Christ Stopped at Eboli

Jan 15, 2008 Laura rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: autobiography-memoir

You know how once in a while you run into a book that's so good you don't want it to end, so you draw read it very slowly, drawing it out? For me, this was one of those books.

Christ Stopped at Eboli is the story of Levi's year living in Basilicata, in the south of Italy, where Mussolini exiled him for anti-Fascist activities. Levi, who was a doctor by training but a painter by trade, lived among a population mostly composed of peasants, along with a few run-of-the-mill bureaucrats. The book is a...more You know how once in a while you run into a book that's so good you don't want it to end, so you draw read it very slowly, drawing it out? For me, this was one of those books.

Christ Stopped at Eboli is the story of Levi's year living in Basilicata, in the south of Italy, where Mussolini exiled him for anti-Fascist activities. Levi, who was a doctor by training but a painter by trade, lived among a population mostly composed of peasants, along with a few run-of-the-mill bureaucrats. The book is a bit hard to classify -- it's part memoir, part political tract, part character study, but it's exquisitely written, especially when Levi is describing the peasants among whose company he spent a year. One passage, describing his housekeeper, Giulia:

"Giulia was a tall and shapely woman with a waist as slender as that of an amphora between her well-developed chest and hips. In her youth she must have had a solemn and barbaric beauty. Her face was wrinkled with age and yellowed by malaria, but there were traces of former charm in its sharp, straight lines, like those of a classical temple which has lost the marbles that adorned it but kept its shape and proportions. A small head, in the shape of a lengthened oval, covered with a veil, rose above her impressively large and erect body, which breathed an animal vigor . . . . Her face as a whole had a strongly archaic character, not classical in the Greek or Roman sense, but stemming from an antiquity more mysterious and more cruel which had sprung always from the same ground, and which was unrelated to man, but linked with the soil and its everlasting animal deities. There were mingled in it cold sensuality, hidden irony, natural cruelty, impenetrable ill-humor and an immense passive power, all these bound together in a stern, intelligent and malicious expression."

(Tip of the hat, of course, to the translator, Frances Frenaye.)

The book has been criticized by some for portraying the peasants as ignorant, pitiable simpletons. I don't agree with the characterization at all. Levi doesn't romanticize or patronize them, certainly, but I saw nothing arrogant or condescending in his portrayal.

I usually avoid books in translation -- a friend of mine once likened reading translations to having sex with a condom -- but I'm going out to buy this one tomorrow so I can read it again (mine was a library copy).(less)

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Mar 25, 2011 K.D. Oliveros rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to K.D. by: 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006-2010)

Shelves: 1001-core

A wonderfully written book about the sorry condition in Southern Italy before the onset of WWII by an anti-fascist Italian writer, journalist, artist and doctor, Carlo Levi (1902-1975). This is the type of book that you tend to hold on to each word because the writing is so beautiful that you would not want the story to end. Adding to this is the fact that this novel or memoir was actually written as a protest to Benito "Il Duce" Mussolini's (1883-1945) government.

The title refers to the what th...more A wonderfully written book about the sorry condition in Southern Italy before the onset of WWII by an anti-fascist Italian writer, journalist, artist and doctor, Carlo Levi (1902-1975). This is the type of book that you tend to hold on to each word because the writing is so beautiful that you would not want the story to end. Adding to this is the fact that this novel or memoir was actually written as a protest to Benito "Il Duce" Mussolini's (1883-1945) government.

The title refers to the what the peasants in Southern Italy say about themselves and the grimly poverty that they are experiencing. We're not Christians," they say. "Christ stopped short of here, at Eboli,"...We're not Christians, we're not human beings; we're not thought of as men but simply as beasts, beasts of burden, or even less than beasts, mere creatures of the wild."

Maybe a decade ago, I used to think that everything is beautiful in Italy and all of its people are devout Catholics. What with the Vatican being there and practically every Catholic around the world would like to, sometime in his/her life, be able to visit the place. What with the beautiful tourist spots like Florence, the birthplace of Renaissance, Venice, while riding the gondolas through the canals, or Verona and see the tomb of Juliet. Then I met Italian colleagues in the company where I currently work and they said that they are Catholics but not practicing. Although they are proud of their country, they were the ones who told me the things that they were unhappy about their government and some parts of their history that they rather want to forget.

Just like the Roman poet, Ovid, exiled by Emperor Augustus in Tomis (subject of David Malouf's An Imaginary Life) or Dr. Jose Rizal exiled by Spanish colonial government in Dapitan or Ninoy Aquino exiled by Marcos in Laur, Carlo Levi was also thrown by Mussolini to live in a year in Lucania at the start of Abyssinian (now called Ethiopian) War (1935). While confined in this impoverished place, Levi took up his pen and wrote this starkly beautiful account of a place beyond hope and a people abandoned by history.

Beautiful account because of the glorious writing. Levi took time to describe the details of the place or the scene that reminds me of Ondaatje's The English Patient or Running In the Family. But of course, Italian Levi wrote his novel first compared to these works by this Sri Lankan-Canadian author that is one of my favorite novelists. The irony in Levi's writing was that what he described beautifully was the sad state of that poor barren malarial town: where exiles like him were thrown, where many women died during childbirth because there were not competent doctors, where people leave to America for seek for better life never to return, and so where some of the peasants think that they are not Christians but beasts.

