Realism and Neorealism in Contemporary Italian Literature

Author(s): Nicola Chiaromonte

Source: The English Journal , May, 1953, Vol. 42, No. 5 (May, 1953), pp. 237-245
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/808317

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 THE ENGLISH JOURNAL

Volume XLII MAY 1953 Number 5

Realism and Neorealism in

Italian Literature
NICOLA CHIAROMONTE1

I MMEDIATELY after the war Italian nar-

ans had created a new kind of realism or
rative literature attracted the atten- that they had at last discovered the cen-
tion of the reading public abroad,
tury-old tradition of narrative realism.
and more especially of the American Both
pub-notions were, as it happens, false.
Realism, in Italy, was nothing new. At
lic, to the point of competing successfully
with current French literary production.
the same time, for reasons peculiar to the
A similar phenomenon had not occurred development of Italian culture and socie-
since the days of D'Annunzio, and, ty, in
the new realistic trend had the fresh-
ness of discovery. To make this clear, a
fact, it took even the Italians by surprise.
To the name of Silone, already famous fewall
remarks about realism in the Italian
over the world but almost unknown in literary tradition are necessary before ex-
Italy, where his books had been banned,amining some of the most representative
those of Moravia, Levi, Vittorini, and narrators of present-day Italy.
others were added, giving Italian litera- It is a commonplace in Italy as well as
ture a new prestige. At the same time, abroad
a that in practical life the Italians
are apt to be clever and even cunning. A
remarkable series of motion pictures and
a peculiarly Italian style of movie-mak-
sharp vision of the apparent structure of
ing based on adherence to the humblest natural objects and of man's motives is
also quite generally recognized to be a
details of everyday life made the Italian
characteristic of Italian art. The Italian
scene familiar to movie audiences every-
where. The term "neorealism," coined mind
in is not easily carried away by mere
fancy, metaphysical yearnings, or the
Italy to designate the new school of movie
rigorous course of pure reason. On the
directors, was used abroad to designate
the new school of narrators as well. Used face of it, it is legitimate to say that the
Italians are realists. Even Italian folk
in this fashion, the term was misleading:
it seemed to imply either that the Itali-tales are marked by realism and horse
sense rather than by the dreamlike quali-
1 An Italian journalist, now living in Paris; lit-
ties which characterize German folklore,
erary correspondent for several American magazines
and newspapers. for example. For all its fantastic charac-
237

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238 THE ENGLISH JO URNAL

ters and adventures, that

ly not inclassical
the image of the chil-
world that in-
dren's story, Pinocchio, is a thoroughly
spires it.
naturalistic tale, told inThis the
leads to the suggestion that, while
language of
down-to-earth common realism is certainly
sense; a constant
its trend, in
fantasy
the Italian
resembles Aesop's rather than tradition it is nevertheless
Grimm's
or Andersen's. rarely disjoined from imagination and
Yet, if the Italians are realists, their from the attempt to relate the perception
realism is not without paradoxes and of sensuous reality to a view of the world
even contradictions. Gaetano Salvemini, as a whole and of its possible order. Speak-
the liberal historian, once said that, for ing very generally, however, a fundamen-
an Italian, two and two may be three, tal change from and a real break with
that it may also be five, but that it will "realism" occurred during the Renais-
never be four. What Salvemini meant sance from Petrarch on; the "man of let-
ters" was born for whom the term of ref-
was that, when it comes to facing the
basic facts of communal and political erence
life, was no longer reality but literature
itself: formal perfection as exemplified by
an Italian finds it all but impossible to re-
main on the grounds of empiricism the and classic models. With a few outstand-
exact reckoning; he will either see thingsexceptions, the divorce lasted for cen-
ing
turies. Realism did not reassert itself be-
blacker than they are and sink into
apathy or else be led away by mythical fore the Romantic Age.2
yearnings into reckless adventure. For Throughout
all the Fascist period most
Italian
his realism, Salvemini implied, the Itali- writers found it expedient to fall
an cannot stand the bare arithmetic of back into the age-old tradition of "pure
facts. literature." The emphasis, once again,
was on style. A strict avoidance of realis-
Salvemini's paradox applies not only
tic crudeness and matter-of-fact details
to Italian politics but, in some measure,
to Italian literature as well. Dante's was recommended. Nevertheless, what is
sense of the concrete was stupendous, yetcalled Italian realism (or neoreal-
today
ism)
he is also the greatest visionary in was born precisely in those years
the
and in reaction to the emptiness of the of-
history of Western literature. According
ficial ideology as well as to the strictures
to the textbooks, realism in Europe, as
of state-controlled writing. Those writers
opposed to medieval mysticism and
were confronted by a problem which was
scholasticism, was born with Boccaccio,
both literary and moral. In terms of lit-
whose descriptions of fourteenth-century
Tuscan life and manners are indeed erature, they had to look for a way out of

