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La luna e i falò (Italian Texts)

by Cesare Pavese

3.79 · rating details · 426 ratings · 34 reviews

Written in 1949 and published shortly before his suicide, Cesare Pavese's last novel provides a strongly evocative, but detailed and concrete picture of life in the Piedmontese hills, seen through the eyes of a returned American immigrant. However, its main interest does not lie in its realism, a mode of writing which Pavese himself rejected. Instead, the novel's focu...more

Paperback, 240 pages

Published January 15th 1995 by Manchester University Press (first published 1950)

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Oct 13, 2011

Mariel rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: hobo bonfires

Recommended to Mariel by: the moon is out yet it is day

Shelves: babywecouldbefamous

"One needs a town, if only for the pleasure of leaving it."

Anguilla has returned to his Italian valley in half moon measures. The fog is willed and of time and that kind of memory shit. Howling at that crescent shape for what cannot be changed (crescent like fingernails digging in for futility! And empty sex). My own cries of "Enough already! I get it! You were a bastard and poor" were unheard. I heard them because I cried them often (did I mention that this is a ...more"One needs a town, if only for the pleasure of leaving it."

Anguilla has returned to his Italian valley in half moon measures. The fog is willed and of time and that kind of memory shit. Howling at that crescent shape for what cannot be changed (crescent like fingernails digging in for futility! And empty sex). My own cries of "Enough already! I get it! You were a bastard and poor" were unheard. I heard them because I cried them often (did I mention that this is a really short book? Imagine if it were long. *cries*). If Anguilla marked on the difference between his social stats back then versus now one more time... I would have written a scathing goodreads review! It would have been all about how annoying it was that he only cared about that one little detail.

The Moon and the Bonfires is kind of like the anti Swann's Way. The memories are walled in, not as a garden to cultivate and relive and sing to, but to throw stones at, something to despise, to relive in a disturbingly dead way. If you are going to go back, why do it that way? If you are going to do it that way the first time how did you ever eek out an existence for this long?
Probably stones from the crumbling walls of self serving purposes that don't do anything other than suck out the air from the vaults. The hermitude is not of loss but of taking inventory of what was owed. He'd pull the plug on the life support of biospheric beauty. Put in a glass jar. Brains and swimming lucky feet. Look at me! The moon's pull did not pull me for any such owed. It would not be a bad thing to read about a spermicidal man in the stream of life, if it meant more than a boring high school reunion to see the girl who wouldn't dance with you. And the girl has broken legs! Who would care about him, now? (If she asked him to dance now he would find he didn't want to dance. So who cares???) It's just that this man is one I cared about in the negative. His papa was neutered. I'm trying to say I didn't give a shit about Anguilla one little bit. I was depressed by how much I didn't care. That's right! Get a grip, dude! You were a bastard. You were poor. Now you are rich and women want to fuck you. That's just great. Oh yeah, I was doing some moon chart phases analogy thing. If the moon was seen over the same sky it would be the same damned moon (an ass). I get this idea on other book websites that 'Moon' is about how you can leave the world and walk by to the same place you started from. I got that message from Morvern Callar (especially the film) more than from this book. Probably because the protagonist actually gave a shit to look at the world. You know, really lived in it. Anguilla won't shut up about his little thing about being a bastard. I probably have used this analogy on goodreads already. It's like making a French revolution story as if it were only about Marie Antoinette and the tragedy was she didn't get to wear some new dress. Um, did you ever do anything else in your life? Was he really born this dead? Is this David Copperfield if only the opening line was the story? My god, what happened in this Belbo valley village was the shit happens life story that is real people stuff no matter how many times you see it in Time Life or the news. The corruption, the betrayal, lost hopes, lost ties to the past, strings to the future to pull down and not forward. If you knew where they had started, or where they ended up... Women being beaten in their own homes. Lives sold to anyone who bid. I was moved by the recollections of the people from Nuto, the old friend who still remembers the aged Anguilla. They lived and died without you, Anguilla. World war II Italy? Shit. I guess I feel like if you're going to have a world, or any kind of community, it should be about more than how you wish others saw you. The lost chances to be a community should not have been so much about "Look at me now! I don't need you motherfuckers." Then why come back? To make me feel hopeless? I felt more loss than his half assed scorn and I wished that Anguilla had stayed in a hole he crawled into. At least then they would have chosen to live, not dwell on bitterments from when they were children in the dirt, as if there couldn't have been a chance for more than showing off fancy new clothes. I would have asked them how they felt about being them, not generic-isms about women (sexist, of course), religion (fake "But we need them" instead of having the balls to come out and say they worse than let them down. Coming from YOU, Anguilla? Seriously? No one could have sounded faker than he did with that shit about the priests. How does this guy who abandoned them get off saying they needed figurehead priests to stand for nothing?! They were better off without them!) and "It's all okay if you have money" shit. Ugh. Ugh! What would he know about what they needed if all that mattered was some Jay Gatsby pipe dream that felt hollow even to him? (I guess he was pretty hollow, though.) No, that's not the point of living anywhere. Sheesh. They can sit around and talk about who needs what but do those people need Nuto and Anguilla to do it? I don't think so. They don't need hypocritical people dressed in black, be it fascists or priests or the rich Italian dude in the linen suit with bulging pockets of money. EWWWWWWWWWW.