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Jan 11, 2011 Hayes rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Hayes by: my Mother-in-Law

Shelves: read-in-2011, to-read-again

This is a tough one to review, so much is going on, on many different levels. The thing that immediately jumps to mind is the relevance to Italy today. But the real problem is not that the book has become relevant again, but that the problems discussed in this book have never stopped being relevant, have been ignored, and are becoming even more of a problem today.

Carlo Levi was "confinato", not confined or jailed, but sent to the confine, the very border of the country. He was sent to Lucania (a...more

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Apr 07, 2012 David Lott rated it 3 of 5 stars

I had to read this book for a college class so therefore it was not a book I chose to read on my own time.

As I was reading this book I kept waiting for Jesus Christ to enter the story so the title of the book would make sense. Instead the book is all about how the author, Carlo Levi, was exiled to Southern Italy during the Mussolini era. The title stems from the fact that Levi sees that the locals have not yet evolved into the Christian morality that existed in Northern Italy. The book esentiall...more

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Aug 26, 2010 Buck marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: self-congratulatory-multilingual, in-captivity

I “know” Italian in the same way I “know” how to cook, throw a punch or pleasure a woman orally. Meaning, I get by, but the results are not always flattering to my self-esteem. Which is why it’s taken me three months to read the first half of Levi’s charming little memoir. And now the library wants it back. Christ stopped at Eboli; Buck stopped on page 150. We’re both slackers.

I think I might love this book, though. We’ve agreed to meet at the train station in Vienna in six months.

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Feb 02, 2009 Elizabeth rated it 5 of 5 stars

I think this might be the perfect memoir. Soulful, poetic, and in the end so rarely about the author himself. With an anthropological eye he examines the many facets of the "exotic" land to which he has been exiled--southern Italy in 1935: preChristian, he calls it, feudal. Caveat: There is much to discuss and argue about in this book, not the least of which is his pronouncement of his Gramscian political solutions to the endemic poverty he discovers in Lucania, in the second to last chapter of...more

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Feb 25, 2013 Daniel Gamboa rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book left me spellbound for a couple of days after I read it. Even though it deals with poverty and misery, it was written in such a beautiful way that it is almost like "reading a painting". Christ stopped at Eboli means that beyond Eboli life is nothing but misery, oblivion and hard work. The kind of life my grandparents used to talk about when they lived in Italy before coming to America. The kind of life that has nothing to do Rome, Florence, Venice or the Amalfi Coast, the Dolomiti and...more

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Nov 15, 2012 Miike rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is one of those rare books that fits awkwardly into any clearly defined category. I think it's possible for different people to take something different from reading it. I read it whilst living in Italy and eventually spent a few days around Matera in Basilicata. So for me it was almost like a guide book.

Levi manages to convey the people and landscape in a creative and artistic way, but he never gets lost in lyrical descriptive prose. After all, this was no literary retreat; it was an exile...more

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Aug 17, 2012 Steve rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Peasant women dressed in black, the gentry's ceaseless hatred of one another, an imbalance of the sexes due to emigration and war, magic in the form of sprites and gnomes, our unconscious worship of the state and the peasants' complete dissociation from it, from 'those fellows in Rome'... Carlo Levi's book on an isolated corner of southern Italy to which he was exiled (!) as an anti-Fascist in 1935-36 is a strangely seductive piece of writing on a seemingly dreary subject. His patient reflection...more Peasant women dressed in black, the gentry's ceaseless hatred of one another, an imbalance of the sexes due to emigration and war, magic in the form of sprites and gnomes, our unconscious worship of the state and the peasants' complete dissociation from it, from 'those fellows in Rome'... Carlo Levi's book on an isolated corner of southern Italy to which he was exiled (!) as an anti-Fascist in 1935-36 is a strangely seductive piece of writing on a seemingly dreary subject. His patient reflection on a relatively dull existence confined to the village of 'Gagliano' is fascinating in its details: character sketches of villagers, steadily growing awareness of the irrelevance of the Italian government to the peasants, and stories of being called upon to practice medicine (which he had studied but never practiced) because the village's two doctors are complete rubbish, while at the same time being forbidden to practice medicine as a condition of his political confinement. Much of what he describes is utterly mundane, and he makes the village life feel familiar while preserving a sense that it is also deeply foreign. I am not sure whether I was attracted to his observations as visions of the universally human or as portraits of utterly singular moments - the mood of a room in Italy, say, when Donna Caterina spoke of her political rivals with 'down-to-earth, resourceful and creative' hate. There is a thrill (not so much from voyeurism as from a sense of possessing superpowers) in being granted such a vivid image of a moment almost 80 years ago.

I don't know why the Fascist government thought the best solution to a troublesome political enemy was to exile him to a poor village in the South. It's not clear that Levi knew why he was sent there, nor does he reflect upon the issue - its absurdity speaks for itself and Levi is more interested in how the vaguely governmental figures in his new surroundings (the mayor of Gagliano, for example) relate to the Italian state (almost not at all).

Levi's role as doctor in the village, reluctant at first and periodically interrupted for political reasons, creates some continuity in his narrative, and through stories of his patients he shows a sympathetic voice that is oddly both warm and distant.