sharp and pointed enough to fit thepreciousness

cur- and a "purity" of form
rent notion of realism. Yet the truth of which was too often synonymous with
the matter is that Boccaccio is called a emptiness. Morally speaking, theirs was
a problem of responsibility: Could the
"realist" chiefly because religious piety
writer remain aloof from his surround-
has no place in his stories; his view of
ings, unmoved by a world in turmoil, un-
things, however, is that of an extremely
affected by the crisis of all social and
sophisticated humanist. On the other
moral values? If not, then those facts
hand, from the twelfth century to Giotto
2 The father of modern Italian realism-in fact, of
and Masaccio, Italian religious art is pro-
the modem Italian novel-was Alessandro Manzoni,
foundly realistic in its approach but sure-
the author of The Betrothed (1827).

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 ITALIAN LITERATURE 239

could hardly benews that refuted

coped most radically
with simply the
literary sophistication and
false and provincial view ofthe
the world cul
personal moods. The
that breakdown
fascism was trying to impose. of
litical, social, and moral
The birth structures
date of contemporary Italian
which fascism was realismboth
can be easily
the placed. It is 1929,
product
the cause, forced thethat
year when Alberto Moravia's first
traditional ego
-the Italian man of letters-to face the novel, The Indifferent, was published at
the author's expense. A few months later
responsibility of choice. Officially fascism
did not prescribe any literary formula Fontamara,
or a novel by a political exile
support any specific school. In fact,whose
it pen name was Ignazio Silone,
pretended to be "heroic," "Machiavel- came out in Switzerland in a semiclan-
lian," and "spiritualistic." In one re-destine edition a few copies of which
spect, however, the official line neverfound their way into Italy.
varied: the Italians had to be optimistic Moravia's works are by now well
and see only the "positive" and uplifting
known in this country.3 His first and im-
aspects of life and of society around portant novel, however, has been com-
them. Not only sadness but eventually paratively neglected. A first English edi-
any manner of thoughtfulness were sus-tion of The Indifferent, published in the
pect. Newspapers were forbidden to pub-
early thirties, was poorly received, partly
on account of the shortcomings of the
lish news about murders, suicides, adul-
translation. But a new translation of the
tery, vice, and other "negative" occur-
rences, and the writers were told in so
book has recently been done and will be
many words that any description of theout soon.

