Rating: 
Summary: Christ may not have stopped here but I'm glad Levi did
Review: I was provoked to submit my comments as I can't agree with the review "This is not the Basilicata I know." Levi is exiled to the remote region of Lucania in Italy about sixty years ago - the book is not about contemporary conditions there. But it is a sensitive portrayal of a particular time and place. Instead of dwelling on the misfortune of his exile, Levi describes his sojourn there with a painter's eye and a poet's heart. One of my favourite books.
Rating: 
Summary: This is not the Basilicata I know
Review: Mr. Levi is certainly a gifted writer, and while I do not doubt the veracity of this political prisoner, his depiction of the people, culture, and geography of Basilicata (formerly Lucania) during the Italian facist period misrepresents the region and the people. The small corner of the rough country from which he draws his experiences is not the Basilicata that I have come to know and love. The region is probably best described as simple yet genuine. Mr. Levi was not allowed to visit the plush uncontaminated beauty of the Pollino National Park; Matera, a lovely seaside resort along the steap and rocky coast of the Tyrrhenian sea; the sheltered and peaceful nearby villages such as Lauria, Senise, and Lagonegro (home of Leonardo's Mona Lisa); the chain of Mountains known as the Lucanian Dolomites which rise to the sky like rugged needles; or the medieval town of Melfi, where Emperor Frederick lived and ruled over his empire. I can go on and on. There is great history here, and to be sure, the region had suffered through economic stagnation and plague. The region is not populated by barbaric, godless, simpletons, but rather by deeply religious, falalistic, and disarmingly gracious Italians; closely tied to the land, and appreciative of its largess. To those who are entranced by Mr. Levi's enchanting writing style don't be duped into accepting his perspective of these 1940s prisoner outposts as the Basilicata that I have discovered in the 1990s and wrote about in my book Discovering Basilicata: An Historical Collection of Italian Recipes from the Region. I experienced a life style that is easy to envy, and impossible to walk casually away from.
Rating:
Summary: This is not the Basilicata I know
Review: Mr. Levi is certainly a gifted writer, and while I do not doubt the veracity of this political prisoner, his depiction of the people, culture, and geography of Basilicata (formerly Lucania) during the Italian facist period misrepresents the region and the people. The small corner of the rough country from which he draws his experiences is not the Basilicata that I have come to know and love. The region is probably best described as simple yet genuine. Mr. Levi was not allowed to visit the plush uncontaminated beauty of the Pollino National Park; Matera, a lovely seaside resort along the steap and rocky coast of the Tyrrhenian sea; the sheltered and peaceful nearby villages such as Lauria, Senise, and Lagonegro (home of Leonardo's Mona Lisa); the chain of Mountains known as the Lucanian Dolomites which rise to the sky like rugged needles; or the medieval town of Melfi, where Emperor Frederick lived and ruled over his empire. I can go on and on. There is great history here, and to be sure, the region had suffered through economic stagnation and plague. The region is not populated by barbaric, godless, simpletons, but rather by deeply religious, falalistic, and disarmingly gracious Italians; closely tied to the land, and appreciative of its largess. To those who are entranced by Mr. Levi's enchanting writing style don't be duped into accepting his perspective of these 1940s prisoner outposts as the Basilicata that I have discovered in the 1990s and wrote about in my book Discovering Basilicata: An Historical Collection of Italian Recipes from the Region. I experienced a life style that is easy to envy, and impossible to walk casually away from.
Rating:
Summary: Stands alone
Review: On the basis of this book Carlo Levi became one of my favorite authors, along with John Berger (most of whose books I've read and reread), Haldor Laxness and Carlo Ginzburg. Levi describes the kind of people that my wife and I are continually searching for in our wanderings on foot, 'originals'. Maybe D. H. Lawrence should have gone to Gaglianao instead of looking around in Tuscan graves.
