Abstract

The essay proposes an analysis of Beppe Fenoglio’s short story Vecchio Blister. After a concise editorial history of the text and its precedent in Appunti Partigiani, with respect to which the formal variants are highlighted, the analysis moves on to the actual perusal of the short story. The focus of the analysis is mainly narratological and concentrates on the variation of points of view within the text. As Bigazzi has already noted, the focus shifts from an external focus to one on Blister and then on his partisan comrades. This mutation creates doubt in the reader, as Blister is convinced to the very end that the shooting will not really happen and that it is only a mise-en-scene. The reader, considering the change of point of view, is undecided whether to believe Blister’s illusions or the facts. This uncertainty, in which the reader finds himself dropped, brings the text closer to certain modernist procedures, to what has been called the “art of doubtµ of 20th-century narrative.