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The resistible rise of Roberto Saviano, Giovanni Allevi, Carlo Petrini, Beppe Grillo, Mauro Corona, and Andrea Camilleri.
Trocino, this eminent unknown, I would say, and then you realize that he's not exactly unknown: a 45-year-old journalist for the "Corriere della Sera", known as a bone crusher, albeit in a different way from Travaglio. He chose an impactful title for his second book "The Popstars of Culture".
The Preface by Antonio Pascale and the Introduction by the author remind you of the mischievous gesture of the incorrigible female hitchhiker, who slowly reveals "her thigh" and winks at you, including the sound of tires screeching on the asphalt from a sudden stop!
When a book is described as an "original contribution to cultural democracy", you can only ask yourself one question: Could Trocino be a Man of Providence, just like those whose life, death, and miracles, or rather the rise to the "highest pedestals of celebrity," we are going to read about? The question the author poses, not even so hidden, can be summarized as: who are our opinion makers? You might want to respond in chorus: who cares! Anyway... In fact, at this point, you spot familiar names on the cover photos, idolized by certain leftist masses, but also by the right, and then the media fairness convinces you of the potential quality of the news you are about to purchase.
We will read about the vices and virtues of six characters loved/hated not only by the general public but also by literary, television, and political critics. The dark side, as Lord Fenner might say, is spying in a Big Brother style, on the lives of these gentlemen: Saviano, Allevi, Petrini, Grillo, Corona, and Camilleri, all together, to grasp their similarities and differences. What interests is highlighting how, where, and why these gentlemen managed to become something so different from what they were or what they believed to be, in the name of whom or rather what!
Excluding Saviano, for the others there's really not much to laugh about; alas, our opinion makers are full of vices, but it's us who make them vicious: basically, we're the reflection of their souls! There are truly harsh passages, beatings, interspersed with phrases like:
"A country that buys Saviano's fetish books to fight the mafia and then snorts the mobsters' cocaine in the toilets of the Hollywood nightclub in Milan," he wrote buys, not reads, or, "Fabio Fazio, the high priest of leftist goodness": no comment!
Of Grillo, whom he defines as a great comedian, he draws a ruthless and pitiless portrait: the shouting, the hatred, the malice, his denigration, and his constant use of foul language. His favorite slogan is "Death to the Old"; Montalcini is a old whore; he uses aesthetic criteria to annihilate the opponent, as Trocino points out, typical of the "fascist period". One could continue, but the meaning would not change. Oh, I forgot: Beppe is 62 years old, quite a young man!
For all the others: there is reading to be done, but the tones are lighter, certainly less indignant.
Page 15: (Italy) "A country that prefers to feed on a state of permanent indignation rather than trying to change the state of things".
It's not easy to conclude the comment on an essay and indeed I will limit myself to share a doubt: throughout the reading I had the sensation of déjà vu, did Trocino copy from DeBaser's commentators? Who knows, but there you go!
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