Buzzati and Nabokov: It is not about desire. (November 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Castelli, Alberto
• Is Part Of: Forum Italicum. Volume 56:Number 3(2022)
• Page Start: 341
• Page End: 355
• Publication Date: 2022-11
• Subjects: alienation -- Buzzati -- existentialism -- Lolita -- pedophilia; Italian language -- Periodicals; Italian literature -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Italian literature -- 20th century -- Periodicals; Italy -- Civilization -- Periodicals; 850.5
• DOI: 10.1177/00145858221117817
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0014-5858

Abstract

Dino Buzzati's Un Amore has been largely defined as a consequence of the progressive development of the phenomenon of "lolitism, " and a few years before, Nabokov's Lolita had been accused of being an example of pedophilia. While both female characters are archetypes of "nymphet, " defiant, sexually promiscuous, capricious, and, above all, skilled in manipulation, the relationship progresses through a labyrinth of absence and deprivation. However, in order to place the novels in a proper perspective, we must avoid any intrusion into the authors' private sexuality, and search for the aesthetic phenomenon thereby implied. Written from the male's perspective, women are a riddle but their age offers a key to understanding: youth's artful image can grant the illusion of immortality before death.