Not that Nuto doesn't fall pray to this too but it was written by Pavese as if he had actually lived anywhere (don't get me wrong, I also grew to despise Nuto). He's a bit of a shithead but at least it affected him too (the hypocritical motherfucker). Okay, 'Moon' is from the point of view of Anguilla. For a reason? It's a point of view thing, and a skill thing (maybe just a who you are as a person thing), I've decided. Did Pavese really feel these things about communities? Does it mean nothing more than something you can walk away from and pretend it never happened, if you're lucky enough to afford better means to dress yourself in? Why choose to tell this story from the perspective of someone who carries nothing? Why try to echo it through someone who cared and has been broken? Echoes, but not enough. Is he trying to say we are fucked? Is it an afterthought, like that is all that could be mustered about humanity? I can see from other reviews that I'm the only one who felt crushingly depressed by this book. Maybe it is me? Others read this as a WARM book about a guy coming home. I don't get it. Opposite of warm. Burning in hell warm, maybe.

The view of women depressed the hell out of me. That has to be rational. It was hard to take a book seriously that wanted a) women to be hot and b) women were bad for knowing if they were hot c) because they were hot they weren't capable of caring about anything else. What the fuck?! Were they only there to have sex with and make a man look better if the hot women wanted to fuck them? It was hard to take to heart a world view that ignored real hearts that I KNOW meant more than that. If I'm honest 'Moon' lost a lot of chances with me pretty much from the get go when it said that women couldn't have music because they only wanted to be hot. Why would I want to read this kind of a story from someone who believes that? Why would I care how others saw Anguilla if that is how he saw others? Why not cut out the dicktastic middlemen and let the real meaning of having roots take hold? How does it feel to subsist without water, the earth robbed of vital nutrients and stability?

If I had to read another book like this one I wouldn't want to read anymore. I've been in a reading slump and it is breaking my heart that I turn to books and it is THIS one. Pavese killed himself after he finished this, I read online. Of course he did. He must have hated being alive to have written this book. I don't believe that The Moon and the Bonfires was about caring about what made you into the person you are, and measuring against what happened to the others who came up with you. It should have been about that. It was about a vain(ity) wish to burn the hell out of what doesn't look like how you want it to look and a rejection of what really is and what it could be, if you hadn't given up in the first place. A meaningless desire to rewrite the past with yourself as its only star. What an empty fucking sky, then.