Rating:
Summary: the history of a land
Review: The history (better say, the "non" history) of a land (Lucania one of the poorest of the poor south of Italy) its values, in a frame of a perpetual immobility in respect of the progress of the "civilized" world.Carlo Levi looks at it without expressing any moral judgement: he tries only to understand the "Veltanschauung" (what is "behind" and "in" the things) of the culture of a forgotten land and its people; so giving an impressive, positivist style, picture of an unknown civilization, too often absent-mindedly judged by people who did'nt care to understand the full and deep humanity of a land "without sin and without redemption"(Preface
Rating:
Summary: Southern Italy: A country within a country
Review: This a memoir of Carlo Levi`s experience as a political exile during the fascist regime, at the outset of the Abyssinian war. The setting is a remote village in Lucania, southern Italy, a region characterized by poverty, malaria, completely forgotten and neglected by the State. Levi's artistic sensitivity describes the people, the landscape, with an acute human feeling. This is the other side of Italy, the reverse of the rich, famous, well-developed North. After reading this book, it is easy to understand why so many Italians were tempted to emigrate to the American continent. Levi's ability to socialize and understand the peasant mentality is outstanding; it's a merit to his personality. The fact that he did not isolate himself from the people around the village, regardless of social and cultural level, enable him, after his realease, to write this book with a deep understanding of the social, political, religious, economical, and cultural problems of Southern Italy. The style is simple, direct, and elegant. Why Christ, why Eboli? the author only wants to say that the "civilized world" of Christianity has not reached this region of Italy, be it in Eboli or any other village of the South. An interesting book, written by someone whose main occupation in life was not be a writer. Levi was trained as a doctor, and as a "social doctor" he brush-stroked his thoughts into this memoir.
Rating:
Summary: A graceful voice.
Review: This book has a distinct sense of place. The remote ,savage landscape and its long suffering inhabitants is depicted with a kind of poetry.The priest given to despair in a pagan land to the peasants who shrug when their goats, even their furniture is taken from them from them by the state is contrasted with the local gentry and their petty feuds. Carlo levi was quite a man. Children followed him,women looked at him and touched their hips, dogs wagged their tails....This book is about a great man, a quiet man of conscience who revealed a hidden land and his soul during terrible times. A book to keep and treasure.
Rating:
Summary: A Book Painted with Words
Review: This brilliant book is an account of Carlo Levi's banishment to a remote village in southern Italy for his opposition to Fascism in 1935. The title may be a bit misleading: this book is not about an incarnation of the deity that alighted in a place called Eboli. Eboli, a town of no consequence to the action of the book, is, rather, the farthest south Christianity (read: civilization) got. Gagliano, the town in which Levi arrives to carry out his exile, is as far south from Eboli as Eboli is from Naples, and is the end of the road in more than one respect.In Gagliano, Levi lives a somewhat enviable (for an exile, at least) existence painting, writing, and, as a doctor, administering to the sick and injured. But the book is not about Levi's good works among the peasants. Rather, it is a series of sublime sketches about a people so grim, so primitive, so impoverished, so imbued with superstition and pagan ritual (Gagliano has a village priest, but he's drunk most of the time) that they seem an alien species. Levi doesn't so much understand them as observe them and paint them with words. Levi's artistic gifts extend to his descriptions, and phrases such as "Grassano...is a streak of white at the summit of a bare hill" make the book come alive. It is clear that Frances Frenaye, the translator, deserves no small credit in this respect. This is a haunting work, and one of the most memorable books I have ever enjoyed.
Rating:
Summary: A Book Painted with Words
Review: This brilliant book is an account of Carlo Levi's banishment to a remote village in southern Italy for his opposition to Fascism in 1935. The title may be a bit misleading: this book is not about an incarnation of the deity that alighted in a place called Eboli. Eboli, a town of no consequence to the action of the book, is, rather, the farthest south Christianity (read: civilization) got. Gagliano, the town in which Levi arrives to carry out his exile, is as far south from Eboli as Eboli is from Naples, and is the end of the road in more than one respect. In Gagliano, Levi lives a somewhat enviable (for an exile, at least) existence painting, writing, and, as a doctor, administering to the sick and injured. But the book is not about Levi's good works among the peasants. Rather, it is a series of sublime sketches about a people so grim, so primitive, so impoverished, so imbued with superstition and pagan ritual (Gagliano has a village priest, but he's drunk most of the time) that they seem an alien species. Levi doesn't so much understand them as observe them and paint them with words. Levi's artistic gifts extend to his descriptions, and phrases such as "Grassano...is a streak of white at the summit of a bare hill" make the book come alive. It is clear that Frances Frenaye, the translator, deserves no small credit in this respect. This is a haunting work, and one of the most memorable books I have ever enjoyed.
Rating:
Summary: Year in exile
Review: This is a memoir of a year spent in exile in 1930s facist Italy. Carlo Levi ,anti-facist, is exiled to a small poor village in southern Italy. When the villagers say Christ stopped at Eboli, a village located northeast of theirs, they mean that civilization never made it this far. Levi's prose descriptions are smooth and mostly free of authorial intrusion. He turns what could be a grim situation, after all he is a prisoner in the village, into a cherished part of his life.
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