"lower depths" of Italian society-inThe Indifferent is a novel by a "prodigy

child." Moravia completed it when he
fact, anything that was not shiny, joyful,
or promising-would be consideredwas
a barely twenty. The plot is very
sneaking attack against the regime. simple,
On and it all develops in the space of
the other hand, any sustained interesttwenty-four
in hours. An adolescent
things foreign was in itself suspicious. watches intently what is going on in his
Opposition to this state of affairs
bourgeois family: his aging mother is
among literary people naturally took theclinging desperately to her bored lover, a
form of literary cosmopolitanism and cynical,
an smart man of the world; the
increasing interest in foreign literatures.
lover is about to seduce the hero's young
This trend was, as a matter of fact, sister; empty conversations, interspersed
shared by the public at large-since with mutual resentment and irritation,
three-quarters of the books publishedcover
in all this with an atmosphere of ugly
Italy in those years were translations.
meaninglessness. The young man is re-
American novels and short stories were volted by what he sees and hears and yet
particularly popular, and this for a very paralyzed by his very revolt. He under-
good reason: to the Italians, American stands perfectly well the moral principles
fiction of the twenties and thirties seemedon which he should react and judge, but
the bluntest reflection of the modern he is, at the same time, unable to really
world. To the young Italian writers, or
would-be writers, of that period, Hem-3 The Woman of Rome, Two Adolescents, Conjugal
Love, and The Conformist have been published by
ingway, Dos Passos, Sherwood Ander-
Farrar, Straus & Young, which is also publishing the
son, and William Faulkner brought the
new translation of The Indifferent.

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240 THE ENGLISH O0URNAL

feel that a particular that the outside world

judgment is had meaning for
prefer-
able to aimless staringhim.or
It could
thatbe said
a that novel-writing
particu-
lar course of action can achieve more has a similar function for Moravia him-
than plain inertia. His mood, he feels, self.
is Not only has he written novels, but
neither caused by the situation in he hishas from the very beginning of his
family nor directed against it; it concerns
career affirmed the necessity of using the
life itself and the world as a whole. His narrative form-the necessity, that is, of
very passiveness, however, fills him with translating moods that would otherwise
disgust, and disgust pushes him to sud-remain vaguely lyrical into the exacting
den action; he will kill the intruder. Helanguage of action, dialogue, and psycho-
gets a gun, goes to see the man, andlogical situations. The main themes of
shoots at him. But, symbolically enough, Moravia's work are probably three; the
he had failed to load the gun. After thisfirst, indifference, may well be the crucial
incident, tragic resolution having been one. The deep moralistic streak that runs
proved empty, the bourgeois routine ofthrough all of Moravia's work is, in fact,
life goes on as before. a recurrent attempt to transcend the
The critics praised The Indiferent moral nihilism of present society, of
very highly, greeting Moravia as a ma-which he is profoundly aware. The sec-
ture and original writer. The book had ond
a theme is adolescence. The critics
circulation of eight thousand copies, seem
a to agree that this is Moravia's
thousand more than D'Annunzio's Pleas- strong point. Two of his novelettes,
ure. In terms of the Italian book market,brought out here in one volume, Two
this was a great success indeed. But theAdolescents, are certainly in the first rank
literary milieu as a whole remained rath- of his achievements. Moravia's adoles-
er cold. Moravia had broken all the rules cents are not only unhappy; they repre-
of "ivory-tower" literature; he was goingsent the quintessence of what can be
back to nineteenth-century realism; his clumsy, abortive, and shattering in a
style lacked polish and was full of vulgaryoung man's first attempt to come to
colloquialisms and even grammaticalgrips with the world. Psychologically,
heresies. He was a clever young man butone could even interpret Moravia's pe-
not a "man of letters." Concurrentlyculiar universe as surging from the shock
with the "literati," Fascist circles did notof a first wrong contact with life.
lose any time in sensing that, if the offi-Throughout Moravia's fiction, in fact,
cial image of a happy and energetic Italy life appears as an irreparable "comedy of
had to be maintained, Moravia was both errors." Of this, there is no better ex-
a disgrace and a menace to the prestige ofample than his latest novel, The Con-
the regime. From then on Italy's mostformist, where the hero's initial equivoca-
talented young writer was regarded withtion (he thought that he had murdered a
inflexible suspicion by the authorities.man) makes of his entire life an attempt
Not even totalitarian censorship, how-to escape what he supposes to be his own
ever, could stop the literary movement perverse nature. Escaping from "dread-
started by Moravia. ful freedom" into the staunchest possible
The hero of The Indifferent wanted atkind of conformism, he becomes an agent
all cost to escape from his aimlessnessof the Fascist secret police, and this, in
into a definite action that would provethe end, leads him precisely to treachery
both that his passions were authentic andand murder.