What the hell was with Santina? She was the oh so perfectly gorgeous girl from the village. Interesting 'cause of her looks, right? I'm sighing right now. This is so sad. So she fucks blackshirts to survive and everyone hates her for it. (Why did she have to be more ashamed than anyone else for what they did? Because it was sex? Who else did she owe her body to but herself, then?) I hate villages so much any time I read about how they treated young girls who may or may not have slept with soldiers during a war, like what happened was THEIR fault. That's what happened to Santina. It's easy for them to judge her (this is what I mean about Nuto thinking a lot about himself. He's such a hypocrite. He gave in too!!!!!! Are you really for real with this? How did YOU do anything, Nuto? You talk and look disgusted. That's so hard! Not. At least he cared about the village as more than an audience, unlike Anguilla. But I hated him so much for that!). So her body is burned after she is murdered because all of the men would still want to have sex with her. Can't let that happen. She must burn! What the fuck was that?! I mean, really? Okay, how is what one would take out of this? Purity versus impurity? Oh wait, I forgot. It's too late if you didn't start from perfect! Fuck you, Nuto. And a bigger fuck you to you, Anguilla, for showing up years later and going but she was so pretty. For fucking real? Birth and death are all that matters? No one is born clean, Pavese. We cry and it isn't pretty. The more I think about it the more this book makes me depressed. I think I hated it, after all. You know what? It's not a moon and there's no fire to reflect its light. It rises every day with or without you. If Santina was just a sex machine to owe allegiance to men who had the right to judge her than this book really, really sucked. Maybe there was more to people than his limited little view. I gotta believe that. Maybe Anguilla is the village and they are the world. What an asshole. Maybe you guys should stop whining about not getting to pretend you weren't sell outs and pretending being a bastard was the issue. How about sitting there and letting Santina get murdered? Letting her be the scapegoat for how the community failed to do anything? Hm? And if you didn't live your own life, that's your fault, Anguilla. No, fucking hot women isn't a substitute for a character. From where I'm sitting the tragedy wasn't that NUTO and ANGUILLA don't get to come "home" to a home that never existed in the first place. Try not burning women's bodies to make up for your own failures and then you can say you had that home. No one else gets to say that and thinking you have that say makes you the stereotypical suffocating village and not anything else.

Villages don't get to decide who you are. If you can't see that there are others in the village, not the whole, as you are not the whole... Then why write a book about villages? Was I so hopelessly depressed by this that I was blinded to some message about the cruelty of humanity and it had something to say about not escaping the world? Because I know that people can suck. I really do. It's what Lana said in Morvern Callar about it sucking everywhere. But isn't there some part inside that would care about what happened to Santina, no matter what she looked like? Isn't there? Like what Morvern said about looking for some place beautiful. Don't you have to open your eyes to find it? Can you start from somewhere else? What's a bastard but someone without a mother? They tell Anguilla he is his own father. Well, he ain't his own mama.

Hate it. #$#!!!## fuck this stupid fucking book. I hate villages.

P.s. My copy reads "The Moon and the Bonfires" and Anguilla's name is spelled with two L's. I notice the 's' and the additional L are gone on goodreads.(less)

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Nov 07, 2011

Sunny rated it

· review of another edition

"A quei tempi non mi capacitavo cosa fosse questo crescere, credevo fosse solamente fare delle cose difficili - come comprare una coppia di buoi, fare il prezzo dell'uva, manovrare la trebbiatrice. Non sapevo che crescere vuol dire andarsene, invecchiare, veder morire, ritrovare la Mora com'era adesso." La malinconia di chi non ha né vera patria né vere radici, e che viaggia alla ricerca di qualcosa che non può trovare. Poi il ritorno, il gioco dolceamaro delle somiglianze e delle diff...more

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Feb 09, 2012

Belen is currently reading it · review of another edition

Nunca había leído nada de Pavese y desde luego no será el último. Esta novela es suavecita y parece que siempre es verano. El protagonista vuelve al pueblo cercano a Génova tras haber hecho dinero en América y se reencuentra con su amigo del alma y van dejando que la vida fluya por ellos yla conversación. y así, suavecito, sin grandilocuencias, ni ruidos y aunque yo no estaba muy por la labor de una novela tan silenciosa, desde una continua descripción de los sentimientos callados y tenues de lo...more

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Jul 31, 2011

Chiara Pagliochini rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: classici-italiani

Comincio questa recensione col cuore in mano. Ho la sensazione che qualsiasi parola sia di troppo, che non serva e che questo libro bisogni pigliarselo in grembo e leggerlo e basta, senza parlarci sopra.