"Anyhow, magic as it was practiced in Gagliano was harmless enough and the peasants considered it in no way in conflict with official medicine. The custom of prescribing some medicine for every illness, even when it is not necessary, is equivalent to magic, anyhow, especially when the prescription is written, as it once was, in Latin or in indecipherable handwriting."(less)

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Aug 08, 2012 Susan Tekulve rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book is mesmerizing and beautifully written. This is a memoir that recounts Levi's time as a political prisoner of the Fascist regime in Italy, in 1935. Instead of sending him to prison, the Fascist government sent him to a remote village in Apulia, Italy. (If you think of Italy as a boot, then Apulia is at the heel of the boot) Levi's account is nonfiction, but this region of Italy was so remote, so starkly beautiful at this time, that it's hard for a modern traveler of Italy to imagine th...more

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May 23, 2012 Sara rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

La storia dei contadini del Meridione, di Aliano, Grassano, Matera...la storia di questi "non uomini", perchè Cristo si è fermato a Eboli.

La storia dei cafoni, che non sono cristiani, perchè non hanno stato e non hanno religione. La storia di una sconfitta che si è ripetuta infinite volte...

"I signori erano tutti iscritti al Partito, anche quei pochi, come il dottor Milillo, che la pensavano diversamente, soltanto perchè il Partito era il Governo, era lo Stato, era il Potere, ed essi si sentiv...more

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Apr 09, 2012 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Christ Stopped at Eboli is the memoir of one remarkable man's experience in fascist Italy. Carlo Levi: painter, writer, activist,philosopher, and writer. He is all and more in this facinating volume.
Though I began this book with the languor of any student facing a particularly tiresome school project, I found it to be really good. Carlo Levi talks about life in forgotten villages of Italy, with their pseudo-gentry and peasants. It is about as far away from 21st century America as you can get,...more Christ Stopped at Eboli is the memoir of one remarkable man's experience in fascist Italy. Carlo Levi: painter, writer, activist,philosopher, and writer. He is all and more in this facinating volume.
Though I began this book with the languor of any student facing a particularly tiresome school project, I found it to be really good. Carlo Levi talks about life in forgotten villages of Italy, with their pseudo-gentry and peasants. It is about as far away from 21st century America as you can get, and yet somehow very relevant. Levi examines people’s motives with a slightly biased but observant attitude. He is a fantastic writer, once you get into it, and I have to say…I wish the book were longer. He has a knack for characterizing people, till you almost wonder if your next door neighbor had a relative in a small providence in Italy, because he reads human nature and writes about it. Hence the crazy-priest and puffed up mayor, while amusing, are real and relatable.
Christ Stopped at Eboli would make a fantastic Sonlight book. I highly recommend it. It is a fascinating glimpse into a very rural culture, into the inner workings of the life of a political prisoner under Fascist regime in Italy, and the inner workings of people in general. Levi offers some timely and wise comments on the role of the State and peasants, and I would argue it is applicable across the board. Not just to his time and place.
A very wise, well written, and interesting read. I would love to read more by him. I wonder what happened? Did he ever settle down and get married?

SIDE NOTE: I don't care much for Levi's art. Some of it, like the one I included beneath, is kind of cool, but he has to much nudity. In fact, that is the reason this book got four as opposed to five stars, not because of nduity xD but because the man really is way to obsessed with this faint undertone of sexuality. It is never explicated, never directly stated, yet clings pervasively to the pages. His obsession with witches, for example. Also, when he nearly beats his cleaning lady and talks about how she respected brute force. And while it didn't really strike me while I was reading the book, he talks about women coming on to him a lot.
A lot.
Kind of creepy.
So, though I still reccomend this book and think it was good, be warned that Levi is a semi-creepy philosopher dude, who is a great writer and quite thoughtful. Just a little obsessed.

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May 14, 2013 Tabasco rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Carlo Levi was sent in exile to a Southern Italian village (current name Aliano) in the mid 1930's as a political prisoner because of his anti-fascism. This book is his recollection of one of the three years he spent there.

The village is very small, isolated, and ridden with misery and illness. What could have been a dreadfully boring memoir becomes a beautiful, poetic work of art under the artistic sensitivity of Mr Levi's pen.

What gives the book a true soul, and really elevates it, is the deep...more Carlo Levi was sent in exile to a Southern Italian village (current name Aliano) in the mid 1930's as a political prisoner because of his anti-fascism. This book is his recollection of one of the three years he spent there.

The village is very small, isolated, and ridden with misery and illness. What could have been a dreadfully boring memoir becomes a beautiful, poetic work of art under the artistic sensitivity of Mr Levi's pen.

What gives the book a true soul, and really elevates it, is the deep, heartfelt sense of longing and love that Levi has for the people he lived with in this village, and, in particular, for the farmers.

He focuses on the misery of the farmers' condition, their fatalistic and pessimistic worldview, their stubborness, their eternal patience, their living untouched by history's grand schemes, and uncared for by the state, by anyone.

These farmers live in one-room houses, with their animals under their bed, and their infants hanging over their bed, in cribs. On the walls, each of them have two images: a black Holy Mary, and, fascinating fact, President Roosevelt. That's because "America", for many southern Italians in those times, was something like paradise. Some came back from America, only to live the rest of their lives in regret.

Being Italian, I'm amazed at having missed this book until now. Even at school, they didn't try to shove it down my throat as they often do in Italian schools (the BEST way to make you want to burn a book and go kill its author with your bare hands is to teach it at school. This trick really works wonders if delivered with a nasal voice, an under-average sensitivity, and a massive dose of stupidity).

