The characters of Vincenzo Consolo’s Nottetempo, casa per casa suffer from a sickness of the soul. A dysfunctional dualism of body and soul is made manifest first and foremost in the stories of two protagonists - old Marano, and Janu, the shepherd. The former, is infamous as a lycanthrope, the latter, plays the role of the billy‑goat (a leader of the herd). These two representations of mental disorders - a lycanthrope and a billy‑goat
- become, on the one hand, symbols of the Sicilian rural community withering away, and, on the other hand, function as a metaphor for a melancholic poet, his suffering and alienation. Consolo draws the reader’s attention to the corporeality of the text itself and to the link between physicality and creativity: the rhythm of
the body turns into the rhythm of his narration. Thus understood somatic‑ness, requires a novel approach to both, a human being and literature. Importantly, the author also believes in raising historical awareness through literature - against the achrony imposed by the ruling powers - especially when it comes to avoiding tragedies similar to those which happened in the course of the 20th century
