University of Bath PHD The ‘Pulp’ generation between avant-garde and tradition(s): legacies, gender and youth culture in the narrative of Silvia Ballestra, Rossana Campo and Isabella Santacroce Bernardi, Claudia Award date: 2009 Awarding institution: University of Bath Link to publication Alternative formats If you require this document in an alternative format, please contact: [email protected] General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 04. Oct. 2021 THE ‘PULP’ GENERATION BETWEEN AVANT-GARDE AND TRADITION(S): LEGACIES, GENDER AND YOUTH CULTURE IN THE NARRATIVE OF SILVIA BALLESTRA, ROSSANA CAMPO AND ISABELLA SANTACROCE Submitted by CLAUDIA BERNARDI for the degree of PhD of the University of Bath January 2009 Copyright Attention is drawn to the fact that copyright of this thesis rests with its author. This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author. This thesis may be made available for consultation within the University Library and may be photocopied or lent to other libraries for the purposes of consultation. Abstract ABSTRACT This thesis examines the work of Silvia Ballestra, Rossana Campo and Isabella Santacroce within the context of the so-called ‗pulp generation‘ of writers who emerged in 1990s Italy. My analysis addresses three main concerns of these writers: youth culture, gender, and literary legacies. The Introduction provides the methodological coordinates of my study, stating my initial aims, tracing the evolution of my interest in the writers and of my approach to their narratives, and outlining the structure of the thesis. Chapter 1 identifies themes and styles common to the ‗pulp generation‘, referring to the work of, among others, Niccolò Ammaniti, Silvia Ballestra, Enrico Brizzi, Rossana Campo, Giuseppe Culicchia, Aldo Nove, Isabella Santacroce, Tiziano Scarpa and Simona Vinci. I focus on the critical reception of these writers and the support they received from the members of 1960-70s avant-garde, Gruppo 63. In Chapter 2, I map out the links between the 1990s writers and some of the authors who emerged in the 1980s, and particularly Pier Vittorio Tondelli, teasing out similarities and differences between the two generations. The remaining three chapters are devoted to in-depth analyses of my three main writers, who have been selected for having already published a sizeable body of texts, for exhibiting a very distinctive evolution in themes, styles, and genres, and for having already acquired the status of ‗canonical‘ writers of their generation. Chapter 3 on Ballestra, Chapter 4 on Campo, and Chapter 5 on Santacroce chart this evolution from their early postmodern fiction, dominated by youth themes and experimental language and structures, to more realist forms and mature themes of their later works, which combine a continued engagement with narrative form with a commitment to communication and with gender-oriented thematics. My investigation brings into relief the different treatment of these thematics and the styles adopted to convey them by the three authors. More importantly, it highlights the intertextual dialogue each one of them conducts with the tradition(s) of women‘s writing, something that has been overlooked by critics in Italy and abroad. The Conclusion offers a brief sketch of the evolution of these three writers and of ‗pulp‘ narrative in general. Claudia Bernardi Ph.D. Thesis, January 2009 ii For my mother and my father Claudia Bernardi Ph.D. Thesis, January 2009 iii Contents CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1 12 The new Italian narrative of the 1990s: themes, poetics and critical assessment 1.1 Introduction: a new generation of writers 12 1.2 The new narrative of the 1990s and the neoavanguardia 14 1.3 Themes and styles of the new narrative of the1990s 20 1.4 Youth culture and the ‗pulp‘ generation 24 1.5 Language, narrative structures and the use of genres 27 1.6 The ‗pulp‘ generation ten years later 34 1.7 Language, genres and gender 39 CHAPTER 2 45 The „pulp‟ generation and the legacy of the 1980s 2.1 Introduction: displacement, journey and return in the ‗pulp‘ 45 narrative of the 1990s 2.2 Tondelli‘s legacy and the ‗pulp‘ generation 48 2.3 Language and youth culture from the new writers of the 1980s 50 to the ‗pulp‘ writers of the 1990s 2.4 Challenging the 1980s canon in the 1990s 55 2.5 Journey and return from the 1980s to the 