C’è un uomo senza casa e senza famiglia che se ne va da quella che è stata la terra dalla sua giovinezza. Se ne va perché pensa che il mondo oltre le colline sia migliore, che anche per lui senza casa e senza famiglia sia possibile diventare come tutti gli altri e mettere radic...more
Comincio questa recensione col cuore in mano. Ho la sensazione che qualsiasi parola sia di troppo, che non serva e che questo libro bisogni pigliarselo in grembo e leggerlo e basta, senza parlarci sopra.

C’è un uomo senza casa e senza famiglia che se ne va da quella che è stata la terra dalla sua giovinezza. Se ne va perché pensa che il mondo oltre le colline sia migliore, che anche per lui senza casa e senza famiglia sia possibile diventare come tutti gli altri e mettere radici da qualche parte. Arriva fino in America, fa fortuna, torna indietro. Arriva fino al Pacifico, un altro mare davanti, e dietro sempre e solo colline e montagne, proprio come la sua terra. Il tutto si potrebbe riassumere nello spiccio proverbio, tutto il mondo è paese (tutto il mondo è Pavese!). È vero, tutto il mondo è paese, perché il mondo non è che un insieme di paesi e il paese lo si porta nel cuore o in nessun posto.

E questo uomo porta il suo paese nel cuore. Quando torna alle colline, a rivedere le cascine, le piazze, le macchie di noccioli, quest’uomo ha come un velo davanti agli occhi. Il paesaggio continua a osservarlo con gli occhi del bambino e del ragazzo che era, con nostalgia, forse con rimpianto, forse con l’angoscia di essere partito, partito per fare cosa? Non lo sapeva che la sua terra era qui?

I personaggi di questo racconto sembrano eterni e mitici. Il Nuto, l’amico d’infanzia, ha la stessa voce di una Circe o di un Edipo: le sue considerazioni sul destino sono le stesse dei personaggi dei Dialoghi con Leucò, sono le ossessioni che Pavese porta con sé. Irene e Silvia, le signorine, sembrano figure ritagliate dalla carta velina, tanto il ricordo del protagonista le rende splendide e enormi e distanti: i loro capricci e le loro sorti si seguono col fiato sospeso. In Cinto, il bambino storpio, il protagonista rivede se stesso o forse vuole rivedere se stesso, così gli parla delle campagne come le conosceva un tempo e gli parla del mondo e lo invita a partire proprio come ha fatto lui.

Io credo in verità che Pavese, per come scrive, avrebbe potuto anche scrivere liste della spesa e comunque avrebbero avuto un suono, un ritmo, un respiro, una musica, un tessuto. La sua commistione di colto e popolare si realizza in una fusione armonica, senza la minima sbavatura, e l’orecchio la beve che è un piacere. Più che la storia, ciò che tiene il lettore incollato alle pagine è proprio la scrittura, un flusso ininterrotto come l’onda del mare, si scivola giù dalla china e si comincia a risalire.

Di questo romanzo posso dire in tutta franchezza che mi ha fatto venir voglia di andare nelle Langhe e ruzzolare giù dal pendio di una collina, magari con Anguilla o con Irene o con Silvia e sbirciare gli orli delle loro sottovesti. O magari con Pavese e affondare nell’erba. C’è freschezza e c’è lirismo, c’è un mondo.

Mi chiedo perché a Pavese sia riservato tanto poco posto nelle antologie. Ci sorbiamo cento cervellotiche pagine di Pirandello e non una de La luna e i falò. Non so nelle vostre antologie, ma la mia era così.

