Nel magazzino della evaporazione. Intertestualità apocalittica tra Guido Morselli e Antonio Porta

Irene Palladini

2017-01-01

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Abstract

After having thoroughly reviewed (La scomparsa dell’umanità, «Il Giorno», 2 March 1977) Guido Morselli’s brilliant and visionary novel Dissipatio H.G. (Milan, Adelphi, 1973), Antonio Porta publishes his prophetic Il re del magazzino (Milan, Mondadori, 1978). Notwithstanding some minor differences, there are so many similarities between these two books that they can be considered elements of a diptych. Indeed, both are set in a time in which the earth has been turned into a desert by a mysterious event: just with a whimper, without bursts or explosions, humans have disappeared. The only survivor tries his best to cope with this catastrophe and starts to write as a means of finding solace and to preserve some memories of what the world used to be. But perhaps, after all, life on earth without humans is not so bad. This research aims at detecting persisting forms of images and differences between these novels, focusing on their respective representations of apocalypse. When apocalypse is deprived of any teleological intent, it assumes the same value as an epiphany. Framed within such a dystopic perspective, both Morselli’s and Porta’s works express their judgement against a present which is also our present.