I do not know Italian literature as well as his films. Among the classics, I could not bear never read "The Bride " Manzoni. Most modern authors, I read with pleasure or sorrow, according to authors and works, Lampedusa, Pavese, Buzzati, Moravia, Sciascia, Pirandello, Bassani, Italo Calvino and someone else, but nonetheless acknowledge that my shortcomings in Italian literature are large .
Lately I have had occasion to meet one of these absences by reading the work of Carlo Levi " Christ Stopped at Eboli" 1 of which was made in 1978, a film version, directed by Francesco Rossi, Gian Maria Volonte as the protagonist, I saw that if I do not remember.
Carlo Levi (Turin, 1902 - Rome 1975), was a writer, physician and Jewish painter who, in 1935, due to clashes with the Fascist authorities, was confined in a small town in the province of Matera " Basilicata Lucania. There in a peasant society, surrounded by misery and disease vigilado por la pequeña burguesía, decide ayudar a la población con la práctica de la medicina. Esto le permitirá descubrir un mundo antiguo, el de los campesinos, enfrentado con el “mundo civilizado” representado por las autoridades de Roma. Liberado en 1936, todavía tendrá que permanecer escondido en Roma durante la ocupación nazi de los años 1943 y 1944. En este tiempo es cuando escribe su obra mas famosa “ Cristo si è fermato a Eboli ”, Einaudi, Turín 1945, traducida a numerosos idiomas.
Esta obra que hoy comentamos, recreación de las vivencias del exilio del autor en la localidad de Aliano (Gagliano, in fiction) was important for Italian society, due to the "discovery" of the southern problem, hitherto unknown or distorted by the Northern Italy.
South The problem, writes Levi, is not simply the problem of the state. It is a very complex problem there - writes Levi " three different aspects which are the three faces of one reality and that can not be understood or resolved separately ." First there are two opposing civilizations for centuries " none of which is able to assimilate the other " peasant civilization and Roman state theocracy. "Of the two Italys que viven juntas en la misma tierra, la de los campesinos es, desde luego, la mas antigua, no se sabe de donde procede, tal vez haya existido siempre ”.
El segundo aspecto es el económico, “ el problema de la miseria ” causado en esas tierras por un Estado “ que nunca será el de los campesinos y que para estos solo ha creado miseria y desierto ”. Los campesinos consideran al Estado como un mal inevitable, semejante al granizo, los desprendimientos, la sequía o el paludismo. Por último está la vertiente social del problema. “ El verdadero enemigo, el que impide toda libertad y toda posibilidad de existencia civil a los peasants, the petty bourgeoisie of the towns [the teacher paid positions, pharmacist, priest, police sergeant and others] ... while not remove and replace this class can not think of solving the problem South. "
Only a new model of State to release farmers' his forced anarchy and indifference necessary "may solve the problem. This new form of state is called autonomy. The state can only be a set of autonomous, but not limited to municipal autonomy "autonomy rural town can not exist without the autonomy of the factories schools, cities, of all branches of social life. "
This analysis, in which criticism is not going to get will be the first time in a long history that Levi will continue to develop throughout their lives and other works, and is constructed through a narrative that oscillates between autobiography The daily and historical reflection. Christ Stopped at Eboli, (perhaps better to say "never entered"), " neither the time nor the individual soul, nor hope, nor the relationship between cause and effect, reason and history ."
The people of "containment" or Gagliano Aliano, " a very small town and away from roads and Men" offers a landscape that looks almost African, which still impresses. A current Aliano video shows a clay territory, "calanchi" I think they call it, with no trees or rocks, weathered by the sun and the rain that break the clay and makes it slide " down like a torrent "dragging everything above it. Here, in this sad forsaken place of God and men, banished Levi spent a few months, between 1935 and 1936. Before two months had passed Grassano containment, but as this population was a railway junction, the fascist authorities thought that there was a flight risk by those who considered a dangerous subversive. In the gallery of Aliano keep historical records of that confinement and numerous paintings by Levi during his enforced stay in the population.