A legger questo libro viene voglia di smettere di scrivere, se uno ha mai pensato di accingersi all’impresa. Si pensa, ma chi ce lo fa fare? Si pensa, non voglio mica offenderlo. Si pensa, se fossi stata con lui quella sera in quella stanza me lo sarei stretto contro e gli avrei detto, scrivi! Ma lui aveva già detto, non scriverò più. La luna e i falò è il suo ultimo romanzo. Cesare ne parla così:

“La luna e i falò è il libro che mi portavo dentro da più tempo e che ho più goduto a scrivere. Tanto che credo che per un pezzo – forse sempre – non farò più altro. Non conviene tentare troppo gli dei”.

Ha detto tutto lui.
(less)

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Sep 10, 2011

Matteo Di Maggio rated it

· review of another edition

Le colline, i campi, il piccolo borgo... Tutto di questo libro è fantastico! Una narrazione impeccabile che ha come sfondo un paesaggio magnifico e accogliente.
Pavese, non smette mai di deludere il lettore, e lo accompagna - passo per passo - in una storica regione dell'Italia settentrionale, avvolta dall'oppressione del fascismo (e della guerra): le memorie di Anguilla, un giovane cresciuto nel medesimo borgo, rianimate grazie alla compagnia di Nuto, suo amico da sempre, e a quella del pic...more

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Jan 02, 2012

Andrew added it · review of another edition

Shelves: italian-fiction

I, to be fair, am something of an exile, having abandoned my home at a young age, and restricting myself to a once-every-other-year visit to see how much my kid brother has grown. So I read books that help me justify my decision a lot of the time.

Pavese points out that your hometown can be really goddamned awful, even if it is filled with material nostalgia. Granted, I'm not searching for the history of how my hometown fell under the swoop of fascism, but there's a sympathy here. It'...more

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May 18, 2009

Astall rated it

· review of another edition

It took me a few tries to get fully engrossed, probably because the tone is deeply ruminative. In spite of so much interior activity on the narrator's part, the most memorable characters were Nuto, the narrator's old friend, and Silvia, remembered from his youth on the farm La Mora. The language was full of detail, and I wonder how much of that detail would have seemed banal if I weren't obsessed with Italy. Anyway, I'd read this again for the characters I mentioned, and for the sense of a river...more

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Apr 16, 2011

Karl Ruben rated it

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Shelves: reviewed

Tidlig i Månen og Bålene klager den hjemvendte hovedpersonen Anguilla sin nød over rotløsheten han føler ved gjensynet med sine gamle hjemtrakter i nordvest-Italia. Hans foreldreløse oppvekst som gårdsgutt gjør at han ikke føler den tilhørigheten andre (selvfølgelig) har; han kjenner ikke sine egne, derfor kjenner han ikke seg selv. Han er vendt tilbake til stedet han vokste opp, men han er ikke kommet hjem. Etter å ha lest resten av boken, er det allikevel vanskelig å ta ham på ordet.

...moreTidlig i Månen og Bålene klager den hjemvendte hovedpersonen Anguilla sin nød over rotløsheten han føler ved gjensynet med sine gamle hjemtrakter i nordvest-Italia. Hans foreldreløse oppvekst som gårdsgutt gjør at han ikke føler den tilhørigheten andre (selvfølgelig) har; han kjenner ikke sine egne, derfor kjenner han ikke seg selv. Han er vendt tilbake til stedet han vokste opp, men han er ikke kommet hjem. Etter å ha lest resten av boken, er det allikevel vanskelig å ta ham på ordet.

Cesare Pavese lar Anguillas historie veksle vagt og drømmende mellom oppvekst- og hjemkomstsskildring. I samtiden (Italia, rundt 1950) er det tydelig at Anguilla, etter å ha latt vandrelysten sin bringe seg lenger og lenger hjemmefra, nå er en fremmed i eget land. Bortsett fra den gamle bestevennen hans er det ingen som husker ham om de ikke tvinges til det, oppmerksomheten han får er ikke gjensynsglede, men sultne tilnærminger fra en utmagret og krigstrett region som værer formuen han har med seg tilbake fra Amerika. Men jo mer Anguilla insisterer på først kun å ha blitt hentet fra barnehjemmet fordi de fattige gårdbrukerne trengte de ekstra lirene kirken ga dem for å ta ham, jo mer han maler oppveksten sin som et liv tilbrakt på utsiden smugkikkende inn - jo vanskeligere er det å se disse meningene som noe annet enn den voksnes minneferniss over barnets faktiske opplevelser. Anguilla er en kritiker, utilpass og fremmedgjort, skuffet over at hjemkomsten kjennes hul og kald.

