The World Machine
Published on 8. October 2024
Book
Hardback
312 pages
978-1-80309-376-5 (ISBN)
Description
A vivid and unforgettable novelistic portrait of rural Italy, exploring the nature of reality and the human condition.
A small-time farmer living in central Italy in the 1960s is the keeper of a great truth: that people are machines built by other beings who are machines themselves. Our true destiny is to build ever better machines so that society can become a techno-utopia in which friendship can be established among all people on earth. These ideas bring him into conflict with everyone, especially his wife, against whom he is accused of ill-treatment. His quest takes him to Rome, where he presents his truth, hoping it will bring him worldwide recognition. Behind his poetical reveries and unfathomable scientific notions lies the disturbing fragility of a lone, paranoid, and deluded man in conflict with everyone, including himself.
Paolo Volponi's unique novel The World Machine examines the relationship between rural life and the modern city, as well as the subversive idealism of a society still firmly anchored in the past, dominated by the Church, and unable to grasp the need for change.
A small-time farmer living in central Italy in the 1960s is the keeper of a great truth: that people are machines built by other beings who are machines themselves. Our true destiny is to build ever better machines so that society can become a techno-utopia in which friendship can be established among all people on earth. These ideas bring him into conflict with everyone, especially his wife, against whom he is accused of ill-treatment. His quest takes him to Rome, where he presents his truth, hoping it will bring him worldwide recognition. Behind his poetical reveries and unfathomable scientific notions lies the disturbing fragility of a lone, paranoid, and deluded man in conflict with everyone, including himself.
Paolo Volponi's unique novel The World Machine examines the relationship between rural life and the modern city, as well as the subversive idealism of a society still firmly anchored in the past, dominated by the Church, and unable to grasp the need for change.
Reviews / Votes
"A portrait of a troubled adolescent boy, Damin, which is the most memorable of all such portraits since J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye." -- Praise for "The Javelin Thrower" * The Independent *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Greenford
United Kingdom
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
1 halftone
Dimensions
Height: 230 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
544 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-80309-376-5 (9781803093765)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Paolo Volponi (1924-94) was one of Italy's leading novelists and poets during the second half of the twentieth century. He is the first author to have twice won Italy's most prestigious literary award, the Strega Prize, including one for The World Machine. Richard Dixon is a translator, whose works include the final books of Umberto Eco, including his novels The Prague Cemetery and Numero Zero and books by Giacomo Leopardi, Carlo Emilio Gadda, Roberto Calasso, Stefano Massini, and Antonio Moresco.
Content
The World Machine
Translator's Afterword
Translator's Afterword