“History: A Novel” by Elsa Morante may be the bleakest novel I’ve ever read. It is the story of one woman’s attempt to survive and protect her two children while living in Rome during World War II. The main character, Ida Mancuso, loses everything through events that are entirely beyond her control. Unlike most war novels which are written from the perspective of soldiers, this novel presents the war from the perspective of civilians caught in the conflict and with little idea of what is going on or why. Published in 1974, the story likely was informed by events in the life of the author. Morante’s husband, author Alberto Moravia, was an opponent of Mussolini’s fascist government and the two of them spent a year hiding in the mountains south of Rome during part of the war. The character Ida (or “Iduzza”) was born to a hard-drinking, politically vocal father (Giuseppe Ramundo) from the Calabria region of Italy and a Jewish mother (Nora Almagià – apparently the accent on the “a” gives away the Jewish origin of the name) from Padua. Ida marries Alfio Mancuso from Messina. Soon after, her father dies of cirrhosis of the liver and her husband dies of cancer. Ida is left to raise her son Antonio (“Nino”) in Rome during the war. The book is divided into sections covering 1941-1947 and nothing happy ever happens to Ida. In 1941, a German soldier passing through literally bumps into Ida on her way home from shopping and decides to rape her. He is killed 3 days later on an air convoy over the Mediterranean and Ida later finds she is pregnant. The child (named Giuseppe and affectionately known as “Useppe”) is born in 1941. Throughout the story, Ida must contend with the wanderlust of Nino (who eventually joins the Italian resistance) and the fragile health of Useppe who doesn’t get much to eat (and later turns out to have epilepsy). At one point, Nino brings home a delightful dog “Blitz” (brown with a white star on his belly) who watches over Useppe. Unfortunately, “Blitz” is killed when Ida’s apartment building is bombed while she and Useppe are out shopping. Useppe and Ida must live in a refugee shelter in Pietralata (along with a large family nicknamed “the Thousand”). Ida lives in constant fear of the Nazis due to her Jewish background. In one memorable scene she witnesses Jews crowded in cattle cars waiting to be deported to the extermination camps:

“The interior of the cars, scorched by the lingering summer sun, continued to reecho with that incessant sound. In its disorder, babies’ cries overlapped with quarrels, ritual chanting, meaningless mumbles, senile voices calling for mother; others that conversed, aside, almost ceremonious, and others that were even giggling. And at times, over all this, sterile, bloodcurdling screams rose; or others, of a bestial physicality, exclaiming elementary words like “water!” “air!” From one of the last cars, dominating all the other voices, a young woman would burst out, at intervals, with convulsive, piercing shrieks, typical of labor pains.”

At a low point, she must steal food to keep Useppe going. The story also relates the resistance efforts of Nino and his band, including the escaped Jewish student David Segre (aka Carlo Vivaldi, aka “Pytor”) whose parents and sister were exterminated by the Nazis. There are several depressing scenes here too – for example when Segre, after shooting a German soldier, continues kicking the German’s head until he dies.

After the war, things don’t get any better. Nino takes to making money on the black market and is killed when his truck is wrecked after being chased by the police. Useppe’s epilepsy is a continual worry, especially since Ida has to leave him alone while she works as a school teacher. Fortunately, Nino had been given another dog – an Abruzzi shepherd named “Bella” – and “Bella” becomes Useppe’s only friend and protector. Useppe and “Bella” have some enjoyable adventures, but his epilepsy eventually catches up with him. Ida lives out her remaining 9 years of life in an institution. And that’s it – nothing happy. The only “uplifting” thing about this book is the beautiful way the dogs “Blitz” and “Bella” are portrayed with great affection by the author. She lets the reader into their canine minds and lets us see things from their perspective as devoted friends and protectors of their owners. The loyalty of dogs is one of the finest things in nature, and Morante does a wonderful job with this aspect of the book. ( )

One of the best novels ever written about life in Italy during WWII. ( )

The great Italian novel of the Second World War, is ostensibly the story of Madonna and Child. It focuses on Ida’s struggles to survive the Nazi occupation and bombing of Rome, and to ensure the survival of the child conceived during a rape by a German soldier in the early days of the war.

At the same time, as the colon in the title intimates, it is an examination on a larger scale than Levi’s The Juggler of the relationship between literature and history: history is a novel, so horrific are the events portrayed in it that they beggar disbelief. The novel becomes history, reflects it, stores it, (re)creates it. The book is framed by a summary of the main historical events starting from 1900, from a Marxist point of view, in which humanity is described as the victims of the capitalist war industry, that wars are started not as conflicts over territory but as ways of consuming the products of an already existing war industry. Who is to say that she is wrong? This summary is then intensified in a month-by-month break down of each year before each of the seven parts into which the book is divided. Against this historical ‘background’ the gritty details of Ida’s story are set in context. And yet what is the real history? The events described in the summary, or the real suffering undergone by the victims of war – as fictionalized in this novel...

Read the full review on The Lectern:

http://thelectern.blogspot.com/2007/0... ( )

One of my 10 desert island books.more than perfect.so powerfull and always makes you cry. ( )

A masterpiece. One child in Italy during the second world war. ( )