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"The Nonexistent Knight" is the novel that concludes the famous trilogy by Calvino, including "The Cloven Viscount" and "The Baron in the Trees". Published in 1959, the novel tells the story of the noble paladin in the service of Charlemagne, Agilulfo, always at the forefront of battles against the infidels, who does not exist. Indeed, he is nothing but pure willpower, a shiny armor physically empty, filled with this entity that exists solely to serve the Christian cause. Agilulfo is disliked by almost the entire Christian army: he is maniacally meticulous, everything for him must be traced back to well-defined patterns, must follow well-determined laws. It is the purest and most uncontaminated rationality. Opposing Agilulfo is Gurdulù, a young man devoid of rationality in the purest and most uncontaminated way. He is all sensation, all passion: he is so lacking in logic that he often forgets who he is, creating hilarious scenes, such as when he throws himself into a soup, pretending that it should eat him.
It is worth noting that Gurdulù is just one of the names given to this character: every region, every city, every village has given him a different name, a device used by Calvino precisely to emphasize this unawareness, completely opposite to the existence of mere awareness of existing of the protagonist. The other main characters are Rambaldo, a young knight who looks up to Agilulfo as his model, the paladin Bradamante, in love with the nonexistent knight and who for this reason rejects the passionate Rambaldo, and Torrismondo, paladin of Charlemagne and in a certain sense antagonist of Agilulfo.
The novel can be divided into two sections: the part of the battle and the part of the journey. In the first, Calvino narrates the war between Muslims and Christians, presenting the characters and their peculiarities, while in the second he deals with the journeys undertaken by Agilulfo, Bradamante, and Torrismondo. Agilulfo sets out to prove that he deserves the title of paladin (which Torrismondo had cast doubt on), without which he would lose honor and his willpower (and therefore would disappear), Bradamente follows him because she cannot be without him, Torrismondo to find his father and thus confirm his right to serve Charlemagne. In these journeys, the reference to the "Orlando Furioso" by Ludovico Ariosto, an author much loved by Calvino, is evident.
Starting from the very name of Bradamante, reminiscent of Ariosto, to the pursuit of Agilulfo by the paladin (reminiscent of the pursuits of Angelica by Orlando), the whole novel is filled with references to the great sixteenth-century poem. But Calvino does more, Calvino develops some aspects of Ariosto's work, such as the strong demystification of the epic figure of the knight. If already in the 1500s the era of wars against the Muslims had ended, in the 1900s it can live only in novels. And thus we have the temporal setting of "The Nonexistent Knight," the same as "Orlando Furioso," the presence (albeit marginal) of the same Rinaldo and Orlando, the mockery of destiny, common to both Orlando and Agilulfo.
The demystification of the hero reaches levels in Calvino that could only be achieved in the twentieth century: "The Nonexistent Knight" stands, in a certain way, as the successor of Boiardo's "Orlando Innamorato" and "Orlando Furioso," but the paladin here is nonexistent, not in love or furious, nonexistent. The process of demystification has reached its total completion.
Furthermore, the author manages simultaneously to address the human condition: it is indeed paradoxical how one can exist by sheer willpower or by sheer unawareness of being, but both conditions are possible. "The Nonexistent Knight" in conclusion is among the greatest masterpieces of twentieth-century literature, because it addresses profound themes with disarming simplicity, which only Calvino can have, because it is a human comedy of remarkable depth, because it is the representation of the impossible that becomes possible, it is the institutionalized paradox.
A work that delights and makes one think.
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