Figlio di una tessitrice e di un piccolo proprietario terriero, perde assai presto il padre e la madre, nel terremoto che nel gennaio del 鈥�15 distrugge gran parte della Marsica. Interrotti gli studi liceali, si d脿 alla politica quale socialista attivo e prende parte alle lotte contro la guerra e al movimento operaio rivoluzionario; nel 1921 partecipa a Livorno alla fondazione del Partito Comunista (che rappresenta a Mosca, con Togliatti, nel Komintern), ma se ne stacca nel 1930, in disaccordo con le purghe staliniane. Antifascista, resta in esilio in Svizzera dal 1930 al 1945, anni durante i quali matura la sua vocazione di scrittore. Pubblicato in traduzione tedesca a Zurigo nel 1933, 鈥淔ontamara鈥� 猫 il suo romanzo d鈥檈sordio, che lo impone all鈥� attenzione generale: oltre ad essere una straordinaria analisi della cultura centro-meridionale, 鈥渦n documento su una civilt脿 ormai definitivamente morta鈥� (Fofi), 猫 pure con ogni probabilit脿 il pi霉 bel libro sui contadini italiani che sia mai stato scritto. Il successivo 鈥淧ane e vino鈥� del 鈥�36 riprende, in una chiave pi霉 sentimentale, meno ironica, i temi del fortunato predecessore, laddove 鈥淚l seme sotto la neve鈥� (1942) sembra stazionare tra manierismo e ritualit脿. Frattanto, nel periodo 1932-'34 egli 猫 redattore del mensile in lingua tedesca, edito a Zurigo, 芦Information禄, cui collaborano artisti ed intellettuali del calibro di Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Robert Musil. Fiorente, pure, la sua attivit脿 saggistico-culturale, che annovera il saggio 鈥淚l fascismo, le sue origini e il suo sviluppo鈥� (1934) ed il trattato di filosofia politica 鈥淟a scuola dei dittatori鈥� (1938). Nel 1944, rientrato in Italia, si stabilisce a Roma, ove aderisce al Partito Socialista Italiano di Unit脿 Proletaria. La sua produzione letteraria continua con il lavoro teatrale 鈥淓d egli si nascose鈥� (1944) e con i romanzi 鈥淯na manciata di more鈥� (1952), 鈥淚l segreto di Luca鈥� (1956), 鈥淟a volpe e le camelie鈥� (1960): meno originali dei precedenti, pi霉 legati ad un modello di letteratura tardo-ottocentesca, esprimono una sorta di conversione del nostro, che approda qui ai lidi di un socialismo ibridato col cristianesimo. Di grandissimo interesse, invece, 鈥淯scita di sicurezza鈥� (1965), raccolta di saggi politici in cui egli racconta il doloroso travaglio che lo condusse infine a distaccarsi dall鈥� ideologia comunista, e 鈥淟鈥檃vventura di un povero cristiano鈥� (1968), sua ultima fatica apparsa in vita, un intrigante romanzo - saggio incentrato sulla figura di papa Celestino V, in seguito trasformato in testo teatrale. Ebbe a dire di lui Albert Camus: "Guardate Silone. Egli 猫 radicalmente legato alla sua terra, eppure 猫 talmente europeo".
Brot und Wein = Pane e vino = Bread and Wine (The Abruzzo Trilogy #2), Ignazio Silone
Bread and Wine is an anti-fascist and anti-Stalinist novel written by Ignazio Silone.
It was finished while the author was in exile from Benito Mussolini's Italy. It was first published in 1936 in a German language edition in Switzerland as Brot und Wein, and in an English translation in London later the same year. An Italian version, Pane e vino, did not appear until 1937.
Bread and wine is the story of intellectuals who want to get somewhere, as well as frustrated intellectuals, frustrated intellectuals and compromising intellectuals. The inner struggles of human beings who are in search of a better and more humane world.
A carpenter, or a farmer, in an authoritarian regime, may adapt to the status quo, and do his job; But, it is not an escape for an intellectual, he must either surrender and come under the ruling banner, or he must give in to hunger and disgrace, and be killed at the first opportunity.
I think this book sets a personal record for me: I finally read it after it had been on my TBR shelf for more than 40 years!
This is a novel of the Italian resistance to fascism set in Italy in the mid-1930鈥檚. A revolutionary hunted by the authorities (as was the author) has returned to the country disguised as a priest. The real political action is in Rome but, emaciated and sickly (probably from tuberculosis), the rebel is hiding out in the countryside 鈥� still a land of poor peasants, donkeys and ox-carts. The area is the Abruzzi, a hilly region in central Italy due east of Rome but considered culturally part of southern Italy. As part of his disguise he coats his face in iodine to create wrinkles to look older.
