In Italy, dissatisfaction is widespread among former members of the Resistance, as the Christian Democrat government has allowed many top figures of the Fascist regime to re-enter public and institutional life, and several former partisans are being persecuted as their guerrilla activities are taken out of their context and regarded as criminal actions.
While Hitchcock's proposal is precise and sharply focused – the master of suspense is preparing the filming of To Catch a Thief – MI6's is vague and implausible: Grant is supposed to travel to Yugoslavia and meet up with President Josip Broz Tito, to discuss the Marshal's willingness to co-operate with the western movie industry.
MI6 reckon that a biopic on Tito's leading role in the Balkan Resistance would be a good weapon of psychological warfare on the USSR.
A key role in the parallel unfolding of these sub-plots is played by an American television set, a McGuffin Electric DeLuxe which is stolen from an Allied military base in Southern Italy, sold on the black market and then passed from one buyer to the next as no-one is able to make it work.
"McGuffin" is a real, sentient character, the authors address him as a "he" and follow "his" stream of consciousness throughout the book, as he reasons about the rough way the Italians are treating him.
Actual writing work ended ten days after the 11 September attacks, on the eve of the war in Afghanistan.
The fangs of chimerical beasts sinking into flesh, the heavens full of steel and smoke, whole cultures uprooted from the earth.
(translated by Shaun Whiteside)The Observer wrote that 54 is a skilled book "about narcotics, the cheap potency of Hollywood, the coming of television, the balance of political power, and how the effects knock on down the line"[1] Red Pepper magazine noted that the book contains a "mockery of Berlusconi's media and political excesses"[2] According to The Independent, the novel tries to "explain how Europe's postwar quest for social justice was thwarted by rampant consumerism and a surrender to American power"[3] The novel has also been seen as an elegy for the shattered dreams of the Resistance movement, as well as a depiction of everyday life after the failure of a revolution.
[4] In a 2008 speech given at Middlebury College, VT, Wu Ming 1 described the forenote to 54 as an "encrypted guide" to the poetics and allegories underlying many literary works produced in Italy in recent years, a heterogeneous narrative current which he called "New Italian Epic".
As a member of the Wu Ming collective explained it in an interview: 'leafing through a 1954 magazine, [WM2] found an article on the film stars female readers loved the most.