Det er i alle fall min egen fordreining av virkeligheten. Pavese lar ikke denne bitterheten bli spesielt uttalt i teksten, men spriket mellom hovedpersonens mann-uten-land-manifesto i begynnelsen og den taktile tilknytningen i oppvekstskildringene hinter om at Anguillas rotløshet er noe han bærer med seg mellom ørene og i hjertet, et uunngåelig filter for opplevelsene hans.

Rent mekanisk virket det som om Månen og Bålene ville at jeg skulle gjøre det meste av jobben selv. Paveses språk (i Tryggve Norums norske oversettelse) er butt, jeg ville nesten kalt det ulyrisk, og tidvis lett bare å la skylle over meg, å la fremkalle en slags apati som speilet den halvbedøvede måten Anguilla famlet etter sin egen fortid (og nåtid) på. Men ved jevne mellomrom bråvåknet fantasien min av det som først virket som en heller prosaisk setning, og det ble tydelig at bokens tilsynelatende endeløse grunne skjulte oppsiktsvekkende dybder. Dessverre er jeg en skummer av natur; såfremt den ikke strekker seg ut av omslaget og griper meg i pannelappen, er det ikke stilen jeg leser for, men historien og karakterene. Jeg er ikke laget for å finsikte hver eneste linje etter skjulte gullkorn, og derfor fikk jeg bare ane hvor bra Månen og Bålene var. Og jeg aner at den var temmelig bra.(less)

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Jul 15, 2011

Kibisis rated it

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Dopo un lungo viaggio in America, il ritorno del protagonista nella terra in cui è nato e cresciuto (Santo Stefano Belbo). Paesaggi intimi ed intensi guardati con gli occhi di chi sente che un giorno andrà via. "Anguilla" (così è soprannominato il protagonista nel racconto) non si attacca fisicamente ai luoghi, ma li porta in viaggio con sè, li accudisce, preserva, e quando torna, li ridefinisce alla luce di una sua maturazione e maggior esperienza. Allora ricorda le certezze di un tem...more

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Nov 18, 2010

Isairon rated it

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Shelves: l, italiana

Il protagonista non ha un nome, ma un soprannome, Anguilla. Non sa chi sono i suoi genitori ne dove è nato, di lui dice Non c’è da queste parti una casa né un pezzo di terra né delle ossa ch’io possa dire "Ecco cos’ero prima di nascere."
Lascia il suo paese, il suo mondo, per crearsi una vita, una famiglia, una storia “farsi terra e paese, perché la sua carne valga e duri qualcosa di più che un comune giro di stagione”. Ma capisce che non è lontano dai luoghi dove ha trascorso la sua gi...more

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Feb 08, 2011

Bill rated it

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Shelves: 1001-books, 2011, fiction, lit-fiction, nyrb

another great book in the extremely excellent series of nyrb classics. they are probably my favorite publisher...i own 120 of them. i know because i just counted them. i basically now buy every new one as soon as they release them. everybody on goodreads should be buying at least some of their books to support them, as usually publishers who try and release the kind of books that they do, foreign books in translation and obscure and out of print books in english, have a habit of going under shor...more

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Dec 29, 2011

Cliff rated it

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Shelves: paperback, new-york-review-books, mi-piace, 2011

Spectacular portrayal of Italian neorealism--l'arte povera nella forma-romanzo. The melancholy of striving to escape the backwaters, populated with farmland and superstitions, only to return anonymous with the past swept away as a consequence of violent historical tides, despite the fact that being by the sea, as the narrator says, means that you could not know about la luna e i falo'. The narrator anchors himself to that past and draws himself to a scorched shore.

