PETROLIO

by Pier Paolo Pasolini ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 31, 1997

This uncompleted ""novel"" found after his death is in fact a discordant miscellany of drafts, notes, and completed scenes which the notorious filmmaker and writer (1922--75) had planned to shape into an enormous philosophical novel. Pasolini's protagonist Carlo, a potentially fascinating character who never becomes much more than a mouthpiece, is an oil company employee with a deeply divided personality: By day he's a passionate and not uninfluential political activist; by night he's a passive sexual adventurer who explores the feminine half of his nature and what he perceives as fascism's denial of the individual's reality, by seeking out and submitting to homosexual exploitation (described explicitly and rapturously). The novel is inchoate, a stew of images and ideas that does not coalesce, and leaves one wondering whether Pasolini would ever have successfully pulled its volatile, disparate materials together.

Pub Date: March 31, 1997

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 496

Publisher: Pantheon

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1997

Categories: FICTION