Bread and Wine by Silone

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Bread and Wine (1936, revised 1955)
by Ignazio Silone, translated by Harvey Fergusson II
286 pages - Signet Classics

'"We all live temporary lives," he said. "We think that just for now things are going badly, that we have to adapt just for now, and even humiliate ourselves, but that all this is temporary. Real life will start someday. We prepare to die with the complaint that we've never really lived. Sometimes I'm obsessed with this idea. You live only once, and for this one time you live a temporary life, in the vain hope that one day real life will begin. That's how we exist. Of those I know, I assure you, no one lives in the present. No one thinks that what he does every day is anything but temporary. No one is in a position to say, 'From now on, from whatever day this is, my life has really started.' Even the ones who have power and take advantage of it, believe me, live on intrigues and fear. And they're full of disgust with the prevailing stupidity. They live temporary lives too. They're waiting just like everyone else."' (pg.46)

This story takes place in the mid-1930s, during the rise of fascism in Italy. Pietro Spina is a man who has cut himself off from his wealthy family, and gotten into trouble for his activities as a communist organizer - first being expelled from his native Italy, and then drifting around various countries of western Europe, being expelled from many of them as well. He now decides that he must come back to Italy, but soon after his arrival the few who want to help Spina decide it best that he take the disguise of a priest, and go live in a small town in the mountains, saying that he is recovering from an illness. Spina tries to re-organize the dispirited and scattered sympathiezrs of socialism, while usually encountering people who have no interest in another ideology, and while he himself begins to doubt the value in simply taking orders from totalitarians in Moscow rather than totalitarians in Rome. At the same time, as he presents himself as a priest, even one who is resting and cannot perform the duties of his office, many come to him trustingly and open up with their daily worries and cares.

This was a really brilliant, captivating novel; the best I've read in a long time. I might even say it's possibly the best novel I've ever read. There's something wonderful on almost every page, and Silone is able to handle a deep theme while still doing justice to many small things, like little humourous moments of interaction between people, or lovely descriptions of the natural landscape. One of the main themes is the maturation process where youthful ideals and theories crumble and take a lower priority as compared to the actual experience of an individual life. I've always felt there was too much of an emphasis on 'ideas', both in literature and generally in life, and in this novel Silone also shows them to be an inadequate base for life when compared to non-theoretical reality. This book really makes me want to track down more of Silone's work, as well as more italian literature in general.

'The story of the martyrs was always different and always the same. It was a time of beatings and persecutions. There was a dictatorship with a deified leader. There was a moldy old church which lived on handouts, and an army of mercenaries to guarantee a peaceful digestion to the rich people. A population of slaves. Incessant preparations of new wars of loot to bolster the prestige of the dictatorship. Meanwhile mysterious travelers were coming from the east. They whispered of miracles which had happened in the orient. They announced the good news: Liberation is at hand. The boldest, the poor, the hungry, met underground to hear of this. The news spread. Some left the old temples and embraced the new faith. Some of the nobles left their palaces. Some centurions deserted. The police raided some clandestine meetings and made some arrests. The prisoners were tortured and sent to a special tribunal. There were some who refused to burn incense in front of the state's fetishes. They recognized no God but their own. They confronted the tortures with a smile on their lips. The young men were thrown to the wild beasts. The survivors kept faith with the dead and constructed a secret cult to them. Times change and clothes change, along with food and work; languages change; but at bottom, it's the same story all over again.' (pg.263)