Volponi–Ottieri–Olivetti and the Ills of Homo industrialis: Returning to a “Civiltà della natura” as a Questionable Antidote to the Urban–Industrial Malaise

Abstract

In this chapter the work of two of Adriano Olivetti’s “artigiani industriali,” Ottiero Ottieri and Paolo Volponi, is considered. The theme of alienation features extensively in their fiction on the factory. In their “scrittura civile,” in contrast, they document the economic rise of Italy by placing a lens not only over the whirring hub of Ivrea but also the Italian countryside and the wounds wrought by the rural exodus. While Ottieri and Volponi both challenge the traditional bucolic view, Olivetti denounces the brusque evolution of industrial work patterns for those wrenched from “rural-natural” origins. In the context of an Olivettian vision of development, the chapter appraises each writer’s use of rurality to salve the industrial malaise, while at the same time rejecting the so-called “civiltà contadina.”