Bright Young Things discussion

Welcome to November's group read of Christ Stopped at Eboli: The Story of a Year by Carlo Levi.

Enjoy!

I'm skipping this one. Have a wonderful discussion.

I've started this and am enjoying it so far - beautifully written in the translation by Frances Frenaye.

I had thought it might be a bit hard to get hold of, as my local library only has one copy which isn't due back for ages and it's not available on Kindle (in the UK anyway), but I then found out that the 1940s edition is available at the Internet Archive so I'm reading that at the moment.

The Internet Archive? : )

Found it! Ta for the tip!

Sorry, I should have put a link - here it is for anyone else who is after it:

https://archive.org/details/christsto...

Got a copy! It is very long. So might have to start this next week some time. Deep breath!

I think you'll enjoy it - I am so far. :) I'm not finding it all that long - it's 279 pages in this edition.

Mine must have other stuff with it. Over 700 pages. : )

Mine must have other stuff with it. Over 700 pages. : )

Mine must have other stuff with it. Over 700 pages. : )

Goodness! Mine's probably right around 300, like Judy's.

I'll get started with it once I finish Ragtime.

: )) Ooops! Erm, turned my iPad portrait view, now it is just over 400 pages. : ))

I wanted to see what the landscapes and buildings looked like, and found this site:
http://www.italianways.com/aliano-and...

It all looks very picturesque here, though - I'd really like to find some historic photos of what it was like at the time when he was in exile there.

I did also find this blog which has a couple of paintings by Levi showing the area and a peasant woman:
https://www.moyshele.com/roller/moysh...

Looks quite pretty, but Italy always does.

I just ordered the book, along with 7 others (including Rendezvous at the Russian Tea Rooms: The Spyhunter, the Fashion Designer & the Man From Moscow - of course I won't receive it until almost December).

I'm just over 100 pages in, now - finding it a quick read. I was surprised when Levi describes how around half the population of the area, mostly the young men, had emigrated to America, and many of those who were living there had been to America and come back again.

His feelings towards the area and the people he meets seem to keep fluctuating.

The people from these communities would have been very close, if you go somewhere that is so different from what you know...I know of people where this has happened and they left to go back home.

Interesting point though Judy. We always here about those that emigrate, but not that often how people emigrate and come back for various reasons.

For anyone who wants to see a picture of Carlo Levi's dog, Barone, here is a link - it's on an Italian Facebook page, but if you scroll down you can see the picture. The dog looks a bit like a poodle to me, though Levi says in the book tht he is a mix.

https://www.facebook.com/patrimoniole...

That's true, Roisin, we don't hear all that much about emigrants who return.

Clearly the link between this part of Italy and America was very strong at this time - Levi writes that every home had a picture of the Madonna and a picture of Roosevelt, and that the population looked to New York more than Rome.

I've just started reading again (I'm on Chapter 13) and found that there is quite a lot about the reasons why emigrants returned, with many having come back for a visit after the crash of 29 and then sinking into poverty again. Levi presents the return very negatively - that the emigrants returned for a visit and then found themselves trapped "like flies in a spider web".

"Soon they were peasants again, setting off every morning with their donkeys and goats for the lowlands ridden with malaria."

Of course, Levi himself was trapped in this area and that feeling comes across here, but I wonder if some people made a more positive decision to return?

Judy wrote: "For anyone who wants to see a picture of Carlo Levi's dog, Barone, here is a link - it's on an Italian Facebook page, but if you scroll down you can see the picture. The dog looks a bit like a pood..."

What a cute dog. And how very young Carlo Levi looks in this photo. Thanks Judy.

Just started the book and it looks interesting so far.

I see I had a misconception about the title--I thought it meant "Christ made a stop-over in Eboli" instead of "Christ stopped before he made it to Eboli." I suspect Levi's experiences will show a little of both....

I understood it as Christ got to Eboli and then stopped, which is in between your two.

Why didn't the villagers want to use the public toilet do you think? It is the only positive thing the authorities have done for them that I have come across so far.
PS For those who haven't got that far, they don't have water or sanitation in their homes.

This has some photographs of the village, including old ones:
https://dibiase85.wordpress.com/foto-...