Christianity had a very diluted flavor in these lands, that's why the farmers live with ancient pagan traditions that have nothing to do with christian religion, like magic potions, legends, in a world where people, animals and imagination are just one thing, and nothing is too complicated or dramatic, including death.

What Levi keeps hammering on is a sense of inevitable defeat of the farmer as a citizen of the state. He sees good people being exploited by whoever has money and power, and he says that the state should be a state for the farmers as well. All very well, although he often comes across as idealistic, too theoretical and naive, especially in his political reflections, articulated at the end of the book. Or perhaps he wasn't naive at all, and he was just painting himself as the man who loves the humble and defensless, since by the time he wrote this book he had already joined the Italian communist party, and he was later elected in the Senate. But my bet is, he was a rather idealistic man.

Now, what I really saw through this book was a priviledged member of the Italian society of the '30s (Levi's family was very wealthy), a good, well educated man with an artistic sensitivity, spending 3 years as the revered "smartest guy in the village", doing nothing but painting and reading, in sunny southern Italy. How's that for an alternative to prison? Where do I sign up?

On a more serious note, Levi's book is perhaps the only autobiographical book I've read where the author doesn't talk much about himself at all. Sure, a wise approach for a young politician, but also a breath of fresh air.

Recommended for readers who want to immerse themselves in the silence of a primitive, ancient reality that is light years from our neurotic lives of today, but at the same time feels more deeply authentic. For those farmers, and I guess for most farmers, life has always been stripped bare, to the bone. A white, shining bone that we 21st century soft westerners often forget.

A hard-core experience to live through the eyes of an artistic outsider.(less)

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Jan 29, 2011 Kristyn Conner rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2011, books-i-own, favorites

This book has sat on my bookshelf for a total of two years, and its purchase was, for the most part, an initial disappointment. It was supposed to be one of the required readings for a European Trans-nationalism class that I was destined to take, but with only two days until the commencement of classes, the professor packed his things and jetted off to Sweden for an entire year. I never really got around to returning any of the novels, and thus they've been sitting there despairingly, collecting...more This book has sat on my bookshelf for a total of two years, and its purchase was, for the most part, an initial disappointment. It was supposed to be one of the required readings for a European Trans-nationalism class that I was destined to take, but with only two days until the commencement of classes, the professor packed his things and jetted off to Sweden for an entire year. I never really got around to returning any of the novels, and thus they've been sitting there despairingly, collecting dust and begging to be read.

I grudgingly began Carlo Levi's novel with the daunting suspicion that perhaps this would be more of an academic read than a leisurely one... but within the first dozen pages or so, I found myself to be proven wrong. Although the book itself is set in 1935, at the start of Italy's war with Ethiopia, I found the historical elements to be absolutely dwarfed by the soulful and poetic language of the novel's narrator, Carlo Levi himself. Everything contained within the book's pages are straight from the personal experiences of the author: from his being banished to the confines of Luciana region in southern Italy to his daily encounters with the townspeople to his own personal beliefs about the Italian government, undoubtedly shaped by his time spent there in "Gagliano" (actually Aliano, Italy).

If anything, this novel made me feel more at home within these tiny, impoverished villages than I do in my own hometown flourishing with technology and civilization. As Levi travels from Gagliano to Grassano and back, I could almost hear myself screaming, "No! Don't depart yet! I was just beginning to grow to love this town and its villagers and its landscape which you describe so beautifully... can we just stay for a bit longer?" And don't even get me started on the affection and admiration that I felt toward the individuals themselves. The end of the novel nearly brought me to tears as the thought of never encountering them again became a reality.

As someone who has already traveled to Italy before, I can truly say that this novel is both a historical eye-opener and a genuinely profound piece of literature. For anyone planning to visit the country in the future (or even for those of you, like myself, who have already had the privilege of witnessing its beauty), I urge you to read this novel. You will never think of "Italy" as a single country again.(less)

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May 10, 2013 Dhanaraj Rajan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography, italian-lit, literature

Let me state the verdict first: A fantastic read.

This book is supposed to be a memoir. But each chapter can be read as a short story. Carlo Levi was sent to a village in the southern most tip of Italy as a political prisoner in the years 1935 - 1936. His crime was being against the Fascist regime. Being a man from North Italy (Turin) the life in the south Italy was a different experience. And later he narrated his life in south Italy in writing and that has become a masterpiece. And I too agree...more Let me state the verdict first: A fantastic read.

This book is supposed to be a memoir. But each chapter can be read as a short story. Carlo Levi was sent to a village in the southern most tip of Italy as a political prisoner in the years 1935 - 1936. His crime was being against the Fascist regime. Being a man from North Italy (Turin) the life in the south Italy was a different experience. And later he narrated his life in south Italy in writing and that has become a masterpiece. And I too agree on that.

