DISPERATAMENTE ITALIANI: CARLO LEVI, I SIMPSONS E L’AMORE PER LA PATRIA

“Where are we in the national identity debate? At this point it may be considered pure rhetoric or a literary genre. My countrymen shift between self-denigration and self-celebration. On the other hand, as the classics well knew, in people virtues and flaws often overlap. The unbridled Italian theatricality can become the vulgarity of our TV-shows, the sweet 'far niente' becomes work-truantism, the science of creative and innocent lies, which Casanova praised in his Memories, becomes a way too reticent democracy. The lovable superficiality, the sensual game of the masks (loved by Nietzsche), reveals itself as a refusal of responsibility, since each and every Italian can take off the mask whenever he wants…” Filippo La Porta, university teacher, journalist and writer, deals with Italian narrative and culture. Between his publications: La nuova narrativa italiana (Bollati Boringhieri, 1995 and new edition 1999), Narratori di un Sud disperso (L’Ancora 2000), Pasolini, uno gnostico innamorato della realtà (Le Lettere 2002).