Onomastic Movement of the ‘Pupi’ in Buttafuoco’s Novel "Le uova del drago"

Abstract

In Le uova del drago (2005) by Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, the shift from a theatrical mode of writing—specifically that of the teatro dei pupi, referenced in the subtitle Una storia vera al teatro dei pupi—to a broader narrative framework entails a process of adaptation and transformation of the names of the paladins of France and other characters from the Carolingian cycle. These names are recontextualized in relation to the final phase of the Second World War, particularly the arrival of the Americans in Sicily, which historically marked the beginning of liberation from Fascism. Buttafuoco reinterprets these events from an unconventional perspective, replacing the notion of liberation with that of American occupation and placing at the center of the narrative the remnants of “Fascist resistance”—the so-called “dragon’s eggs”—as observed from within, through the voice of the protagonist, the German spy Eughenia Lenbach. What unfolds is a dynamic movement of names drawn from epic tradition, within a continuous interplay of temporal planes, where spies, soldiers, traitors, and the betrayed move through the Sicily of 1943–1947 as if upon the stage of a theatre. This paper focuses on the onomastic transformations of three emblematic characters: Turi Orlando, Angelica La Bella, and Eughenia Lenbach.