Dani is a man in his forties who could pass for an ordinary guy if it weren’t for a single trait that sets him apart: he has no mobile phone — and has never had one. A stubborn stance that is key to shaping his identity, even though living against the current is never easy.
In this making of Dioni Porta explains how he wrote The Man Without a Mobile (Pepitas).
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Is it possible to exist without a mobile phone in the year 2026? Can one attempt to manage the impact of the digital world on our lives and come out unscathed? What consequences come with trying to stay immune to the tech whirlwind that surrounds us? Through this novel I wanted to think about the limits of individual resistance in the face of a complex reality, to which we adapt without truly understanding what the heck we are doing. The relationship with the mobile phone nicely embodies that constant paradox: a promise of help that at the same time complicates our lives; a device that connects us while it disconnects us; a gadget that subjugates and binds us, yet without it we feel useless and disoriented.
The adventures of Dani may lead us to intimate spaces or nearby ones in which we have acted against digital tyranny, making us feel that we retain control of the situation. Yes, defending certain patches of technological noncompliance with conviction, besides helping us differentiate ourselves from those who sign up for everything uncritically, allows us to craft a narrative of autonomy. The problem is that, unfortunately, the tale seems to unravel when we test our coherence with it.
To give the story more force, I needed the protagonist to be a fully functional adult in his productive years. An ordinary man who works, dines with his family, listens to his teenage daughter talk about imaginary numbers, glances at his mother from the corner of his eye, pays bills, goes to the doctor when his knee hurts, and goes for a jog to clear his mind. A conventional guy, if it weren’t for the fact that he has no mobile, which in some way makes him special. That’s why, although it becomes increasingly hard to sustain the decision, he isn’t willing to go along with it, because that dissent connects him with youthful ideals and helps redeem him from unmet expectations. In short, that act of resistance has ended up becoming a key element in shaping his identity. Who is Dani? The man without a mobile.
Another theme that began to take shape as I wrote is the generational one. After stepping into the skin of a septuagenarian in Push the Sun, it was time to test a protagonist my own age, knowing that if the temptation of choosing a character who doesn’t feel distant to you is to fill him with yourself, the trick is to build him from the plural and the common denominator. So I could say that Dani is us. Middle-aged men overwhelmed by confusion. They know they don’t want to think or act like their parents, but sometimes they feel stranded between two waters: they cannot be what they promised they would not be, and they don’t have enough strength to meet the demands of the new model.
And to finish this reflection on where The Man Without a Mobile comes from, I also want to emphasize that in many respects I aimed to continue Push the Sun. Two novels distant in theme, but recognizable in form. Irony, lightness, directness, simplicity. Two stories distinct, but perhaps similar.
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Author: Dioni Porta. Title: The Man Without a Mobile. Publisher: Pepitas. Sales: All Your Books.