Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975)

Una scorribanda senza respiro, un quadro violento, grottesco e tragico spezzettato dai salti temporali dei capitoli e reso coeso dal tour de force nella lingua dialettale. Personaggi caratterizzati sulla superficie, sui corpi e nella camminata, e non per questo meno memorabili. Pasolini riesce perfettamente a descrivere la miseria e l'eroismo negativo dei suoi personaggi.

Eloquently Pasolini describes the lives of the poorest of Rome during the 50-ies. He showed relentlessly the most intimate, the greatest fears, the daily struggle of survival outside the tourist streams. He gives these people, especially the teenagers, a voice so that the feelings come across genuinely. Pasolini describes everything in such detail that one has the feeling of being a part of it, yes, in the middle of it. It is a life that nobody wants and yet is everyday.
There are short show more stories from Trastevere and Testaccio. I highly recommend this book. show less

I had had this book on my reading list for quite some time. First of all, I would like to say that you need strong nerves to read it.

The German translator (Moshe Kahn) writes the following in the afterword:

Even before its publication at the end of May 1955, an Italian literary scandal was brewing. The initial reactions of booksellers who had read the galley proofs questioned whether the novel should be published at all.
After revising the manuscript, Paolini wrote to his friend, the poet

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Vittorio Sereni: '... So now the galley proofs lie before me like half-dead corpses, and I am supposed to correct and castrate them. True despair ...'
Kahn goes on to write that the German translation corresponds to Paolini's original and that nothing has been shortened or altered.

The novel is full of strong language, which one has to endure, because it corresponds to the lowest social class that Paolini writes about in this novel. The novel is set in the suburbs of Rome from the end of World War II to the early 1950s. We follow a group of young people from their early teens until they are young adults. Life was brutally hard. There was unemployment, extreme poverty, homelessness, children left to fend for themselves or taken under the wing of youth gangs, and a great deal of violence. The themes of homosexuality, rape and death also feature in the novel.
And despite all this brutality, you learn to love the protagonists. You develop an understanding of why they are the way they are and fear with them that they will survive the next low point. The boys were very resourceful in finding food, new clothes and shelter.
Their motto was usually not to work and to obtain money or the things they needed in other ways. Of course, there was a lot of rivalry in this system, but they still cared for each other.

Even though it wasn't an easy read, I'm glad I read it and would highly recommend it. show less

Normalmente em livros de poemas costumo colocar como "resenha" a minha poesia favorita de todo o livro tendo em mente que nada do que eu possa mencionar das qualidades ou defeitos do poeta se equipará a um exemplo prático que o diz por si só. Eu não posso fazer isso com esse livro do Pasolini, pois cada página desse exemplar é elaborado com uma qualidade poética, política e social que é humanamente imposível escolher um trecho que seja. Antologia impecável e nunca pensei que um show more dia diria isso, mas Pasolini é melhor poeta do que cineasta. show less