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 ITALIAN LITERATURE 241

Finally, "errors" to
sensuality iswhich he was supposed
a steady theto
with Itconfess.
Moravia.
should Having read
more it, Silone said: "I
accura
be called lasciviousness,
don't believe a word ofsince
this. I can't the
sign."
nothing pagan or To which
joyful the answer was: "If Mora
about you be-
lust. Desire and flesh are
lieved in this, simply
what would the
be the point of
certitudes his
askingcharacters; of
you to sign it?" the r
This exchangeis
especially moral values, could be taken as the
fundamen
unreal to them. But,
starting point then, exactly
of Silone's career as a nov-
cause herein lies elist.
theirThe truth he could not assert
only truth,as a se
political man
pleasure leads them he would from to
neither then on ex-
joy n
clarity. In fact, pressit in thecan be accepte
form of written apologues.
"natural" and almost
Forced as he redeem
was into inaction, heitself
would o
in a creature of flesh and elemental feel- not waste time in arguing ideological
ings like the prostitute of The Woman ofpoints and fighting the battles of sects
Rome. and splinter groups. He would just de-
Moravia's realism, and even "materi- scribe the life of the people whose needs
alism," which has brought upon his ideologies and party tactics claimed to
works the condemnation of the Catholic express and satisfy. He would give realis-
church, is ultimately based on moraltic examples of both and let the contrast
wondering and anguish. This is whatbetween truth and Machiavellian schem-
makes his stories so significant and ing manifest itself.
"modern." Silone's first novel, Fontamara,4 was
about fascism, not communism. It was
It would he hard to imagine a writer
more different from Moravia than the Ig- story of village peasants driven to
nazio Silone. Compared to him, Moraviaunemployment and misery by the des-
looks almost like an "ivory-tower" writ-
potism of the big landowner, who forbids
them to use the water of a brook which
er. Silone is the only one among contem-
could quench the thirst of their arid
porary Italian novelists who has been
personally involved in the great ideologi- plots. Government power is, of course,
cal strifes of our time and who has made behind the landowner. The peasants who
of these the theme of his fiction. If "so- go to the big city to look for jobs are put
cialist realism" were not an ambiguous in jail as subversives. Fascism is never
propaganda slogan, Silone would be thementioned in the book, and the meaning
only contemporary writer to whom the of the silence is double. On the one hand,
formula could be applied. Silone refuses to be polemical; he just
Silone was a Communist until 1929, wants to describe. On the other hand,
occupying an important position in the fascism for him, as well as for his peas-
International. In 1929 he broke with the ants, is nothing new, just another gov-
party over the issue of absolute obedi-ernment, another way of ignoring reality
ence to Moscow and went to live in through bureaucracy and big words. So-
Switzerland. There one day an emissary cialism and communism are not men-
of the party came to visit him in order tioned
to either; ideological questions mean
persuade him to make his apology and at all to those poor people if they
nothing
beg for readmission. To make thingsdon't easy mean actual relief from injustice.
and quick, the man submitted a written "*English translation published by Harper &
document to Silone containing the list of
Brothers.

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 242 THE ENGLISH 7O URNAL

In Bread and Wine (1936)

