La ripresa dei pensieri di Pascal sulla morte in M. Houellebecq e D.F. Wallace

digital

Articolo

Rivista

RIVISTA DI FILOSOFIA NEO-SCOLASTICA

Fascicolo

RIVISTA DI FILOSOFIA NEO-SCOLASTICA - 2024 - 1. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) Metafisica, Scienza, Teologia

Titolo

La ripresa dei pensieri di Pascal sulla morte in M. Houellebecq e D.F. Wallace

The Reprise of Pascal’s Thoughts on Death in M. Houellebecq and D.F. Wallace

Autore

Isabella Adinolfi

Editore

Vita e Pensiero

Formato

Articolo |

Pdf

Pagine

Online da

09-2024

Doi

10.26350/001050_000437

Issn

0035-6247 (stampa) | 1827-7926 (digitale)

€ 6,00

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Descrizione

This essay compares the different ways in which two famous contemporary novelists, M. Houellebecq and D.F. Wallace, use Pascal’s Pensées on death. The former, in Anéantir, completely removes the fragments from the apologetic context in which they were originally placed by Pascal, thus terrifying the readers without edifying them. While the latter in The Pale King, questioning our desire for eternity, draws the reader’s attention in greater detail to the paradoxical condition of man who, alone among all living beings, knows that he is dying, is aware that life has a limit, and yet aspires to transcend it. The American consumers, who spend a fortune on a gravestone so that some part of themselves will survive their total annihilation, are for Wallace the symbol of this paradoxical condition. In short, Houellebecq uses the fear of death as a narrative tool, while Wallace explores the complexity of human nature in the face of death, as Pascal does in his so-called «second anthropology».