One of these pictures is that of Julia, the woman who cared for the house, so brilliantly described :
" Giulia was tall and good guy, with a thin waist like a pitcher, between the chest and hips robust. Should have been in his youth a barbaric and solemn beauty. He and his face wrinkled by years malaria and yellow, but retained the old signals in its structure venustez severe, as in the walls of a classical temple that had lost the marbles that adorned, but not its shape and proportions. Imposing on the large body erect, exhaling an animal force, stood, veiled, an oval head and elongated. The forehead was high and straight, half covered by a tuft of black hair, smooth and bright hazel eyes, black and opaque white were lined by blue veins and Carmelites, like dogs. The nose was long and thin, slightly arched, the mouth wide and thin lips and pale, with a bitter grin, opened with a evil laugh to show two rows of white teeth, powerful like a wolf. That face had a very strong archaic, not in the sense of classicism of Greek and Roman antiquity but a more mysterious and cruel, grown always in the same land, or mixtures with unrelated men, but linked to the cube and animal deities. They saw in it a cool sensuality, a dark irony, natural cruelty, arrogance and passivity impenetrable full of power, which came together in an expression at once stern, intelligent and evil. With the wave of the leaflets and short wide skirt, with long strong legs like tree trunks, that great body moved with slow movements, balanced and full of force and on that basis harmonious monumental and maternal carrying, upright, and fierce, his little black snakehead. "
Levi does not hide his empathy with the rural world and stops to tell us their customs, how they live, their troubles and rivalries, revelry and superstition, to set rates and settings, always with a deep respect for the individual.
I remembered reading this book internal exile who were forced many of those attending the Congress in Munich (7 and 8 June 1962), called by the Francoist 'Munich conspiracy. " Upon his return, many of the attendees from Spain, about eighty, according Tusell 2, were "invited" to choose between exile abroad or be inthe confined to the islands of Fuerteventura (long tradition in these cases, like Unamuno, during the stage primoriverista) and Iron . It is possible that other attendees were confined to remote areas far from their residence. I have thought of having read in a Sunday magazine a short story about the internal exile, but I can not remember author or circumstances.
Returning to the work that we discussed, I think is required reading, highly recommended for everyone, young and old, and a book to have in the library, be it conventional or digital something, the latter, whose use was still not got used . ©
Manuel Martínez Bargueño
January, 2011
Lately I have had occasion to meet one of these absences by reading the work of Carlo Levi " Christ Stopped at Eboli" 1 of which was made in 1978, a film version, directed by Francesco Rossi, Gian Maria Volonte as the protagonist, I saw that if I do not remember. Carlo Levi (Turin, 1902 - Rome 1975), was a writer, physician and Jewish painter who, in 1935, due to clashes with the Fascist authorities, was confined in a small town in the province of Matera " Basilicata Lucania. There in a peasant society, surrounded by misery and disease vigilado por la pequeña burguesía, decide ayudar a la población con la práctica de la medicina. Esto le permitirá descubrir un mundo antiguo, el de los campesinos, enfrentado con el “mundo civilizado” representado por las autoridades de Roma. Liberado en 1936, todavía tendrá que permanecer escondido en Roma durante la ocupación nazi de los años 1943 y 1944. En este tiempo es cuando escribe su obra mas famosa “ Cristo si è fermato a Eboli ”, Einaudi, Turín 1945, traducida a numerosos idiomas.
Esta obra que hoy comentamos, recreación de las vivencias del exilio del autor en la localidad de Aliano (Gagliano, in fiction) was important for Italian society, due to the "discovery" of the southern problem, hitherto unknown or distorted by the Northern Italy. South The problem, writes Levi, is not simply the problem of the state. It is a very complex problem there - writes Levi " three different aspects which are the three faces of one reality and that can not be understood or resolved separately ." First there are two opposing civilizations for centuries " none of which is able to assimilate the other " peasant civilization and Roman state theocracy. "Of the two Italys que viven juntas en la misma tierra, la de los campesinos es, desde luego, la mas antigua, no se sabe de donde procede, tal vez haya existido siempre ”.