the peasant Silone
world which raised
is the subject
and, one might
the question of the relation say, the main the
between character
party, with its dogmas of allandhis novels. He knows very
"lines," and well that
peasant life. Pietro theSpina,
primitive an life ofalready
his mountain peas-
wavering underground antsCommunist,
and village dwellers cannottrav- be given
els through his nativeascountryside
an example of what the hiding
world at large
his true identity undershouldabecome. What fascinates
priest's frock. him in
At every encounter withthose people real is the permanence
people and of their
way of life, between
their problems, the contrast of their customs, the- of their
ories and political calculations,
morality. They are noton one
endowed with vir-
side, and living society, on the
tues superior other,
to those be-
of the city dwellers,
comes more evident. butThere they have isendured
never any
and remained en-
open discussion of the tirely issue,
themselves however-
through the ages. Poor,
only the irony of plainignorant, abandoned as they are, they
confrontation.
The essence of Silone's realism,
have unwittingly already
preserved the sense of
present in the form ofwhat is permanent,
a bitter sensenay, of
eternal,
the in life,
grotesque in Fontamara, is fully
that which should notrevealed
be given up for ab-
in Bread and Wine. The reader
stractions. is, in
The truth fact,
of the peasants is
inevitably reminded of rusticanother
and inarticulate. famous
But they remain,
journey through real and allsociety: Gogol's
else changes. They are composed
of necessity; all
Dead Souls, with its powerful else, of doubt,
mixture of chance,
irony and anguish. Whenand cunning. Pietro Spina's
journey is over, dogmas Hereandlies thetactical
root of Silone'scun-
"realism"
ning have vanished aswithout
well as of his "socialism."
leaving Silone is
aa
trace. What the lonely hero
realist has
because learned
of the deliberate is
simplici-
that there is very little left
ty of his among
narration and thehis
plainness of
people that can offerhis a style-a
ground plainness
for which,
hope at times,
except the Christian tradition makes the sophisticated reader feel un-
so deeply
rooted in the hearts of the humble. The comfortable, as though the author were
symbol of this is Don Benedetto, a rathernot really addressing him but an invis-
unorthodox old country priest for whomible audience of poor laborers and village
Christianity, the need for justice, and the people. This is, in fact, the audience
hope that the reign of force will some day Silone the socialist has in mind. His so-
cease are indissoluble tenets of the same cialism stems from his recollection of the
faith. In The Seed beneath the Snow (1942) intricate reality of peasant life, where
Silone tried to give an even simpler sym-justice is not an abstract idea but a daily
bol of his hope, expressing it in the figure need like "bread and wine"; and, like
of the dumb peasant and his donkey, thebread and wine, it is to be obtained
only creatures in which the still-wander-through personal toil rather than through
ing Pietro Spina, hunted by the police, the complicated workings of a bureau-
can put his trust. cratic machinery.
Silone's real symbol, however, is nei- Silone's latest novel, A Handful of
ther Christian tradition nor the simplici-Blackberries, whose English translation
ty and purity of the inarticulate: It is the will be published shortly, centers on a
peasant community itself. Silone doesforest which more than a century ago be-
not have any particular admiration for longed to a peasant community but