How could it become a masterpiece?
1. The language: It is a lyrical language and the expressions are fantastic. The language speaks directly to the heart and senses. As you read you realise that you are in the midst of the peasants of the south Italy and you experience their life in every aspect.
2. But then language alone is not enough to make it a masterpiece. This book is supposed to be a revelation. The division of South and North in the same country has more in the store to offer. The south is poor and the north is rich. They both represented different civilisations. The north Italians never had the idea of the life in the south Italy. So it was an introduction of a new civilisation. New civilisation always interests us. And what else it is written so well. In Italy also this book was a huge success (Italians were reading about Italians as persons of other civilisation).
3. And what is required for the introduction of a civilisation is in abundance. The anthropological elements, socio-cultural beliefs, traditional art forms, legends, traditional medical practice, folk festivals, etc abound in this book. Reading them is a pure joy. But then besides the joy of reading you realise the stark reality. And that is the success of this book. Of course, there is a criticism that the peasants were portrayed always in the negative manner by Carlo Levi. But then to me it was all the more a revelation that spoke of the divisions that existed in the society.

It is a book not to be missed.(less)

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Apr 01, 2013 Candace Dempsey rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: italy-southern-italy-carlo-levi

A classic book about a part of Italy that few foreigners ever visit. I had put off reading it for years, thinking it would be depressing. But I loved every word. Carlo Levi was a doctor, a painter, a political activist and a smart, witty man. His portrait of peasants "so far from god" is as heartbreaking as it is fascinating. One of the best books I've read in years.

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Sep 01, 2010 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars

Levi's story of a year in exile in Southern Italy (he was a political prisoner under the country's Fascism) is a fascinating look at peasant life in 1930s Italy. Having little knowledge of Italy's struggles for unification and the seemingly strict divisions between North and South the book really taught me a lot about attitudes of Southern peasants during the beginning of the early 20th century.

While the stories Levi tells are not that exciting (how exciting can living in a peasant village for a...more

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Aug 08, 2011 Madeleine rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book is well-written (or at least well-translated), and describes a year (1935-36) that Levi spent in forced residence in the southern Italian countryside. (He had been an ardent anti-fascist, and forced residency in the country was a common punishment for political dissenters.) He describes his time among the peasants with a curious heavy, mythological sort of air, and there are many very poetic sentences. However - and perhaps this is unfair of me - I cannot say that I loved, or even espe...more

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Nov 10, 2008 Trina rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites, rome-italy

No one who reads this memoir will ever again think of "Italy" as a single country. Southern Italy was a land out of time in the 1930s. This is such a yearning, sad yet loving portrait of the south. It's a book that comes to my mind frequently. The film is also beautiful, made in 1979 by Francesco Rosi.

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Aug 05, 2009 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009

Carlo Levi, a young anti-fascist with a medical degree who chose to paint, write and oppose Mussolini rather than to practice medicine, was exiled in the 1930s to what was then called Lucania and is now known as Basilicata. The area was and is one of the poorest regions of Italy. The people of the village in the mountains in which he spent most of a year said that they were so isolated that even Christianity stopped before it reached them.

Levi, a native of Turin, could hardly have been sent to a...more

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Mar 08, 2009 Josie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Carlo Levi was banished to a Southern Italian village in the mid 1930's as a political prisoner because of his anti-fascism. Christ Stopped at Eboli is a collection of his recollections of the village and the people. In particular, the boringness and smallness of the place lets him create the thing whole in the book, so that I knew the environment and walked around it with him. The town, Gagliano, becomes a concrete, almost physical entity. Were my place neurons involved? I don't know.

Mostly the...more

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Jan 11, 2011 Celeste rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is sort of fascinating because it is about Italy, but such a remote part of Italy and far enough in the past (1935) that the situation is what we expect from developing countries now. The peasants have no education, suffer from malaria and malnutrition, rely on supernatural cures because they have no access to real medical care. And of course there is the gentry, who are a bit better off, and even the political prisoner, because he is from a big city in the north and has money, can ren...more

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Jan 09, 2012 Ellie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-individual-challenge, 2012-group-challenge, war, european, literary, bio-memoir, already-owned

Christ Stopped at Eboli: The Story of a Year is book that is difficult to classify. It is the story, novelized but real, of author Carlo Levi, a non-practicing doctor and full-time painter who was an Italian political prisoner, sent by the fascist government in power at that time to Gagliano, a village in the poverty-stricken area of southern Italy where the peasants are starving (although taxed non-the-less) and the countryside is bleak beyond belief. Levi, a painter, renders the stark landscap...more

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Dec 24, 2012 Ahmad rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books, classic, fiction, literature, italian, memories, biography

آنها می‌گویند: «ما مسیحی نیستم. مسیح در ابولی متوقف ماند.» مسیحی در زبان آنها یعنی آدم. و جمله ضرب‌المثل‌گونه‌ای را که بارها شنیده‌ام تکرار می‌کنند که شاید چیزی بیش از بیان یک احساس ناامیدانه ناشی از حقارت نیست. «ما مسیحی نیستم، آدم نیستم، آدم به حساب نیامدیم، بلکه حیوان، حیوان بارکش و حتی بدتر از حیواناتیم.» لوی در این کتاب با زبانی روان و گاه طنزآمیز به شیوه خاطره‌نگاری و با جهش‌های زمانی بدون تقدم و تاخر وقایع، داستان خود را به پیش می‌برد و فضای نه چندان بانشاط روستای عقب مانده را به شیوایی و...more

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Dec 10, 2008 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars

This biography/history was written by a doctor/artist who was exiled to a small town in Southern Italy before and during World War II for his opposition to the Fascist regime. He concentrates on the poverty and superstition of the village where he lived. The book provides a great deal of insight into the social customs of rural Southern Italy during this period. The author does provide some speculation as to the reasons for the area's poverty, and what might be done about it, but these themes ar...more

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Jun 07, 2012 Francesco Camagna rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: romanzo

L'intellettuale torinese Carlo Levi, convinto antifascista, viene messo al confino in Lucania. Siamo nel 1935. Qui, nel paese di Aliano, scoprirà l'umanità contadina del mezzogiorno, vivrà con una popolazione da sempre vissuta ai margini della storia, dimenticata e rimasta sepolta per millenni sotto il peso dell'ingiustizia sociale e dell'indifferenza politica.

