Which modernity?
The latest literary work by Giuseppe Lupo retraces the history of factories through the 20th century and asserts the need for a different way of narrating the past
Modernity and tradition. Progress and poverty. Development and decline. Heaven and hell. We could find many other antithetical dyads – constantly changing and re-shaped by perspectives – to influence the readings of present and past (without, of course, neglecting the future, which entails yet another different viewpoint). Modernity calls for complex analysis, an analysis that, nonetheless, must be undertaken by those who really want to be fully cognizant of the period they are living in. This is why La modernità malintesa. Una controstoria dell’industria italiana (Misunderstood modernity. A counternarrative of Italian industry), the latest literary work by Giuseppe Lupo, makes for very useful reading.
Lupo reviews the 20th century, the century of modernity, a period that has engendered a dramatic change in economy and politics, leaving a deep mark on the cultural and social fabric of Italy (and not only), disrupting century-old balances, shattering the line of continuity between past and future, up to a momentous turning point: the end of rural civilisation and the rise of industrialisation. The past century rushed towards the future, a phenomenon that Lupo analyses through its narratives, by giving voice to some of the most representative figures: from Vittorini to Testori, from Fortini to Mastronardi, from Calvino to Pasolini (to mention just a few) and without neglecting the controversial relationship between humanism and science within such narratives and the house-organisms arisen in the second post-war period. A journey that reaches our present, characterised by a “fluid realism”, by new and different forms of working class, by the many frailties related to employment, and uncertain and confuse prospects. A literary effort that makes us wonder whether it would not be better to drastically change our perspective and adopt, instead, an original, alternative, organised counternarrative aimed at changing the world or, as the book explains, “at severing the umbilical cord with this terrible and majestic century of which we still feel we are the children”.
A densely beautiful book written by Giuseppe Lupo: to be read with great care, not always easy yet certainly useful and intriguing.
La modernità malintesa. Una controstoria dell’industria italiana (Misunderstood modernity. A counternarrative of Italian industry)
Giuseppe Lupo
Marsilio Editori, 2023
The latest literary work by Giuseppe Lupo retraces the history of factories through the 20th century and asserts the need for a different way of narrating the past
Modernity and tradition. Progress and poverty. Development and decline. Heaven and hell. We could find many other antithetical dyads – constantly changing and re-shaped by perspectives – to influence the readings of present and past (without, of course, neglecting the future, which entails yet another different viewpoint). Modernity calls for complex analysis, an analysis that, nonetheless, must be undertaken by those who really want to be fully cognizant of the period they are living in. This is why La modernità malintesa. Una controstoria dell’industria italiana (Misunderstood modernity. A counternarrative of Italian industry), the latest literary work by Giuseppe Lupo, makes for very useful reading.
Lupo reviews the 20th century, the century of modernity, a period that has engendered a dramatic change in economy and politics, leaving a deep mark on the cultural and social fabric of Italy (and not only), disrupting century-old balances, shattering the line of continuity between past and future, up to a momentous turning point: the end of rural civilisation and the rise of industrialisation. The past century rushed towards the future, a phenomenon that Lupo analyses through its narratives, by giving voice to some of the most representative figures: from Vittorini to Testori, from Fortini to Mastronardi, from Calvino to Pasolini (to mention just a few) and without neglecting the controversial relationship between humanism and science within such narratives and the house-organisms arisen in the second post-war period. A journey that reaches our present, characterised by a “fluid realism”, by new and different forms of working class, by the many frailties related to employment, and uncertain and confuse prospects. A literary effort that makes us wonder whether it would not be better to drastically change our perspective and adopt, instead, an original, alternative, organised counternarrative aimed at changing the world or, as the book explains, “at severing the umbilical cord with this terrible and majestic century of which we still feel we are the children”.
A densely beautiful book written by Giuseppe Lupo: to be read with great care, not always easy yet certainly useful and intriguing.
La modernità malintesa. Una controstoria dell’industria italiana (Misunderstood modernity. A counternarrative of Italian industry)
Giuseppe Lupo
Marsilio Editori, 2023