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May 02, 2010

Tom Lichtenberg rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: twentieth-century-literature

Just finished reading 'The Moon and the Bonfires' by Cesare Pavese, a mesmerizing novel of nostalgia and revelation. It's so strikingly earthy that it made me feel like I could smell and even taste the places and flavors he was describing. I really got absorbed in the various characters that I didn't want it to end.

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Sep 14, 2010

Julia Boechat Machado rated it

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Shelves: italian-literature, tingle-of-the-spine, constantly-re-reading, books-i-own, 1950s, favorites

O Italo Calvino disse que um clássico é um livro que você relê quando lê e que você lê quando relê. Antes de ler esse livro pela primeira vez, eu já tinha ouvido falar de vários aspectos desse livro, e até mesmo lido uma interpretação, a da fogueira final como outra fogueira propiciatória à colheita.
Nada disso impediu que, em minha leitura/releitura, eu ficasse atônita pela força e poesia do livro. Pavese conta uma história de desgraça, miséria e tragédia, mas com lirismo e melancolia, a p...more

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Sep 23, 2009

Harry rated it

· review of another edition

This book is recommended by "1010 Books" (best of contemporary Italian fiction). If this is the best, it says little for the state of the novel in Italy. In a nutshell the story line is ...you can go home. One positive, it's only 189 pages.

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Feb 25, 2009

Michael Murray added it · review of another edition

Shelves: translations, abandoned, fiction-1900-1970, italy

I confess, I could not finish the book.
I had so looked foreward to it, and yet... could not engage with either characters or storyline.
Alas.

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Sep 04, 2008

Joe rated it

· review of another edition

I found this curiously unsatisfying. While it was clearly attempting to work on more than one level, the only level which came across effectively for me was the obvious one of description of a period in Italian history and the way life was for the people in this poor mountainous southern area of Italy. I was not swept away by the imagery and the emotional drama, and was left with a strangely unaffecting depiction of a way of life, which was sad and despairing but somehow lacked resonance as bei...more

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Feb 03, 2012

Katrinka rated it

· review of another edition

This was just alright until the end. It felt different than Pavese's other novels; one critic noted that it may have intentionally been written in an American style-- and I think he was right. Still good, but probably my least favorite of his works to date.

· see review

Feb 17, 2011

Sarah marked it as considering · review of another edition

Via http://www.tinhouse.com/blog/4561/staff-...

· see review

Aug 10, 2011

Mazel rated it

· review of another edition

en lecture commune avec le forum grain de sel...
.
Dans le microcosme social que constitue une plage pendant la saison balnéaire, le narrateur observe jalousement un couple ami. En attendant, en souhaitant même peut-être obscurément une rupture, il décrit en contrepoint sa solitude sans espoir, telle que fut celle de Pavese. Dans La Lune et les feux, un ancien pupille de l'Assistance publique, revient, après avoir émigré, au pays qui lui tient lieu de pays natal. C'est pour l'auteur un r...more

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Jul 24, 2011

Jordan rated it

Un bel libro della ricerca di se' e le idee d'identita'

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Mar 07, 2010

Liza Moss added it · review of another edition

The moon and the bonfire by Cesare Pavese (1963)

· see review

Oct 17, 2010

David Ireland rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 4-big-white-square

It's like the opposite of nostalgia. Anguilla returns and he's the big man now, but no-one's very impressed. Never Go Back.

like 1 like

· see review

Mar 05, 2011

Marco Tamborrino rated it

· review of another edition

Bellissimo è dir poco. Meraviglioso.

like 1 like

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Nov 17, 2010

Hollygolightly (in transito) rated it

· review of another edition

Quando si leggono romanzi come questo, si capisce molto rapidamente come e perchè siano entrati di merito tra i capolavori della letteratura italiana.
Sarà che poi questa ricerca del paese, il ritorno ai luoghi dell'infanzia, la rievocazione di un passato che sembra lontano ma fa ancora parte della voce narrante... Ecco tutto questo sono io proprio adesso :)

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Jun 20, 2008

Pequete rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: meus

É uma história melancólica e nostálgica, sobre um homem que regressa à zona rural em que viveu e trabalhou em criança, de onde emigrou para a América na altura da 2º Grande Guerra. É daqueles livros que, sem contarem uma história particularmente empolgante, são capazes de nos transportar para uma época e um sítio diferentes com um grande realismo.

