In his 2008 novel Il tempo materiale, Giorgio Vasta takes his readers on a journey through time and space. Set in 1978, the novel’s opening chapter is dated January, its final one in December. Each of the novel’s thirteen chapters is accurately dated by month and year, and sometimes days[1]. As readers, we encounter many of the historical events of that year ‒ the Acca Larentia killings of neo-fascist militants in January, the kidnap and murder of Aldo Moro between March and May, the football World Cup in June. The novel is full of topical references to television shows, publicity and personalities of the time ‒ Raffaella Carrà, Raimondo Vianello, Sandra Mondaini. As to space, save a short excursion to Rome, the novel is set entirely in a Palermo that Vasta meticulously walks us through. Street map of Palermo at hand, we can follow the movements of the novel’s three preadolescent protagonists as they wend their way through the outskirts and centre of the city. Vasta even gives us the address of Nimbo, his central character and narrator: via Sciuti, 130, a real street and a real number. Continua a leggere Ideology and mythopoesis in Giorgio Vasta’s “Il tempo materiale”
(fasc. 52, 31 luglio 2024)