He avoids priestly duties despite demands for him to hear confessions and preside over baptisms. When he is coerced into some priestly action, he has good luck. He makes a life-long friend of a young woman on her death bed (from an illegal abortion) to whom he administers last rites; but she survives. He has an eye for the women including a married peasant and a wealthy lady. He makes a poor priest. If you irritate him his spiritual advice to you might be 鈥淕o to hell.鈥�
We learn a lot about the peasants, their poverty, politics and religion.
鈥溾€he poor people whose capacity for suffering and resignation was truly without limit. They were used to living in isolation, ignorance, diffidence and the sterile hatred of one family for another.鈥� Their lives are so hard that many have been disfigured and you can tell what kind of work they do by their disfigurement: stooped from mines, lame from heavy labor, bow-legged from harvesting on hillsides or 鈥榳all-eyed鈥� (abnormally white eyes) from years of work with furnaces.
On religion:
The church is for the government and the wealthy, not the people. A wealthy woman says: 鈥淪ocial inequalities were created by God and we must humbly respect them.鈥� Some peasants accept this perspective and our rebel despairs at the peasants鈥� lack of political capacity. 鈥淧olitics is a luxury reserved for the well-fed.鈥� There鈥檚 a lot of talk of inequities and inefficiencies in the land system that serves to keep the poor peasants poor, and the rich landowners rich. There鈥檚 sarcasm about the economic system: 鈥淔inally, to make his fortune, he contracted some important debts and declare himself bankrupt.鈥�
One character says: 鈥淚 think religion does for women what salt does for pork. It keeps up the freshness and savor.鈥� Religion is mixed with superstition. The people particularly fear earthquakes. The priest鈥檚 landlady is desperate to have him stay at her house as a talisman against another earthquake. People remember the tremendous earthquake twenty years before (in 1915) in the Abruzzi region that killed 35,000 people.
When he arrives in a small village, the local witch/herbalist fears him as 鈥榗ompetition鈥� until she learns he鈥檚 not authorized to carry out his priestly duties. One old woman crawls up the church floor keeping her tongue to the ground, leaving a glistening trail like a snail.
But there are also some good priests. He visits an old priest, a retired teacher who gathers former pupils in his home. All were idealistic rebels as young boys and the priest encouraged such thinking. But now some are rebels and some are wealthy fascists and even spies for the government.
On politics:
Spoken by those in charge of preparing for a fascist rally: 鈥淲e鈥檒l have to have some policemen on the trucks, so that the people will know that they have to come spontaneously.鈥�
The main character is disgusted by the Italian war against Ethiopia. Yet the war was supported by many peasants because the fascist government paid a stipend to soldiers鈥� mothers. They were so poor that some women prayed for the war to continue.
鈥淭he country seems to have been divided not into just two different political parties but two different humanities.鈥� (Shades of the current political situation in the USA?)
The main character (as did the author) left the communist party because he felt it become as self-serving as the church and that it had come to represent 鈥榬ed fascism:鈥� 鈥溾€as not the organization itself become the supreme value?鈥�
There鈥檚 good writing: 鈥淪he did this with a tiny little voice and a fearful smile which looked as if it had been prepared behind the door and held in place with some pins.鈥�
The book reminds me a lot of Italo Calvino鈥檚 novel of the Italian resistance, The Path to the Spiders鈥� Nests. As Calvino did, the author gives a preface about how and why he revised the book in 1955 after it was originally written in 1937.
Photos from grandvoyageitaly.com Sketch of the author by David Levine from The New York Review of Books at shop.nybooks.com
This book offers scope for multifaceted reviews and reflection. - One can look at it as a normal novel where an interesting plot develops to an exciting climax. - One can look at it as a novel with many character sketches. - One can look at it as an anthropological novel that introduces local customs and beliefs of Abruzzi region of Italy. - One can look at it as a political novel that expounds the difficulties suffered by Socialist movement under the Fascist regime of Mussolini. - One can read it as a historical novel that portrays the situation of Fascist Italy under the dictatorial leadership of Mussolini. - One can also look at it a spiritual novel that depicts the struggle of a real believer (read Christian) to be faithful to his vocation to Christianity.
