It seems that the people of Gagliano do not have a burning hatred for fascism or even a tone of resentment towards it. Rather, they seem to be indifferent to, and accepting of, the conditions under which they live. Fascism to them is just another in a string of ideologies that Rome has embraced and that, in the long run, will likely not have much of an effect on their lives. In fact, the author points out that the people of the region have had similar reactions to all of the political systems that have been forced upon them at various times. The State as an institution is foreign to the citizens of Gagliano, explains Levi, who himself is an anarchist. The people feel forgotten but are accepting of that fate. They have never been a part of history, so they look at themselves as being excluded from the history of mankind.

Lo sforzo di adattarsi per capire, il rispetto, una potente sospensione di giudizio che non si fa limitare da prospettive scientifiche. C'è molto da imparare, qui, di Storia, Sociologia, folklore, ...

Ma per tutto l'impegno (o forse proprio per quello), e nonostante l'ultimo capitolo, si termina con la tristezza addosso, e la sfiducia, in fondo, che qualcosa si possa fare. ( )

Life in an Italian villiage. Found it boring. ( )

Excellent writing, very insightful author. This has many reviews so anything I write won't add to the opinions. Read as part of my research into my Italian family roots ( )

The painter Carlo Levi was one of the thousands of anti-fascists subjected to a period of confino — a kind of preventive internal exile in a remote village or island — under Mussolini. He was sent to the barren southern region of Lucania (Basilicata) early in 1935 and spent a year living in the villages of Grassano and Aliano (disguised as "Gagliano" in the book) before being released in a general amnesty in summer 1936. Later on, during the war, he wrote this account of his experiences in the south, and it was published to huge acclaim shortly after the liberation in 1945.

The slightly puzzling title turns out to be a characteristic local saying, implying that civilisation never reached their region, and Levi sets out to show us the truth behind that hyperbole. The peasants he meets live in appallingly bad conditions: there's nowhere near enough good land to feed them, deforestation and malaria make working the land difficult and unproductive, and the economy runs largely on the savings of those American emigrants who return home and buy a piece of barren desert. The peasants have no interest in the State, and the State seems to have no interest in them except when collecting taxes; everything is run by and for the "signori", the rump of dim-witted self-serving priests, teachers, lawyers, doctors, shopkeepers and public officials who were not bright and ambitious enough to get away to America or to the cities. Fascism is largely irrelevant: in that part of Italy the people who took it up are mostly the ones who were already running things anyway.

Levi writes with love, humour and affection about the peasants and their traditions and the things they have to put up with; he doesn't do much to hide his contempt for people like the schoolteacher and Fascist mayor Don Luigino, who spends his days smoking and gossiping on the school balcony and lets the children leave the school as illiterate as they came into it. He tells us very clearly that in his view the "problem of the south" is not one to be solved from Rome, or even from Naples, but by giving the people at the rough end of that problem a proper voice in saying what they need.

The villagers are excited about Levi's arrival, not because he's a well-known painter, but because he's a doctor, and the two doctors practicing in the village are both considered incompetent, one of them clearly senile. This is embarrassing for Levi, as he's never practiced since leaving medical school, and he doesn't want to make trouble in the village, but the need is evidently so pressing that he can't avoid the queue of sick people outside his door. Fortunately, he's able to get permission for his sister (also a doctor) to bring down a trunk full of medical gear and books on malaria.

As with George Orwell's books about England in the thirties, I had to keep stopping and reminding myself that this is someone of the same generation as my grandparents, writing about Europe in a time that's still just about within living memory. And that he's addressing people living a short train-ride away from the places he's talking about who clearly haven't got a clue how "the other half lives" in their own country.

A painful book, but also a very beautifully observed one. ( )