Carthage College - Driftwood / Crimson Rambler Yearbook (Kenosha, WI)

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I I THE FACULTY THE COLLEG IAN gaeaa ana Wine . . . By IGNAZIO SALONE Reviewed by MARY K. BUDD FR 'HE release of Ignazio Salone's book. Bread and Wine , was quite startling although people had been hoping for it for several years. k 4' The truth of the situation is this: no foreigner knew or had access to the facts. and no native Italian dared write such a book. i'Bread and Wine deals with the peasant class of Italy. their economic condition. and their reaction to the present regime. This part of the book. which forms a background for a central character. resembles Red Bread . the story of the Russian peasantry written by Maurice Hindus during the first Five Year Plan. Bread and Wine . however is more than a mere current picture. It has as a central character, the determined revoluv tionary. Pietro Spine. In this character are bits of autobiography of the author. Salome himself is a champion of liberty, freedom of thought and freedom of trade He stayed in Italy until he was in danger of being arrested for participation in revolutionary groups. The book was written just over the border in Switzerland. The story opens as an old priest, Don Benedetto, is talking with two of his former pupils. both of whom are empioyed by the government. The priest is not in sympathy with the dictatorship. but he lives quietly on his little plot of ground and says little except to his sister who keeps house for him. He asks the two young men about his former and favorite pupil. Pietro Spina. They hesitate at first out of regard for their old teacher. but finally tell him that Spina is forced to live in exile most of the time because he is constantly stimulating opposition to the government, After leaving the priest. one of the young men. a doctor. is asked by a peasant to treat an old man who is ill at his home. The old man is Spina in disguise. The doctor treats him Very reluctantly, and in order to get him off his hands, secures priest's clothing for him and diapatches him to a mountain village to recover. It is in this village that Spina tries to gain the ear of the peasants in what he calls the second revolution . In spite of the publicity of Italyis great movement for education. he finds the people everywhere. in dire ignorance. living in fear of the carabinieri. The entiJe book is taken up with Spina's futile efforts to shake the people out of their terror of the government. It ends with his fleeing again for exile. There is a. good narrative thread binding the book solidly together. Even apart from the interest in the subject matter of the book. it is a brilliant piece of writing. The combination of bitter realism with acid humor achieves much of the eFt'ectiveness of the book. This is Salone's second book: with its publica- tion. the young author immediately received recognition and praise from both Europe and America. Page 31

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THE COLLEGFAN

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