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 IT.ALIA N LITERA T URE 243
which through trickery tocame into
the problems of the
the forgotten people of
southern
possession of the Tarocchi, Italy. In any case, Carlo Levi
a powerful
local family. The peasants haveshares
completely never Silone's view that the
forgotten this and have always
problem evaluated
of southern misery puts in ques-
the political changes that tion
have notoccurred
only Fascist methods but the
by what happened to the woodland.
very structure of the Italian centralized
Nothing happened to the woodland
state and couldfor a solved either by
not be
hundred years; it remained going securely in liberalism or by
back to pre-Fascist
the hands of the Tarocchi. Political
a wholesale application of the Marxist
changes, including the fall of fascism,
panacea.
have meant nothing to the people. Thus,
Carlo Levi is a medical doctor, a paint-
the peasants did not deem it necessary er, a to
writer, and a very sophisticated in-
honor this event by bringing out of tellectual.
hid- This already suggests the
ing the trumpet which before fascism peculiar quality of his realism. Levi is a
they used for summoning the village to one might say, in so far as the ar-
realist,
collective discussions and action. Under tist in him sees man and his surroundings
fascism, when the laborers' union was with the clinical eye of the man of sci-
disbanded, the trumpet had been careful- ence, while the man of science is endowed
ly concealed. Now the Communists want with the vision of the poet and of the
this symbolic instrument, declaring humanist. Christ Stopped at Eboli is first
themselves its legitimate inheritors. Butof all a faithful account of what the
how can their claim be recognized author
as saw and understood during the
legitimate, since they have deemed it ex-
months he spent in one of the most dere-
lict regions of Italy, Lucania, where the
pedient to come to terms with the Taroc-
Fascist police had confined him on ac-
chi family? Therefore, after having re-
appeared for a brief moment duringcount a of his oppositional activities. The
final result is the discovery that those
popular tumult, the trumpet is once more
placed in hiding. To this essential and
backward populations have a culture of
typical theme, Silone has added a de-their own, based on immemorial tradi-
scription of the customs and tacticstions
of and an equally immemorial poverty.
the Communist party in post-Fascist This culture is what Carlo Levi sets out
Italy. This he has done through the story
to describe in its everyday context with
of the clash between two party members the care of an anthropologist and the cre-
and the official "line." The clash that ative sympathy of an artist. No socio-
truly interests Silone, however, is not logical
the or economic survey, and no politi-
one between the party and the heretics cal essay, however brilliant, could have
but rather between the senseless artifices
made people in Italy and abroad more
of the political machinery and the incor-
keenly aware of the problems of Lucania
ruptible simplicity of the people them-
than this diary rich in portraits, anec-
selves. dotes, sketches, and incidental essays.
One might wonder whether Carlo
The reader of Christ Stopped at Eboli has
Levi's very successful Christ Stopped no
at difficulty in accepting the author's
contention
Eboli (1946)5 would have been written at that his Lucanians have been
all if Silone's novels had not attracted theconstantly by-passed by history. No so-
attention of the anti-Fascist intellectuals cial undertaking can have real meaning if
6 Published by Farrar, Straus & Young. it leaves these peasants untouched. Thus,

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244 THE ENGLISH 7O URNAL

cato dialogue,
Levi's realism is, in more than and aonenarration
way, resting ex-
clusively on significant gesture or act.
political realism as well.
In Carlo Levi's next The
book,hero, a The
young Sicilian
Watch living in Mi-
lan, goes backmythology
(1950), the author's political to his native town for a
visit todichotomy.
is defined in a clear-cut his mother; his is a journey
The back
to the starkare
opposite species of Italians realities of life inLevi
two, a destitute
little Italian
says: the contadini (the town. No reader
word could escape
fornotic-
peasants), who are not ing that Vittorini's
only the book implied a rejec-
primi-
tion of the Fascist outlook no less radical
tives of his first book but "all men who
make things, create them, and are con- than Silone's or Levi's. In the books he
tent with them"; and the Luigini (from wrote after the war, Vittorini's antifas-
the name of Don Luigini, the mayor of cism became explicit and, in fact, took a
the village described in Christ Stopped atleftist turn. In Men and Not (1946)6 the
Eboli), who are the bureaucratic mob: imitation of Hemingway becomes haunt-
employees of the state and the banks, theing. An episode of the Resistance struggle
military, the magistrates, the lawyers, in Milan is narrated with a syncopated
the police," and such unproductive go-technique, in a series of frantic dialogues,
betweens. occasionally interrupted by flashbacks of
As far as structure goes, The Watch isthe stream-of-consciousness type. Vit-
a very loose book. It is a string of remi-torini's latest novel, The Women of Mes-
niscences of the period following Italy'ssina (1949), a story about the hardships
liberation-the years of the great disen- of Sicilian women falling back on their
chantment. The social disorder that fol- village after a long odyssey through
lowed the last war in Italy is not withoutItaly, insists on similar experimental de-
redeeming features, in Levi's eyes. The vices. Vittorini seems to feel that narra-
best chapters of the book are two. One tive realism depends on the discovery of
describes in a melancholic vein the dis- an appropriate up-to-date style. This jus-
missal of Premier Ferruccio Parris, the tifies the suspicion that in this writer we
leader of the Resistance movement, un-meet the old Italian man of letters in re-
der the pressure of the Christian Demo-verse: the style must at all costs be
crats on one side and the Communists onbroken; the dialogue can bear no syntax;
the other. This was obviously, in Carlo the plot must never unfold along regular
Levi's mind, a victory of the Luigini. lines; and passions can never be allowed
The other excellent chapter describes the to appear below their highest pitch.
irrepressible zest for life of the Neapoli- Of Vasco Pratolini, the author of the
tan populace, their resourcefulness, their
successful A Tale of Poor Lovers (1947),7
humor, their resilience against all odds.it must be said at once that he is a Tus-
The contadini, one is forced to conclude,can and a storyteller in the Tuscan tradi-
are pretty much alive. tion. This tradition has not dried up since
With Elio Vittorini we come to a verythe happy times of Boccaccio. In the last
literary kind of realism. In Sicily (1941)century, however, it was tinged with a
appeared in this country a decade aftervein of resigned sentimentality. A Tale of
Poor Lovers is the chronicle of a street in
its Italian publication, with a preface by
Ernest Hemingway. The style of the
R Published by New Directions.
book reflected a strong influence of Hem-
ingway's writing: slang expressions, stac- ' Published by Viking.