Most of the village was destroyed in an earthquake in 1980.

Many thanks for those photos, Val. I think they give more of a feeling of what it must have been like.

I wondered about the toilet too, and I also wondered how Levi could have known for certain if anyone used it or not?

I've finished the book now and found it a quick read, hard to put down at times. It certainly reveals the terrible poverty in that part of Italy at that time, and Levi's anger over aspects such as the refusal of officialdom to do anything about malaria is very clear.

I found it interesting to see how his attitude to the peasants both as individuals and as a group fluctuates a lot - he's mostly sympathetic but at times frustrated, bored, angry etc. This very inconsistency is a strength of the book, because it gives a feeling of what it was like for him living in the midst of the area.

The region is still poor and sparsely populated today, although not as bad as it was before the war.

The government did have a programme to get rid of malaria, the 'bonifica integrale'. An article in 'Malaria World' earlier this year suggests we can still learn from it.
http://www.malariaworld.org/blog/less...

Quote from article:
'Although the disease persisted in many parts of Italy up to the Second World War, the death rate had been reduced 80%-90% by the Bonifacio Integrale and social improvements.'

The programme was revived after the war and malaria was finally eradicated from Italy in the 1960s.

I haven't got to Levi's views on it, but were Matera province officials refusing to follow the government programme or had the programme not been rolled out to the area at the time? (It concentrated on the major population centres at risk first.)

PS It seems from the book that the central authorities in Rome said the malaria eradication programme was compulsory, but left it up to the provincial authorities to implement and Matera didn't.

Thanks for the link, Val - very interesting. The opposite impression is given in the book, as you'll see, that nothing was being done against malaria at all.

Levi does repeatedly say that Rome was ignoring this area, so maybe the programme hadn't been rolled out here yet.

Yes, he has said about Rome ignoring the area several times already.
It doesn't help that the few people with any local power are too busy squabbling with each other to care about the poor peasants.

Although most of the book is set in villages, it also includes some sections about the poverty in the town of Matera, where people were living in caves.

I found a couple of interesting sites about Matera - this one is entitled ' How Matera went from ancient civilisation to slum to a hidden gem'. It doesn't include many pictures of it during the period of poverty, though there is one haunting glimpse of a little girl:

tinyurl.com/qy85jvv

And this one has lots of pictures of how it looks now, which is amazing -

http://www.neverendingvoyage.com/sass...

I've read the bit where his sister has to wait for a bus in Matera and describes it to him. She can't see the attraction in people living the way they have for 9,000 years and is shocked by the poverty.
This site has quotes from both Carlo Levi and his sister. I think he is looking at it as an artist and she is looking at it as a doctor, although he can see her point when he passes through the town.
http://www.sassidimatera.it/english/v...

He describes a painting he finishes on a visit he is allowed to make to Grassano (where he was staying before he was sent to Gagliano/Aliano). It is probably this one:
http://www.sassiland.com/public/foto/...

I finally started this one last night! I only read 2 chapters, but I'm eager to get into it as it seems to be a good one!

My book finally came today. Hope to get started tomorrow.

Erm, very behind. Will try to start this in a few days.

I'm about 70 pages in, and it hasn't been what I had expected. It feels very gossipy, and there's a bunch of people that aren't very well fleshed out, so I have a hard time keeping track of everyone. My favorite so far has been the gravedigger.

His sister came to visit and that chapter was much more of what I had expected from this book: a longing for the outside world and a sense of being very, very isolated.

I have only just started it. Interesting so far...

Just finished the chapter on the Christmas Mass, it sounds like quite an evening!

Finished last night. It was mostly slow and boring for me. I think at some other time I might have enjoyed this more, but this might have just not been the right moment to read this book.

Wow, Jennifer, I could hardly put it down. Strange how often people have different reactions to the same books - as you say, often to do with when we read them.

I quite like it so far, but yes, sometimes the time isn't right to read something, or you'll be in a different frame of mind. I've felt differently sometimes re-reading books.

I'm glad to see others are enjoying it. The best part of it for me was seeing the links to pictures that you all found!

I've lost interest in this I'm afraid. Might go back to it another time.