“No! No! I don’t hate him!” With this triple denial, Absalom, Absalom! concludes that a triple denial like St. Peter’s is still an affirmation. On the contrary, the expression that governs Antonio Moresco’s (Matua, 1947) extraordinary novel Beginnings, the first part of the trilogy called Infinity Games, which the Italian author started in 1984, is a triple expression. With its versions and various rewritings, he managed to publish The Beginnings in 1998. Years later came two other books: Canti del chaos and Gli increati. The number three plays a central role in the conception of Beginnings, and not because it kicks off a trilogy, but because the novel is structured around this number and the meaning of this book is expressed around this number. .
Divided into three scenes, one of silence, one of history, and one of celebration, the novel revolves around the acceptance of three extreme ways of life: religious, revolutionary, and artistic. The hero, who is always the same in these three scenes, accepts the life he lives with a “yes” whose finale changes in each of the three-minute resume. In fact, in the last one we find him about to say “yes”, which leaves him hanging and thus leaving the novel open. Similarly, the different formulation of reception relates to the fact that each of these three moments corresponds to three different forms of expression: the religious moment is marked by silence and contemplation; revolutionary by action, artistic by the written word.
In the novel, especially in the first part, the plot is the least important thing, because it is precisely the element of contemplation that dominates, the perception of a reality that is not realistically presented. The author suspends realist dogma to place himself on the border between the reasonable and the absurd, the logical and the illogical. Moresco’s connection with Franz Kafka is abundantly clear, and becomes even more evident in the final chapter, during the party scene, due to the references to the Castle. Kafka, who suggests the meaninglessness of life, actually flies over the entire novel, although it is not that obvious, Samuel Beckett, the writer whose poetry is centered on silence and who also plays an important role in Beginnings. and not only in the first scene: in the Scene of Power, the hero organizes rallies in empty squares, and in the Scene of the Party, he does everything possible to meet with a publisher to publish his novel, but for some reason the meeting is constantly postponed. the constant absence and silences of the editor.
The title refers to the hero’s three births and this path is followed, but this path does not have a development based on cause-effect logic. Meanwhile, we do not witness a real evolution of the hero, who, like all the other characters, is a figure without a past and of whom we only know the present moment of the narrative. His experiences do not condition him. The three lives are independent, but united by these three “yes” that seem to eliminate doubt, like St. Peter’s answers to the risen Jesus. It is the doubt that surrounds the hero who no longer has a purpose, the incompetent person who acts by inertia, the subject who can no longer find meaning in anything. The Beginning is a complex, overwhelming and exciting exploration of this doubt and the need to confirm “yes” in search of validation.
Source: Informacion
Brandon Hall is an author at “Social Bites”. He is a cultural aficionado who writes about the latest news and developments in the world of art, literature, music, and more. With a passion for the arts and a deep understanding of cultural trends, Brandon provides engaging and thought-provoking articles that keep his readers informed and up-to-date on the latest happenings in the cultural world.