1990s 58 2.6 Exiles, migrants and nomads: Rosi Braidotti‘s ‗nomadic subjects‘ 62 2.7 The ‗pulp‘ character as exile: Silvia Ballestra‘s Antò Lu Purk 65 Claudia Bernardi Ph.D. Thesis, January 2009 iv Contents 2.8 Exiles and nomads: male ad female ‗pulp‘ characters 69 2.9 Exiles, nomads and language 75 CHAPTER 3 82 From the influence of the neoavanguardia to the legacy of women’s tradition: Silvia Ballestra 3.1 Introduction: the women of the ‗pulp‘ generation 82 3.2 Silvia Ballestra, the neoavanguardia and the postmodern: 85 Compleanno dell‟iguana (1991), La guerra degli Antò (1992) and Gli orsi (1994) 3.3 A literary mother: Joyce L. Una vita contro (1996) 106 3.4 Nina‘s trilogy: La giovinezza della signorina N.N. Una storia 110 d‟amore (1998), Nina (2001), Il compagno di mezzanotte (2003) 3.5 Tradition, avant-garde and political writing in a woman‘s voice: 119 Tutto su mia nonna (2005), La seconda Dora (2006) and Contro le donne nei secoli dei secoli (2006) CHAPTER 4 123 Rossana Campo: personal and collective narrative voices between neoavanguardia and feminism 4.1 Introduction: Rossana Campo‘s female narrators 123 4.2 Rossana Campo and the legacy of the neoavanguardia 124 4.3 Dialogic voices: In principio erano le mutande (1992) and 129 Il pieno di super (1993) 4.4 Collective voices: Mai sentita così bene (1995) 137 4.5 Between dialogue and monologue: individual female identity 146 from L‟attore americano (1997) to Più forte di me (2007) CHAPTER 5 Conflicting legacies: personal voice, gender and intertextuality 158 in Isabella Santacroce 5.1 Introduction: individual voice and eccentric literary models in 158 Santacroce‘s fiction Claudia Bernardi Ph.D. Thesis, January 2009 v Contents 5.2 Intertextual references to Anne Sexton‘s poetry: suicide and incest 164 in Lovers (2001) 5.3 Intertextual references to Cristina Campo: poetic inspiration 172 and family loss in ‗La tigrecigno‘ (2002) 5.4 Desire and rejection of the family: Revolver (2004), Dark Demonia 177 (2005) and Zoo (2006) 5.5 Literary fathers in a new woman‘s voice: V.M. 18 (2007) 182 CONCLUSION 190 BIBLIOGRAPHY 194 Claudia Bernardi Ph.D. Thesis, January 2009 vi Acknowledgements ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation and gratitude for a number of people who have assisted me in completing this thesis: to my ex-colleagues and fellow postgraduate students at the University of Bath, and to my current colleagues in the Italian Programme at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, who have encouraged me throughout this journey; to Eliana Maestri and Elena Minelli, for cheering me on and lending me vital help in the final stages of this work; to Karen Wong She, who has always been there for me. This thesis is about the links that exist between different generations of writers, and especially about the literary mothers and fathers new authors choose for themselves. It seems therefore appropriate that I should dedicate it to my mother and father: they have taught me the value of reading and studying, and have continued to provide me with Italian books all the way to New Zealand. Without the moral and emotional support of my family, of my sister Anna Bernardi and my brother-in-law Juri Zinani, as well as my parents Marisa Bertozzi and Antonio Bernardi, I would have never completed this work. Most of all, I want to acknowledge my supervisor, Dr Adalgisa Giorgio to whom I have a great debt of thanks. Adalgisa has taught me everything I know about how to read literature, analyse texts and write about them. Her academic guidance has been invaluable: if I have chosen today to be a teacher and researcher, it is due to her inspiration. Much more than a supervisor, she has been a mentor, an intellectual mother and an example I will never cease to follow. Claudia Bernardi Ph.D. Thesis, January 2009 vii Introduction INTRODUCTION In 2000, Nanni Balestrini, Renato Barilli, Ivano Burani and Giuseppe Caliceti edited an anthology of thirty-two texts presented by thirty-three emerging authors at the Ricercare conferences held in Reggio Emilia between 1993 and 1999.1 At the end of that decade and after seven years of promoting a cultural event which had been widely debated in the media, at times in quite controversial terms, its organisers were thus ensuring that the role of Ricercare in discovering and nurturing the new literary talents was properly acknowledged.