"- Noi non siamo cristiani, - essi dicono, - Cristo si è fermato a Eboli - . Cristiano vuol dire, nel loro linguaggio, uomo... [...] Noi...more L'intellettuale torinese Carlo Levi, convinto antifascista, viene messo al confino in Lucania. Siamo nel 1935. Qui, nel paese di Aliano, scoprirà l'umanità contadina del mezzogiorno, vivrà con una popolazione da sempre vissuta ai margini della storia, dimenticata e rimasta sepolta per millenni sotto il peso dell'ingiustizia sociale e dell'indifferenza politica.

"- Noi non siamo cristiani, - essi dicono, - Cristo si è fermato a Eboli - . Cristiano vuol dire, nel loro linguaggio, uomo... [...] Noi non siamo cristiani, non siamo uomini, non siamo considerati come uomini, ma bestie, bestie da soma..."

Questo libro racconta, come in un viaggio al principio del tempo, la scoperta di una diversa civiltà. E' quella dei contadini del Mezzogiorno: fuori della Storia e della Ragione progressiva, antichissima sapienza e paziente dolore. Vi si esprime una visione complessa, nella quale gli infiniti punti di vista sono legati assieme, riuniti nel consenso delle cose. Il lettore può trovarvi insieme una ragione di poesia, un modo di linguaggio, uno specchio dell'anima, e la chiave di problemi storici, economici, politici e sociali altrimenti incomprensibili. Un libro che tocca il cuore, che ci fa comprendere la reale percezione delle cose, dei rapporti umani, dello scorrere del tempo.

Capolavoro di umanità. Ecco come definirei in poche parole questa straordinaria opera autobiografica di Carlo Levi. Nel 1935 Levi, medico, pittore e intellettuale, viene mandato al confino in Lucania, prima a Grassano, poi a Gagliano. Vi rimarrà per circa un anno. Il libro, pubblicato nel 1945, è il poetico resoconto di questo periodo della sua vita e rappresenta una delle più importanti e coinvolgenti testimonianze sulle condizioni del Meridione nella prima metà del Novecento. Levi narra i suoi casi e l'incontro con questa "gente mite, rassegnata e passiva, impenetrabile alle ragioni della politica e alle teorie dei partiti", usando la prima persona. Lo fa col distacco scientifico di un competente etnologo che ci descriva in maniera esauriente gli usi e costumi di una popolazione ignota e le necessarie partecipazione e simpatia emotive del narratore e dell'uomo di cultura. La fanno da padrone miseria, arretratezza, diffidenza verso lo straniero, solitudine. Gagliano, Grassano, la Lucania appare agli occhi dei lettori come una terra dimenticata, remota, sconosciuta. Cristo si è fermato a Eboli ebbe subito un grande successo conseguendo fama in tutto il mondo. Nel 1979 Francesco Rosi diresse l’omonimo film interpretato da Gian Maria Volontè, Irene Papas, Alan Cuny, Lea Massari e Paolo Bonacelli. La terra lucana di confine e l’antica civiltà contadina fu affidata alla fotografia del Premio Oscar Pasqualino De Santis. Secondo le sue ultime volontà Carlo Levi riposa nel cimitero di Aliano, lo stesso nel quale durante il periodo del confino si vedeva dipingere in compagnia del cavalletto e dei colori. “Sono passati molti anni, pieni di guerra, e di quello che si usa chiamare la Storia. Spinto qua e là alla ventura, non ho potuto finora mantenere la promessa fatta, lasciandoli, ai miei contadini, tornare fra loro, e non so davvero se e quando potrò mai mantenerla”.
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Nov 29, 2012 MARTI rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: italian-literature, biography-memoir

Yıl 1935. Carlo Levi, (doktor, ressam, yazar) sürgüne, güney İtalya'daki Gagliano isimli uzak bir yere gönderilir. Öyle terkedilmiş bir havası vardır ki bu köyün, İsa bile uğramadı buraya diye anlatırmış yerlileri.

Levi'nin faşizm İtalya'sını, kırsal yaşamı, batıl inanışları ve yoksul insanları anlattığı bu hikayeyi ilk kez Mehmet Yaşin'den duymuş ve çok merak etmiştim. Yaşin, Nedim Gürsel ile birlikte bu kitabın izinde Gagliano'ya gitmiş ve orada biraz vakit geçirmişler. Onlar da yörenin gerçekt...more

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Nov 19, 2011 Evan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: italia, to-acquire, _t-library, yearning, world-war-ii, politics, philosophy, history-euro, 2011-reads, evans-alternative-100

"Nothing had ever come [from Rome] but the tax collector and speeches over the radio."

