Oltre l’ultima Thule. Spazi domestici e viaggi per acqua in James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon e David Foster Wallace

Abstract

With an allusion to the Greek literature travelogs in the reference to “Thule”, the essay explores the transformation of the domestic spaces. Novels get familiar with private rooms such as water closets and loos progressively and start presenting them to the scene toward the end of the Eighteenth century. The discovery – and therefore the use – of toilets in Joyce’s Ulysses plays a role in giving the reader access to the consciousness of the characters. In the second half go the twentieth century, Thomas Pynchon, on the other hand, gives to the scene set in the toilet bowl a particular meaning in revealing the underworld of the novel, and David Foster Wallace confirms the inversion between “stage” and “backstage”, inhabiting the private spaces becoming main settings for some of his short stories.