Capitalism as Affective Atmosphere: The Noir Worlds of Massimo Carlotto

Abstract

This chapter interrogates the relationship between the novels of the Italian crime writer Massimo Carlotto and the ills of capitalism in its neoliberal phase. But crucially it is not an ideological critique where character and action can be fully explained according to the logic of capitalism as a social and economic system. Rather, Carlotto's noir universe is chaotic and unpredictable, and his characters do not understand themselves or their actions beyond a basic inclination toward financial gain and self-interest. As such, I argue that affect understood as an autonomic or bodily response to one's environment better explains Carlotto's noir world; and that 'noir affect'—which takes and inverts the positive potential of affect identified by Massumi and others—acts on populations to negatively imbricate or subsume action and character in the unruly violence of the 'free' market.