In Christ Stopped at Eboli, Carlo Levi describes a place that time forgot as beautifully as one could possibly describe such a place; a place so misbegotten and forlorn and godless that Christ himself, so the legend went, stopped at another town and came no further. Levi is the nominal protagonist of the book, since this is his memoir of one-year in 1935-1936 in Aliano, Italy, (renamed Gagliano in the book) as...more "Nothing had ever come [from Rome] but the tax collector and speeches over the radio."

In Christ Stopped at Eboli, Carlo Levi describes a place that time forgot as beautifully as one could possibly describe such a place; a place so misbegotten and forlorn and godless that Christ himself, so the legend went, stopped at another town and came no further. Levi is the nominal protagonist of the book, since this is his memoir of one-year in 1935-1936 in Aliano, Italy, (renamed Gagliano in the book) as an exiled prisoner of Mussolini's fascists, but the real protagonist is the town and the state of being in which it perpetually finds itself. That state of being is manifest in the collective resignation of the downtrodden peasant residents who inhabit the dirt-poor, bleak, isolated Southern Italian hilltop town, built literally on the bones of the dead; a place so dreary and backward that the one-day annual parade at Lent, led by an image of a blackened papier-mache Madonna and a modest fireworks display that cost the peasants six months of earnings, is the highlight of their lives.

Levi wrote this memoir in 1943-1944 as Italy's fascist government was crumbling and in it he recounts his forced exile in Gagliano a decade before; a sentence pronounced as the result of his anti-fascist sympathies. Though life there was austere and hard and he was not allowed to leave the village, Levi was treated like a king by the residents (it was not like a stay in Siberia). Levi, who was a writer, painter and doctor, found himself to be a novelty among the peasantry and appreciated for his willingness to mix and to grasp their plight and also to render much-needed medical care. Even though he was not a practicing doctor at that point, his medical education was superior to that of the two official town doctors, who either from senility or incompetence actually proved to be dangerous to their patients. The professional jealousies among the doctors are only the tip of the iceberg, Levi learns, in a place filled with class and tribal hatreds.

In Gagliano as in most Southern Italian towns at that time, malaria was a persistent scourge, often untreated and scarring a peasantry already beset by malnutrition, back-breaking labor, crushing debt and the constant fear of elite authority, particularly the tax collector. Levi meticulously chronicles the world of the Italian peasant, the timelessness of his plight and the apathy that comes from centuries of exploitation and high-minded governments that come and go without offering solutions. As this book takes place, Mussolini's barbaric Ethiopian campaign of conquest is under way (a prelude to World War II), and the residents face conscription with barely a care. They will either live as dogs where they are or die like dogs in Africa. World War I had already hit the town disproportionately hard (50 of its sons lost from a population of barely more than 1,000 residents), yet the prospect of another war barely fazes them. War is just another of the perpetually expected misfortunes over which they have no control. Heaven, as Levi writes, is closer to the peasants than Rome. The gnomes and devils that the peasants believe live in the caves and wells and hollows of the town are more real to them than Il Duce.

My thoughts at the outset of reading this book centered around how ever-so-slightly dull I thought it was, with its ample descriptions of flora and fauna and mundane village activities. But over the course of the book I realized that this was the book's strength, and that my patience was rewarded. Some readers may feel as I did that Levi sometimes comes off as a kind of inadvertent colonialist because of the air of intellectual superiority he seems to exude when describing the peasants. Levi reflects the attitudes of his time, but his broad-ranging understanding of the historical, political and social dimensions that created and maintained the peasant class and the system that exploited them reveal his understanding and balanced perspective. You'd be hard-pressed to find a book that more vividly presents a sense of life in a poor Italian village.

What I also like about the book is its unsentimental tone. Levi seems as detached as he is caring. I think this is to his credit. He understands that the peasants are part of their own problem, and that like all humans they operate out of a complex set of motivations. Levi does not simplify them or condone their ignorance, nor does he condemn them.

Along the way we learn about the rampant sexuality endemic to village life, including among the priests with their many sire scattered across the landscape, and the peasants' customs, myths, habits and religious practices. The description of the visiting animal surgeon's castration and ovary removal operations on the village's pigs is painful to comprehend, and so is the fate of residents with burst appendixes and other maladies who can't get the treatment they need. Some of the funniest incidents in the book relate to the pompous fascist mayor's attempts to interest the peasants in the radio speeches of Il Duce, to their collective boredom.

The book at different points brought to mind other great books and films with similar themes. The venality of small-town life reminded me of Sinclair Lewis' Main Street. The sense of village customs and the intercession of the outsider brought to mind the book and film of Zorba the Greek. The crushing poverty in a bleak landscape reminded me of the Luis Bunuel film, Land Without Bread and the vivid descriptions of Italian peasant lifestyles reminded me of the 1978 Ermanno Olmi Italian movie, The Tree of Wooden Clogs. It should also be noted here that director Francesco Rosi adapted this memoir into an excellent film in 1979 with the same title.

Levi's book is an exquisitely rendered portrait of isolation, of being isolated in an isolated place, and of being in a place that seems isolated from time itself. It's hard to imagine such a book being better written.(less)

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Oct 01, 2009 Kate rated it 4 of 5 stars

Mussolini sent Carlo Levi as a political prisoner for his anti-fascist activities not to a prison, not to Corsica, but to a village close to the Amalfi coast, which might as well have been a prison. This book chronicles his year there, interacting with local people.

I took this with me when I went to the Amalfi coast and stayed on a lemon farm. I know Italy is one of those places one is supposed to love, but I always find it oppressive.

