Petrolio

A novel on power, literary experimentation, a non-fiction novel, an investigation into the shadowy Italian energy market, a prose poem. The attraction of this extraordinary and controversial unfinished work by Pier Paolo Pasolini is often linked to the many mysteries surrounding it, such as the chapter assumed to be missing, entitled “Note 21. Flashes of Light on ENI”. This unpublished piece of writing apparently advanced the theory that the death of Enrico Mattei (the founder of energy company ENI) was the result of a plot orchestrated by Eugenio Cefis; the two men are depicted in the book under the pseudonyms Aldo Troya and Ernesto Bonocore. Of the work, which, in the words of its author, was to represent “the sum of all my experiences, of all my memories,” only some parts remain in relation to the initial project: more than 500 pages of notes, titles and fragments of chapters which seek to recount the corruption in Italy during its economic boom through the character of Carlo Valletti. The protagonist is an engineer who works at ENI, with a catholic education and left-wing political ideals; he is a figure with a dual personality, on the one hand morally upright and warm, and on the other hypocritical and a slave to his sexual impulses. The key passage that reveals his double-sided nature occurs when he looks at himself in the mirror and discovers that he has become a woman. It was already the author’s intention to make the book a fragmentary work, suggesting it be interpreted as a philological meta-novel and presenting it as a “critical edition of a new text”. “Petrolio” was only published by Einaudi in 1992, around 17 years after its author’s death, following the curatorship of Maria Careri and Graziella Chiarcossi, under the supervision of Aurelio Roncaglia.  

Petrolio
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Einaudi, 1992