and the hundred versions of him held by other people reads very differently in an age of profiles and feeds. The book did not predict social media; it simply identified the itch. **It is a book to argue about.** Masks, roles, the self you perform at work and the one at home: it is a novel that sends people off into long conversations over dinner, which is the best thing a novel of ideas can do. ## How to read it Go slowly at the start, when the ideas come thick. Once the story starts moving, it moves. Read a few chapters at a time and let them argue with you. Some readers find the second half less convincing than the first; that is fine, the opening idea alone is worth the price. It also pairs well with any novel that plays with a narrator's grip on the truth; our page on the [unreliable narrator](https://zestasy.com/wiki/unreliable-narrator/) has more of those. ## FAQ ### Is it a difficult book? It is a novel of ideas, so it asks for attention, but the chapters are short and the voice is chatty. If you enjoy a narrator thinking aloud, it is a pleasure rather than a chore. ### What does the title mean? Moscarda realises he is one person to himself, a hundred thousand different people to everyone who knows him, and therefore, in a sense, no one at all. The title lays out the whole argument in four words. ### Is it a good first Pirandello? We think so. The idea is stated on the first page, the narrator does the explaining for you, and his fascination with masks and roles is all here in one book you can read on a sofa. ### Do you need to read it in Italian? No. The ideas travel well, and English translations are available. If your Italian is decent, the original rewards it, because the narrator's voice is half the fun. ## Sources - [Wikipedia: One, No One and One Hundred Thousand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One,_No_One_and_One_Hundred_Thousand) - [Studenti.it: Uno, nessuno e centomila di Pirandello, trama e significato](https://www.studenti.it/uno-nessuno-centomila.html) ## Related - [What is an unreliable narrator?](https://zestasy.com/wiki/unreliable-narrator/) - [What is the difference between self-esteem and confidence?](https://zestasy.com/wiki/self-esteem-vs-confidence/) - [What is Primo Levi's The Periodic Table about?](https://zestasy.com/wiki/primo-levi-the-periodic-table/) - [Where should you start with Italo Calvino?](https://zestasy.com/books/where-to-start-with-italo-calvino/) - [How do you stop overthinking small decisions?](https://zestasy.com/wiki/overthinking-small-decisions/) - [All Books & ideas answers in the Wiki](https://zestasy.com/wiki/#books)