A Bending History: Metamodernism and the Contemporary Italian Novel

As in all western countries and cultures, in Italy Postmodernism has shaped up to be the intellectual and creative interface of late capitalism, supported by a cultural logic imbued with «senses of the end of this or that» (F. Jameson): the end of history, of ideologies, of art, of novel, of meaning, as we can clearly see in novel such as Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore (1979) by Italo Calvino or Il nome della rosa (1980) by Umberto Eco. However if the Novel has never ceased to thrive, becoming global, it was the Postmodernist episteme that quickly turned towards its end, progressively reabsorbed into a wider episteme, where what precedes and what follows the end of Modern history have resumed their dialogue using a new creole language, the Metamodernism. The Italian Novel springing from this new episteme oscillates between: a) practicing the postmodern anti-narrative fluidity, which deconstructs regimes, identities, genres and cultures, depriving them of the traditional patterns of realism; b) relocating that fluidity within new narrative patterns, which try to mediate between the disenchanting derealization of the Postmodernism and the enchanted realism of the Modernity (Vermeulen, Van den Akker). This essay will explore the peculiar features of Italian Metamodernist Novel analyzing texts such as Italia de profundis (2008) by Giuseppe Genna, Fantasmagonia (2012) di Michele Mari, La scuola cattolica (2016) by Edoardo Albinati, M. Il figlio del secolo (2018) by Antonio Scurati, L’architettrice (2019) by Melania Mazzucco, La città dei vivi (2020) by Nicola Lagioia, Sanguina ancora (2021) by Paolo Nori, Il dio disarmato (2022) by Andrea Pomella, La casa del mago (2023) by Emanuele Trevi, where Metamodern turn clearly appears as «a turn towards the story, but not merely to the story as entertainment, of which postmodern literature, especially low postmodernism, abounds, but as meaningful narrative that involves the audience, and answers some of its quandaries, thus aiming to either coax or shock the reader into regaining their humanity of concern, care, and compassion» (Dumitrescu).