Un attimo prima della catastrofe. Realismo e distopia tra “ridicole emozioni umane” e “soddisfazione del consumatore”

Abstract

Images of socio-political, economic, and environmental catastrophes constantly hit our imaginary: wars and humanitarian disasters provoke anxieties and mental and physical diseases. So, the boundary between realism and dystopia has become even more brittle, also in literature. The present essay intends to examine the dystopian traits of some contemporary novels – Generosity by Richard Powers, Solar by Ian McEwan, Margaret Drabble’s Pure Gold Baby, The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid, and Richard Flanagan’s The Living Sea of Waking Dreams – which cannot be properly considered as dystopian or realistic texts. Each novel is set in times and spaces that are weirdly familiar, where alienating presents and futures develop in-between human emotions and the satisfaction of the consumer in a mercified society. The essay will investigate if contemporary novels can resist and narrate the contrasting feelings deriving from the idea that everything can happen, everywhere and to anyone, in a world where also the most astonishing and baleful warnings of the dystopian fiction are becoming real.