Dinamite, lotta di classe e acquedotti: narrazioni critiche su Los Angeles nell’opera di Louis Adamic

Starting from Mike Davis’s portrait of Louis Adamic, the essay traces a wider overview of the latter’s books and articles centered on Los Angeles by emphasizing their debunking of the myths which surrounded the Southern Californian city in the 1920s. Inspired by the works of Upton Sinclair, H. L. Mencken, and Sinclair Lewis, Adamic’s representations of Los Angeles contrasted the “good climate & profit” propaganda by depicting the city as the site of class and racial oppression, as a “modern” metropolis driven by small-town men and spiritual gurus, and whose ecosystem was put in danger by unscrupulous businessmen. His socio-cultural portraits of 1920s L.A. population and the framing of the city as always on the verge of social and natural disasters have been an inspiration for contemporary fellow writers such as John Fante, Nathanael West, and Carey McWilliams. Adamic’s writings, eventually, can be said to contribute both to the literary and cinematic noir and hard-boiled imaginary of the city and to the city’s ecocritical discourse.