There was an excellent Italian movie made of the novel around 1980 I saw on a big screen at the time (then read the novel). I happen to be in grad school at the time and studied the brutal oppression and destruction of southern Italy in the 15th through the 17th centuries. The movie conveys the burden on people of living all those centuries of "history". Hard-hitting.
I was moved to read this novel by H. Stuart Hughes' survey of 20th century Italian Jewish novelists, Prisoners of Hope: The Silver Age of the Italian Jews, 1924–1974 which also covered work by Italo Svevo, Alberto Moravia, Primo Levi, Natalia Ginzburg and Giorgio Bassani. Of these, the two whom I found consistently compelling were Ginzburg and Primo Levi. I think in particular of Ginzburg's seemingly artless novel of wartime conditions under Fascism, A Light For Fools, also published as All Our Yesterdays; and Levi's memoir of his odyssey from Auschwitz to his Turin home, published as The Truce and The Reawakening. But both authors published a number of engaging works, fiction and non-ficition alike.
What I have sometimes recalled from Christ Stopped At Eboli is his description of a street scene played out whenever two of the gentry meet: "What did you have for dinner [last night]?" Might it have been a bid to one-up the interlocutor? I'd have to reread it.
My own favorite readings dealing with extreme proverty in southern Italy are the Sicilian novels and especially the stories of the later 19th century writer Giovanni Verga. Little Novels Of Sicily, translated by D. H. Lawrence, is a fine sampling. (I found Lawrence's translation of Verga's novel Mastro-don Gesualdo less successful than Giovanni Cecchetti's.) Verga, an exponent of Verismo, wrote the story that was the basis of Mascagni's one act verismo opera Cavalleria Rusticana.
There was an excellent Italian movie made of the novel around 1980 I saw on a big screen at the time (then read the novel). I happen to be in grad school at the time and studied the brutal oppression and destruction of southern Italy in the 15th through the 17th centuries. The movie conveys the burden on people of living all those centuries of "history". Hard-hitting.
Yes, great book, and do see the film recommended by Greg Williams. It's excellent and gives yu a feel for the setting.
I was moved to read this novel by H. Stuart Hughes' survey of 20th century Italian Jewish novelists, Prisoners of Hope: The Silver Age of the Italian Jews, 1924–1974 which also covered work by Italo Svevo, Alberto Moravia, Primo Levi, Natalia Ginzburg and Giorgio Bassani. Of these, the two whom I found consistently compelling were Ginzburg and Primo Levi. I think in particular of Ginzburg's seemingly artless novel of wartime conditions under Fascism, A Light For Fools, also published as All Our Yesterdays; and Levi's memoir of his odyssey from Auschwitz to his Turin home, published as The Truce and The Reawakening. But both authors published a number of engaging works, fiction and non-ficition alike.
What I have sometimes recalled from Christ Stopped At Eboli is his description of a street scene played out whenever two of the gentry meet: "What did you have for dinner [last night]?" Might it have been a bid to one-up the interlocutor? I'd have to reread it.
My own favorite readings dealing with extreme proverty in southern Italy are the Sicilian novels and especially the stories of the later 19th century writer Giovanni Verga. Little Novels Of Sicily, translated by D. H. Lawrence, is a fine sampling. (I found Lawrence's translation of Verga's novel Mastro-don Gesualdo less successful than Giovanni Cecchetti's.) Verga, an exponent of Verismo, wrote the story that was the basis of Mascagni's one act verismo opera Cavalleria Rusticana.
Christ Stopped At Eboli is at the Internet Archive (free registration required) at https://archive.org/details/storyofyearchris0000carl/mode/1up.
A Light For Foos is at the Internet Archive (free registration required) at https://archive.org/details/lightforfools00ginz/mode/1up
The Reawakening is at the Internet Archive (free registration required) at https://archive.org/details/reawakening00levi/mode/1up
Little Novels Of Sicily is at the Internet Archive (free registration required) at https://archive.org/details/bwb_P8-APO-588/mode/1up
By the way, those who like this book would probably like this too: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/One-Hundred-Saturdays/Michael-Frank/9781982167233