I took a walk to explore Levi’s Italy, from my lemon farm dow...more Mussolini sent Carlo Levi as a political prisoner for his anti-fascist activities not to a prison, not to Corsica, but to a village close to the Amalfi coast, which might as well have been a prison. This book chronicles his year there, interacting with local people.

I took this with me when I went to the Amalfi coast and stayed on a lemon farm. I know Italy is one of those places one is supposed to love, but I always find it oppressive.

I took a walk to explore Levi’s Italy, from my lemon farm down to the beach, then from sea level up to the monastery propped on the mountain overlooking the beach. It took all day, and I complained in my head incessantly, but only a few times out loud.

I walked up the side of the mountain, up hundreds of steep steps. Lizards. Many lizards. And what I thought was mule poop until I saw a dozen horses walking down the stairs, ridden by some rough cowboy types. I didn't know that horses could go down stairs like that. They seemed to be suffering. I followed the trail of fresh horse poop up the mountain. Every so often there was a hole in a tree with an image of the virgin and child stuck into it, and some fresh candles lighted around. Gnarled women with asymmetrical dogs draped plastic rosaries onto the sculptures, then scampered away from these tree shrines.

I had very little water. Or what I had, I had already drunk. The heat was dry and relentless. The lemon plantations gave way to an uncultivated pine forest. Cones and needles were dry underfoot and covered the steps, which were chipped by thousands of horse hooves. Ascending higher, voices filled the pine forest. Hooting and hollering, and the bellowing of mules straining to cough up a whinny. Groups of smoking teenagers passed us on the trail, the first people who did not greet us with buona sera. The higher I got on this mountain, the farther from civilization, the more disaffected youth I encountered. Then drumming and tambourines. Then the forest opened into a craggy meadow on the mountain top, filled with Italian picnickers, huddled around a simple church, designed according to the tenants of a shoebox and propped on limestone outcrops.

Teenaged boys were goading the mules, untied a couple of them, one of which was wearing a festive halter with red tassels. The mules were anxious. Two of the boys mounted mules, which were saddled for gear rather than human passengers, and suddenly there was an impromptu mule race in the middle of the picnic. Mule hooves came within inches of me. The boys jeered the way boys do when a desperate someone is on top of a building and they yell "jump" from below. The only casualty was a dog that limped into the forest shrieking, its back leg barely attached. The boys clapped and hooted. The girls acted impressed and made way for some more races. For the second heat everyone made a bit more space. The daredevil quality has dissipated, and the girls paid them little notice. They needed a more dangerous venture to hold their attention, and this they created with a stampede mini, throaty dirt motorcycles and some inappropriately rocky terrain. By this time I had sought the shelter of the grounds closer to the church.

Bare midriffs (female) and bellies like buoyant hairy beach balls (male). The remnants of barbecue pits right in the middle of the path, smoldering. Abandoned towels. Hunchbacked pilgrims leaning heavily on canes. How did they get up there? Pony rides where the children were encouraged to slap the pony's haunches as hard as they could with the reins.

Two young boys sold drinks under a tent. Lemonade? Sold out. Iced teas? Sold out. What do you still have? Hot coffee or cold water. It must have been 90 degrees already, and maybe 120 in my boots. I took the latter. The church itself was cool (temperature). It was dedicated to St. Nicholas of Bari, a saint associated with two stories. Three young women live with their father. Their mother has died or fled or been abducted. She's not in the picture. The father is poor and cannot afford dowries for his daughters, so he plans to sell them into prostitution. The night before this nefarious transaction is to take place, St. Nicholas walks by their hovel and casually tosses three lumps of gold into their window. Money for their dowries! They get married and keep their honor. The second story involves boys who again have a poor father. He sells them to a butcher who hacks them into human tenderloins and tosses them into a barrel. That night St. Nicholas comes along, and puts the body parts back together and revives the boys, who are often depicted climbing out of the barrel.

Sitting down in the church was like a short slice of a long theatrical production. Groups of people, two, three, four, would approach the altar, touch the sculpture of San Niccolo holding his three lumps of gold, or the sculpture of the three resuscitated boys in the barrel, cross themselves, kneel, mutter a few words, and turn, walk away slowly.

I came a bit closer to feeling what Carlo Levi was feeling.
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Dec 19, 2007 Galihmelon rated it 4 of 5 stars

Buku yang menceritakan hidup penulis di pengasingan, di sebuah desa di selatan Itali. Sangat menggambarkan kehidupan di desa itu, dan diakhiri dengan usul-usul untuk mengembangkan daerah itu.
Tempat pengasingan penulis (Gagliano), walaupun namanya fiktif, sebenarnya adalah kota Agliano yang sampai sekarang masih merupakan daerah miskin dan susah dijangkau oleh manusia. Dan dari kondisi itulah judulnya Christ stopped at Eboli. Christ (maksudnya 'manusia' atau orang-orang yang benar-benar 'hidup')...more

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title link	preview: Christ Stopped at Eboli: The Story of a Year
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BBCode	[url=http://www.discoverreads.com/book/show/65211.Christ_Stopped_at_Eboli?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1316638504l/65211.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.discoverreads.com/book/show/65211.Christ_Stopped_at_Eboli?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Christ Stopped at Eboli: The Story of a Year by Carlo Levi[/url]

Christ Stopped at Eboli: The Story of a Year

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