Dal Taccuino industriale a La linea gotica di Ottiero Ottieri. Un viaggio testuale

The topic of my paper is the textual genesis of La linea gotica by Ottiero Ottieri: the analysis of the manuscripts and of typescript versions of the novel, kept in the “Centro di ricerca sulla tradizione manoscritta di autori moderni e contemporanei” of Pavia, leads to a fuller understanding of Ottieri's mode of writing. Starting from the extracts of Ottieri's personal diary published in Menabò n. 4 (1961) as Taccuino industriale, I stress the importance of the role played by Elio Vittorini in the genesis of the novel: as a matter of fact, I show how the help in editing provided by Vittorini is not limited to his activity for Einaudi's review, but continues until the publication of La linea gotica for Bompiani in 1962. I also focus my attention on some extracts from Italo Calvino’s correspondence with Elio Vittorini, which show how the two came to the decision of publishing Ottieri's work instead of, for example, Stelio Mattioni's or Giovanni Pirelli's. Their discussion about the concept of 'industrial literature', whether it actually has a real consistence or has been invented by the critics, enlightens one of the most controversial critical nodes of Italian contemporary literature.