Hortense and the Nymphs. The female figure in Paolo Zanotti’s fiction

Abstract

The literature by Paolo Zanotti, starting from the three novels published so far, shows some constants. One of these is the presence of a female figure – a teenager, or a nymphet - at the heart of the story, being the core out of which the adventures of the group of friends grow. Ortensia is for sure the most notable of these muses, the only one to appear since the title (Trovate Ortensia!, 2021). By focusing on the latest novel and by analyzing some short stories hitherto overlooked by critics, the aim of this paper is to describe those features shared by Ortensia with the other femmes fatales, and to propose a comparison with Sofia and Zenobia, main characters of the previous novels, Bambini bonsai (2010) and Il testamento Disney (2013). By taking into consideration the main of these characteristics, the vampire nature, it will be tested the hypothesis put forward by Alessandro Grilli, the first one to propose a study on Ortensia eight years before the publication of the novel: is it right to track the model of the final girl behind the character of Ortensia?