[Tornando a leggere e meditare, in attesa di meglio e più concreto e urgente da fare.]
[...] A Catholic, Elsa Morante was religious, although not in a conventional or orthodox sense. She had studied a lot of Indian philosophy—Hinduism, Buddhism and Sufism—and she did not believe in a divinity who was a single entity and was outside the universe. Instead, she believed in an incarnate god who manifested himself in the forces of nature. Her religiosity was more mystical and a bit idolatrous—for instance, she thought of Christ as a sort of rebellious youth, an idea that also greatly influenced Pasolini. Basically, she embraced all religions.
Later, Elsa was very influenced by Simone Weil. One could not, she felt, live without religion—the kind of religion that was altruistic and a help to others. Art, too, that was born from this desire to be useful was a form of religion. In Without the Comfort of Religion, her work in progress, she planned for the main character to solve the religion problem by becoming a poet. Italy, she also added in her notes for the novel, was the country that was the least religious in the world; the Italians could be a great people in moments of misery, but when they became fortunate they lost their direction. [...]
Lily Tuck, Woman of Roma. A Life of Elsa Morante, HarperCollins, New York 2008, p. 135.
