9 - Il mondo è meglio non vederlo che vederlo : Naples as Urban Dystopia in Un paio di occhiali

Summary

Abstract

Grounded by Walter Benjamin and Asja Lacis’ elaborations on the city of Naples, this essay proposes Naples as an urban dystopia in Anna Maria Ortese’s short story, “Un paio di occhiali” and Carlo Damasco’s eponymous short film adaptation (2001). By situating “Un paio di occhiali” firmly within the dystopian genre, I argue for a reading of the city of Naples as a theater of dystopia, a term I use to delineate how the theatrical proclivities of everyday life underscore the incongruities between Naples’ various social classes and the role that Naples’ residents play as both actors and spectators in society.

Keywords: Anna Maria Ortese, Dystopia, Theater, Naples, Porosity

“Un paio di occhiali,” is the introductory short story of Ortese’s collection Il mare non bagna Napoli (literally “The Sea Does Not Bathe Naples”), published in 1953. The collection, as a whole, resists any sort of strict generical categorization, as the stories included range from fiction—as is the case with “Un paio di occhiali”—to reportage. In Il mare non bagna Napoli, then, we may say that Ortese adopts a “porous” (a term I borrow from Benjamin and Lacis and one that I will discuss below) approach to writing. The text on the pages is at once the site for imagination and creativity, as well as a documentary space through which Ortese elaborates on the horrors of post-war Naples. As Luca Clerici writes, “nel Mare non bagna Napoli narrazione e resoconto giornalistico si confondono continuamente” (“In Il mare non bagna Napoli narration and journalistic reportage continually blend into each other”). Thus, Ortese’s stories go beyond the imaginative, proposing an investigation into, as Lucia Re suggests, “the poorest and most marginal to the petty bourgeois and the middle class, the nobility,’ the clergy, and the intellectuals.” Un paio di occhiali” takes place in a “quartiere di poveri” (“neighborhood of the poor”) in post-war Naples, where the young protagonist Eugenia lives with her mother and father—Peppino and Rosa Quaglia—as well as with her two younger siblings (Pasqualino and Teresella) and her aunt Nunzia.