An Outline of the Novel:
An exiled socialist comes back from exile to Italy to organize a revolution against the totalitarian government. To escape being found out, he assumes a new name and new identity. He changes his name from Pietro Spina to Paolo Spada; his identity from a lay person to a Catholic priest. He tries his best to infuse in the peasant community of Abbruzzi the fighting spirit, the spirit of revolution. But he is rebuffed by the attitude of peasants that borders on resignation to hard life and sufferings. Meanwhile, the socialist himself an inner struggle wherein he battles the doubts surrounding his own faith - the doctrine of Marx. Did he achieve in his aim of organizing a revolution? Or was he exposed to the government by any informer? The climax leads to it. Read it in the book.
Some Reflections:
I was very much struck by the criticism that Silone employed in the novel especially on the doctrine of Marx and thereby Socialism. Silone was himself a member of the Communist Party of Italy. Later he was disillusioned with the way it was practised and came out of the institution.
Silone's important criticism of Socialism in his own words:
"For a long time I was tormented by the question why all revolutions, all of them without exception, began as liberation movements and ended as tyrannies. Why has no revolution ever escaped that fate?"
His answer:
The liberation movement (revolution) is "a bureaucracy in embryo. You too aspire to totalitarian power in the name of different ideas, which simply means in the name of different words and on behalf of different interests. If you win, which is a misfortune that will probably happen to you, we subjects will merely exchange one tyranny for another."
Silone was writing this in the 1930s when totalitarian regimes were ruling their roost in Europe or were on the cusp of becoming one and in Russia it was the time of Stalin. No wonder that Silone's books struck a chord with the multitude.
How is the totalitarian regime or dictatorship be destroyed or overcome?
Silone writes: "The dictatorship is based on unanimity. It's sufficient for one person to say no and the spell is broken. Under every dictatorship, one man, one perfectly ordinary little man who goes on thinking with his own brain is a threat to public order. Tons of printed paper spread the slogans of the regime; thousands of loudspeakers, hundreds of thousands of posters and freely distributed leaflets, whole armies of speakers in all the squares and at all the crossroads, thousands of priests in the pulpit repeat these slogans ad nauseam, to the point of collective stupefaction. But it's sufficient for one little man, just one ordinary, little man to say no, and the whole of the formidable granite order is imperilled."
Silone also feared that such rise of dictators/totalitarian regimes will relativize moral values. Anything that is considered right by the government will be right and anything that is held by government as wrong will be wrong for everyone. The one who fails to conform to this teaching will be brutally punished. SIlone wanted God to exist and wanted to believe in Him at least for this sake - a valid foundation of moral values. If I am not mistaken in the recent times this was the belief held by the Nobel Laureate, .
So, Silone was a paradox personified. He was both a Socialist and a Christian. It is interesting to note that Silone had claimed himself to be a 'Socialist without a party and a Christian without the church.'
To Silone, the true freedom always resided in man's ability to think for himself. Never conform to the majority. Think for yourself. For teaching me that lesson, dear Ignazio Silone, I am grateful.
I can't fully articulate why I found this book so captivating, but the guilt-ridden lapsed Italian Catholic and insufferable leftist intellectual at war in me are both obsessed with it for completely opposite but probably equally unhealthy reasons. Anyway.
In defiance of genre, Silone weaves a heavy tapestry from threads of fable, philosophy, morality play, and political subterfuge. A close, claustrophobic story lurking in the shadows of Mussolini's fascist Italy at the outbreak of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, Bread and Wine follows the fervid, ailing revolutionary Pietro Spina into hiding after his ill-advised return from exile, his disguise as a provincial priest fraught with social and moral complications as he struggles by turns to educate and agitate the villagers who surround him. It's the high revolutionary drama of Hugo, the cold calculation of le Carr茅, and the deep ideological strife of Eco, all radically compressed into 270 pages. Maybe this is melodramatic or maybe it's fitting, but it feels like the literary equivalent of being abruptly knifed in the gut and having a few fleeting-yet-interminable hours to reconsider everything you thought you knew about life before you bleed to death.
In Fascist Italy, a Socialist man recently returned from exile, in order to evade the law, is disguised as a priest--as an ecclesiastic he will have immunity from persecution-- and lives among the peasants of the Abruzzi. The novel chronicles his adventures, both funny and tragic and we are exposed to the peasantry. We see his growth as a human being. The ending was a shocker! The title could refer to the elements in the Mass or to the common food of the people.
Highly recommended and just as current today as when it was written--one man against tyranny. A classic and no wonder it was banned in Mussolini's Italy!