The Misadventure of Staying Home: Thwarted Nostos in De Chirico and Rebecca West

From the Odyssey onwards, the long nostos tradition has at times called J attention to a paradoxical insight: the challenges and rewards of homecoming can be experienced by those who never leave home. If being at home means more than being physically located in a certain place, then the dynamics of presence and absence, loss and recovery, that make up nostos can be played out within a single setting. Something new can be gained that makes the non-traveler somehow more "at home" than before. Or the obstacles to a successful experience of outward journey and smooth reintegration may not be intrusions from the outside, but internal, homegrown impediments.