Jeff VanderMeer's Non-Terra: A Critical Essay on Mythic Thought

In a recent essay published on doppiozero.com, authors Matteo Meschiari and Anita Romanello explore the resurgence of mythic thinking in contemporary culture, using Jeff VanderMeer's work as a focal point. The essay, titled 'La Non-Terra di Jeff VanderMeer,' argues that society has experienced a collective amnesia regarding key thinkers like Todorov, Zolla, Caillois, and Solmi, and that this forgetting has led to a confusion between myth, epic, wonder, and re-enchantment. The authors suggest that the public needed filmmaker Christopher Nolan to awaken them to a fantastic realm that seems to appear for the first time, comparing the audience to the orphaned children in the final scene of 'Mission' navigating a forest of signs as if it were the first forest on Earth. The essay critiques the current trend of worldbuilding manuals and narrative exercises of the last decade that have moved away from the trappings of the bourgeois novel. It notes that writing schools are opening up to 'minor' genres, and that author Amitav Ghosh prophesies collapse and hope, while shamans, Wicca practitioners, and psychedelics are consulted as oracles. The essay is part of a broader effort to map this cultural shift, intertwining the attempt to understand the return of mythic thought with contemporary artistic and literary practices. The piece was published on July 8, 2026, and is available on doppiozero.com.