Cesare Pavese (1908–1950)

Although La Casa in Collina is a modern classic of Italian literature, I found the author's stand-in, the narrator Corrado, hard to stomach sometimes. The novel covers roughly 18 months in Corrado's life as the allies begin bombing Torino and he takes shelter at night in a house in the nearby hills. There he meets an old lover with a son who might be his. As the air raids continue and the Germans seize control, the noose slowly tightens around his former lover, Cate, and the habitués of the show more country inn called Fontane.

Even as the danger grows, Corrado is lost in his thoughts. Remembering how poorly he treated Cate, how he seems unable or unwilling to form a lasting emotional connection with anyone, Corrado is unable to make decisions or take action.

Cited as a classic of existential literature, La Casa in Collina is an anti-myth, just like Corrado is an anti-hero. Rather than portray the Resistance as heroic, with everyone joining in, the novel shows how many Italians just wanted to survive the war. Not everyone is a hero, even as the collapse of the Mussolini government sets off a civil war among Resistance groups and with the Nazi sympathizers.

Perhaps I'm too much of an American to enjoy the contemplative pace of this novel, although I must confess it grew on me as I finished it. show less

I admit it: I have an irrational interest in post-war Italy. For some reason I find Itaalian confusion about the war much more interesting than German confusion about it, perhaps because it's pretty darn hard for anyone in Germany to pretend that the Nazis were, in any way, a benefit to the world, whereas there is an (entirely unpersuasive) argument for the Italian fascists. The German resistance existed, but not the way the Italian resistance did. German communists got to play out (a deeply show more mangled version of) their ideals after the war; Italian communists did not. So perhaps it's not as irrational as I thought. Perhaps I just prefer stories that aren't quite as morally obvious as "so, the Shoah... not good. Not good at all."

And that's what M&B is, really. Like Ferrante's justly popular novels, Pavese writes about a small community which has papered over the dislocations of the fascist years. Like her novels, he manages to combine very intelligent symbolism (the moon, basically, the other side of the fence where the grass etc but where there is also no there; the bonfires, the superstitions but also rootedness of the old world) and paradox with a straightforward style and garden-variety realism. So, if you like Ferrante, and haven't read this, give it a shot.

But a caveat: there are major flaws here. Our narrator, 'the eel,' has fled the fascists to the U.S.A., where he gets involved in (I think) bootleg liquor. It's all very vague, and this is no minor problem. The Eel's memories of the U.S., his relationships with people there, his description of the landscape etc., are all extremely dull (with one exception, a girlfriend, who is also fairly dull). The book can seem aimless, and I suspect it will be much better on a second read, since I now know where we're heading and why the eel's memories are being recounted.

All that said, spoiler alert here.

One interesting interpretive point: the introduction to the NYRB edition, and many reviewers here, really don't like Nuto. I think this is a mistake. Nuto is committed enough to others that he's a communist in a right-wing province (probably not the right geographical term); he's committed enough to have been a member of the resistance. Now, how do we weigh that against the fact that he let Santina be executed for espionage? The introduction here suggests more than a little that Santina was *not*, really, a spy at all, just put in the wrong circumstances and denied the guiding hand she needed--a hand that Nuto should have provided. I think this is making the interpretation far too easy. I prefer a grimmer understanding: that Santina had to be killed (resistance fighters, particularly, can't afford to have spies running around); that, ideally, she wouldn't have had to be killed; that Nuto is consumed with guilt at his role in this and tries to avoid it by lying about it; that the Eel is just as guilty for running away; that the Eel had no choice but to run away; and so on. The book presents us, I think, with a fairly clear and convincing tragic view, in which the good people (never mind the bad, they'll always be with us) are forced to do bad things. Nuto, because the resistance demanded it; the Eel, because he had to save his own life; Santina, because of the patriarchy. But Nuto stands out as someone who believes that the tragedy is human-made, rather than natural. Fascism was the sine qua non of Santina's death, Eel's exile, Nuto's crime. People did these things. They were not natural.

Which makes the book sound much more moralistic than it is. It's also an investigation of memory and so on, none of which I find very interesting. But if that's your thing, this is a better option than Sebald, for the reasons given above. show less

"Que significa este vale para uma família que venha do mar, que nada saiba da Lua e das fogueiras? É indispensável tê-lo sentido com os ossos do corpo, tê-lo nos ossos como o vinho e a polenta. Então é possível conhecê-lo sem ser preciso falar dele, e quando andou dentro de nós muitos anos sem sabermos, desperta agora ao chocalho de uma carroça, ao sacudir do rabo de um boi, ao sabor de uma sopa, a uma voz que se escuta na praça, à noite."

Barátnők? Ezek? Hát akkor inkább egy karantén.

Cléliát Rómából szülővárosába, Torinóba küldik, hogy nyisson meg egy divatcentrumot. Gondolnánk, ez egy "találkozás saját ifjúságunkkal"-regény, de nem: Clélia összeütközése múltjával csak egy igen erőtlen aspektusa a szövegnek. Helyette viszont ott vannak a csajok, akikkel hősünk bandázásba bonyolódik: többek között Momina, az alfanőstény, és Rosetta, aki épp most lábadozik egy Veronállal show more végrehajtott öngyilok-kísérlet után.

Szeretem amúgy az ehhez hasonló elbeszélőtípusokat, akik egyfajta kívülállóként, az események uszályán sodródva kommentálják a konfliktusokat. És Clélia pont ilyen. Ki is akar maradni az egészből, meg azért ott is akar lenni, őrzi tárgyilagosságát, de azért időnként kibillentik belőle... határhelyzeti pozíciója alighanem abból fakad, hogy két léthelyzet között lebeg. Egyfelől munkájából él ("barátnőivel", e bájos burzsoákkal ellentétben, akik sose hámoztak még kolompért), másfelől viszont épp munkája révén folyton a legfelsőbb körökben mozog - naná, hisz belőlük él. Gyanítom, Pavese pont e "köztes állapot" miatt pécézte ki őt elbeszélőnek, hisz így félig-meddig belső emberként tudja közvetíteni nekünk azt a finom, arisztokratikus szétesést, azt az ernyedt, lábszagú enerváltságot, ami Torinót felülről rohasztja meg. show less