Mollusk-Writers: Spacetime Revolutions in a Literary Shell

In Relativity: The Special and General Theory, Albert Einstein introduced the peculiar analogy of a "reference-mollusk," suggesting that spacetime could no longer be envisioned as a fixed background where events are displayed, but rather as a mollusk-like creature shaped by energy and matter. Although the image received a lukewarm response from the physics community, its ambiguity allowed for creative exchanges across disciplines. The analysis of the invertebrate's metamorphoses in the writings of Paul Valéry (where it first appeared), Francis Ponge, and Italo Calvino, reveals that the molluscan analogy had a significant influence on their poetics and on the creation of a new literary space defined and "curved" by a dynamic interaction among the author, the text, and the reader.