Luciano Pagano

Thousand of these years?
On "2005 dopo Cristo" (“2005 after Christ”)
of the Babette Factory

““What is genius? Imagination, intuition,
decision-making, speed in execution”. ”

Amici Miei (1975)
di Mario Monicelli

The several outlooks that appeared on the web and in magazines left us with the plan of the collective novel “Who do you want to be the next” of the Keaton Factory. After two years of work the result, published by Einaudi last June 7th is entitled “2005 after Christ” of the Babette Factory, a name that joins together the pens and the minds of Christian Raimo, Francesco Pacifico, Francesco Longo and Nicola Lagioia. On the scene meet their stories a television presenter, a fellow who grew up in the television environment, and who lived there since his childhood and who will become mature only at the end of the story, so as to no longer be a child prodigy; another character –it’s difficult to describe his profession, since he’s changed many a job and occupation- is distinguished with the name of a great football player of the 80s: here one can already understand the temporal settings that have been chosen by the authors for this story; the years have been frozen, their story consigned to oblivion, those events worthy of producing history are the television broadcasts, actually the program conducted by the protagonist is based on the “remakes” of the most famous television programs of the eighties and nineties. Were I to give a definition about how time is acknowledged in “2005 A.D.”, I’d say that the situation that’s developing, is one of hyper temporality set into hyper reality and that this year (2005 A.D.) is from the start presented as symbolic. Emblematic is for instance the hint given about solar eclipses, creating an expectation worthy of a biblical Armageddon, where the planning of the Premier’s (Berlusconi) homicide in such a setting seems to take up the tone of an urban apocalypse. The first part of the novel has the style of a spy story, starting from the organization of a plot against the Premier, hatched by a group headed by a political representative, a shrewd puppeteer moving the shreds of the story, orchestrating the crime, inventing the cover story, putting the “chosen person” to the test, (a perfectly incompetent and paranoid one), creating the proper environment so that the news and the event itself will be received by the audience with perfect media results.
Then there is Abate, a disquieting character, a new-terro-situationist, a pop-terrorist who draws the reader’s attention to himself, who asks himself from time to time what his role would be in the plot: the authors are in fact depicting him as one willing to perform any type of action, from kidnapping to troublemaking. The reader who is interested in identifying with the pop-terrorist will be disillusioned after he has easily fallen in love with Ilaria, the young reporter, and after he ends up living at her home planning breakfasts, sleeping and wearing out revolutions on his lap-top for finally sinking into total delirium. At last there is Simone, the tentative actor, a doubly important character: you’ll understand why by reading the book; some of the strong points of this novel are the descriptions of society, together with its components of criticism.
One starts from a merciless analysis of the facts created by the television world, where television could substitute for the classics, not as “subsidiary” means of study, but as a means of “rewriting” history in its whole, from Kennedy to Hitler, from Gandhi to that’s it, the Premier. The “gallery of characters” is a reply of nervous tics and television, the mentioning of the “Game of the couples” is not coming by chance. “2005 A.D. is full of “couples”, the couple of film directors (a feminine counterpart for the authors of Matrix?), the couple of failed singers (Paola and Chiara or Kris & Kris?), the terrorist & companion couple which soon transforms itself into the terrorist & new companion, the couple of the chosen one and the Zen companion, the couple Pasquale & Pasquale. Only one character doesn’t have a mate, just Simone, who’s been abandoned by Barbara at the beginning of the novel (an unsettled matter with possible reconciliation). At the conclusion, at a Friulan meeting of Forza Italia (a political party), Simone will meet a child and become a temporary father to him, for later substituting this young boy for another one, even more needy and helpless. There are two elements that make the fiction of this novel true, that allow us at the end of the reading to get back to the world thinking “it’s a story… but what if it really happened”? The first element is intentional from the beginning: this story even though being related to names, persons and events of the real world, draws to it because “a repertory of a shared imagery”. This choice allows one to play with modules of reality and not with stereotypes, the result is that the truth of the tale becomes a possibility and that fiction is always in fusion with the reality of facts. The times where a shortcut between the two spheres is created, (thanks to the “sharing” with the reader of this imagery) are the most successful. Let’s clear up a doubt straightaway, the imagery at issue doesn’t mean simply the present or past television imagery. Here you won’t find only, just to make an example, the Happy Surgeon, the Drive-In, the Endemol parties, the Formats of New Conception, the wealthy one who becomes Owner of the Manifesto (an Italian daily); those are elements that in other narrations are part of a review of neo-nostalgia for those addicted to the Eighties. Here is an example of the use of this imagery so as to end a story in two lines: ”Quentin and Raul look at each other as if in a former life they were business partners. The first one fled to Switzerland with the takings. The second one remained with the debts” (p.28).
The second element, external to the narration, is purely tied to the events of recent history that took place during the considered period of time, that is to the fact that in our country, April 2005 has been shaken by two more happenings, both bounced back and forth between telescreen and newspapers: the Premier’s defeat at the regional round of voting and the death of Pope John Paul II, with the subsequent election of Benedict XVI (who’s real name is Joseph Ratzinger). At the end of this plot which is restored to its smallest detail, we’re wondering if the final part of the plot has been stopped in time only because it wouldn’t have been featured properly by the media, with the risk of stealing interesting (and embarrassing) space. Yet this second element only confirms the hypothesis that the authors were able to consider apart the specific period of time, creating a story that works beyond the time for which it has been conceived, nevertheless still needing this Premier and our recent history in order to be credible. In this case The Italy Affair remains a symbol of contemporaneousness. “2005 after Christ” contains a winning story, an introduction that moves along quickly and multiplies the questions about the fictitious reality that encircles us, which is put there to balance in a telegenic way the lack of participation with the real facts that interest us directly (see the recent absence of a quorum). Whom do you want to be the next?