Tommaso Pincio and the paper world

Abstract

Ottavio Tondi, the main character of Tommaso Pincio’s last novel, Panorama (NN Editore, 2015), works as a literary consultant for influential publishing houses. Described as an isolated person, epitome of the intellectual-writer able to see his own crisis and, so far, the crisis of his historic moment, Ottavio oscillates between the distant relationship with a woman, Ligeia, whom he doesn’t know in person, and his resigned rejection of life in society, trying to remain, as a new Don Quixote, as a “pure reader”. Offering a critical view of trending writers, of those vain and egoistic “divos” always in the heart of mass media, the novel builds up a very large number of topics, such as the reflection about reading considered as a mythic, intimate and sacred ritual, as well as the limits of translation, an incisive satire of the nowadays journalism or the condition of our decadent society, in the hands of an alienating and impersonal technology that have finally changed personal relationships through the use of online social networking services.