El segundo aspecto es el económico, “ el problema de la miseria ” causado en esas tierras por un Estado “ que nunca será el de los campesinos y que para estos solo ha creado miseria y desierto ”. Los campesinos consideran al Estado como un mal inevitable, semejante al granizo, los desprendimientos, la sequía o el paludismo. Por último está la vertiente social del problema. “ El verdadero enemigo, el que impide toda libertad y toda posibilidad de existencia civil a los peasants, the petty bourgeoisie of the towns [the teacher paid positions, pharmacist, priest, police sergeant and others] ... while not remove and replace this class can not think of solving the problem South. "
Only a new model of State to release farmers' his forced anarchy and indifference necessary "may solve the problem. This new form of state is called autonomy. The state can only be a set of autonomous, but not limited to municipal autonomy "autonomy rural town can not exist without the autonomy of the factories schools, cities, of all branches of social life. "
This analysis, in which criticism is not going to get will be the first time in a long history that Levi will continue to develop throughout their lives and other works, and is constructed through a narrative that oscillates between autobiography The daily and historical reflection. Christ Stopped at Eboli, (perhaps better to say "never entered"), " neither the time nor the individual soul, nor hope, nor the relationship between cause and effect, reason and history ."
The people of "containment" or Gagliano Aliano, " a very small town and away from roads and Men" offers a landscape that looks almost African, which still impresses. A current Aliano video shows a clay territory, "calanchi" I think they call it, with no trees or rocks, weathered by the sun and the rain that break the clay and makes it slide " down like a torrent "dragging everything above it. Here, in this sad forsaken place of God and men, banished Levi spent a few months, between 1935 and 1936. Before two months had passed Grassano containment, but as this population was a railway junction, the fascist authorities thought that there was a flight risk by those who considered a dangerous subversive. In the gallery of Aliano keep historical records of that confinement and numerous paintings by Levi during his enforced stay in the population. One of these pictures is that of Julia, the woman who cared for the house, so brilliantly described :
" Giulia was tall and good guy, with a thin waist like a pitcher, between the chest and hips robust. Should have been in his youth a barbaric and solemn beauty. He and his face wrinkled by years malaria and yellow, but retained the old signals in its structure venustez severe, as in the walls of a classical temple that had lost the marbles that adorned, but not its shape and proportions. Imposing on the large body erect, exhaling an animal force, stood, veiled, an oval head and elongated. The forehead was high and straight, half covered by a tuft of black hair, smooth and bright hazel eyes, black and opaque white were lined by blue veins and Carmelites, like dogs. The nose was long and thin, slightly arched, the mouth wide and thin lips and pale, with a bitter grin, opened with a evil laugh to show two rows of white teeth, powerful like a wolf. That face had a very strong archaic, not in the sense of classicism of Greek and Roman antiquity but a more mysterious and cruel, grown always in the same land, or mixtures with unrelated men, but linked to the cube and animal deities. They saw in it a cool sensuality, a dark irony, natural cruelty, arrogance and passivity impenetrable full of power, which came together in an expression at once stern, intelligent and evil. With the wave of the leaflets and short wide skirt, with long strong legs like tree trunks, that great body moved with slow movements, balanced and full of force and on that basis harmonious monumental and maternal carrying, upright, and fierce, his little black snakehead. " Levi does not hide his empathy with the rural world and stops to tell us their customs, how they live, their troubles and rivalries, revelry and superstition, to set rates and settings, always with a deep respect for the individual.
I remembered reading this book internal exile who were forced many of those attending the Congress in Munich (7 and 8 June 1962), called by the Francoist 'Munich conspiracy. " Upon his return, many of the attendees from Spain, about eighty, according Tusell 2, were "invited" to choose between exile abroad or be inthe confined to the islands of Fuerteventura (long tradition in these cases, like Unamuno, during the stage primoriverista) and Iron . It is possible that other attendees were confined to remote areas far from their residence. I have thought of having read in a Sunday magazine a short story about the internal exile, but I can not remember author or circumstances.
Returning to the work that we discussed, I think is required reading, highly recommended for everyone, young and old, and a book to have in the library, be it conventional or digital something, the latter, whose use was still not got used . ©
Manuel Martínez Bargueño
January, 2011
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Gracias.Manuelblas
NOTES
1. Carlo Levi. " Christ Stopped at Eboli ." Translated by Carlos Manzano. Gadir 2005.
2. Xavier Tusell " The democratic opposition to Franco" . Espejo of Spain 31. Editorial Planeta. Barcelona, \u200b\u200b1977, p. 393.
NOTES
1. Carlo Levi. " Christ Stopped at Eboli ." Translated by Carlos Manzano. Gadir 2005.
2. Xavier Tusell " The democratic opposition to Franco" . Espejo of Spain 31. Editorial Planeta. Barcelona, \u200b\u200b1977, p. 393.