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 ITALIAN LITERATURE 245

the slum novel are

section of adolescents
Florence,caught in the a s
sad storms of war
adolescences, and disorder. Times
daily are
hardshi
hard and dangerous,
short-lived hopes. The and plotthere is is
no waythi
the atmosphere to be
is "choosy":
firm. prostitution, theft, mur-
Pratolini
vincing as longder, as are everyday
he avoids occurrences. The gist
drawi
clusions, organizing
of the novel is the events,
young people's toler- or
judgment on them.ance of evil and
His their pity
are for suffering
series
ful and delicate and
sketches
their aspiration to rather
moral order. Itthais
fledged novels. Inthat
doubtful A this Hero
aspiration risesofabove Ou
(1949) Pratolinithehas tried idealism
kind of starry-eyed to so write
wide-
pletely politicalspread novel
in Italy after theby war andgiving
which
type of the youngfell such an easy"neo-Fascis
prey to Communist in-
portrait remains doctrination. In Giuseppe Berto's second in
unconvincing
as it is based onnovel,the moralistic
The Brigand (1951)9 (The Works as
tion that those of God,who are
published prior to it, corru
is a novel-
naive, and therefore
ette of little significance),
cannot this idealism
be so
becomes extreme.As
are Fascist instead. The heroof
is a veteran
today
lini is at his best inbyhis
who, compelled novelet
social and political
circumstances to become
which a good example isa sort
The of out- Girl
law, finds moral
Frediano, published redemption in assigning
recently by th
to his actions
national magazine a "progressive" meaning.
Botteghe Oscur
What is usually meant
Here, a certain by "ne
felicity of description is
ism" when this term
marred by the rosy is applied
falseness of the gener- b
literary fiction
al conception.
and to a certain
motion pictures is
These are a more
the foremost among or less
the nar-
mixture of straight
rators of the youngerreportage
generation who,
manitarian feelings. Of have
after the Fascist eclipse, thisagain at-ten
Giuseppe Bertotracted
isthe a
attention
good of the outside world
represen
Berto's best novel, The Sky Is Red to Italian literature.10 The earnestness of
(1947),8 is about life in a northern Italiantheir effort and the persistence of the
town during the period following the col-trend allow the observer to predict that
lapse of fascism and the liberation. Its"realism," the will to express the human
author, however, conceived it and wrotecondition in the simple language of the
it in an American prison camp in Texas; everyday, is much more than a literary
his painstaking description of Italy infashion in contemporary Italy.
that period is in fact an imaginary re-
Published by Prentice-Hall.
portage or at least an extrapolation of
10 Two young writers of originality whose works
previous experience. The heroes of this have recently appeared and who are not realists are
Elsa Morante (A House of Liars [1948]) and Italo
8 Published by New Directions. Calvino (The Viscount Cut in Two [1952]).

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