· see review

Nov 11, 2010

Mara rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: italiana, narrativa

Il paesaggio e la memoria sono i protagonisti della La luna e i falò . Libro bello e appassionante, si avverte che è stato molto vissuto dall'autore.L'ho letto la prima volta al liceo e mi ha fatto scoprire Pavese ; in seguito l' ho letto diverse volte e ne ho sempre scoperto sfumature diverse.

· see review

Mar 19, 2008

Joe rated it

· review of another edition

Pretty long for a short book.

"These are the best days of the year. Picking grapes, stripping vines, squeezing the fruit, are no kind of work; the heat has gone and it's not cold yet; under a few light clouds you eat rabbit with you polenta and go after mushrooms."

· see review

Nov 16, 2010

Ettore.bilbo rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: romanzo

C'è che tutto si fa a stagione, forse ancora adesso che le stagioni non ci sono più.
Passa la luna, si accendono i falò... Ed il segno rimane sulla terra. Se lo guardi fa ancora male.

· see review

Jun 30, 2008

José rated it

· review of another edition

Nós somos donde? Livro muito bonito de um homem que regressa e as pessoas que eram novas se tornaram velhas.

· see review

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About Cesare Pavese

Pavese was born in a small town in which his father, an official, owned property. He attended school and later, university, in Turin. Denied an outlet for his creative powers by Fascist control of literature, Pavese translated many 20th-century U.S. writers in the 1930s and '40s: Sherwood Anderson, Gertrude Stein, John Steinbeck, John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner; a 19th-cent...morePavese was born in a small town in which his father, an official, owned property. He attended school and later, university, in Turin. Denied an outlet for his creative powers by Fascist control of literature, Pavese translated many 20th-century U.S. writers in the 1930s and '40s: Sherwood Anderson, Gertrude Stein, John Steinbeck, John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner; a 19th-century writer who influenced him profoundly, Herman Melville (one of his first translations was of Moby Dick); and the Irish novelist James Joyce. He also published criticism, posthumously collected in La letteratura americana e altri saggi (1951; American Literature, Essays and Opinions, 1970). His work probably did more to foster the reading and appreciation of U.S. writers in Italy than that of any other single man.

A founder and, until his death, an editor of the publishing house of Einaudi, Pavese also edited the anti-Fascist review La Cultura. His work led to his arrest and imprisonment by the government in 1935, an experience later recalled in “Il carcere” (published in Prima che il gallo canti, 1949; in The Political Prisoner, 1955) and the novella Il compagno (1947; The Comrade, 1959). His first volume of lyric poetry, Lavorare stanca (1936; Hard Labour, 1976), followed his release from prison. An initial novella, Paesi tuoi (1941; The Harvesters, 1961), recalled, as many of his works do, the sacred places of childhood. Between 1943 and 1945 he lived with partisans of the anti-Fascist Resistance in the hills of Piedmont.

The bulk of Pavese's work, mostly short stories and novellas, appeared between the end of the war and his death. Partly through the influence of Melville, Pavese became preoccupied with myth, symbol, and archetype. One of his most striking books is Dialoghi con Leucò (1947; Dialogues with Leucò, 1965), poetically written conversations about the human condition. The novel considered his best, La luna e i falò (1950; The Moon and the Bonfires, 1950), is a bleak, yet compassionate story of a hero who tries to find himself by visiting the place in which he grew up. Several other works are notable, especially La bella estate (1949; in The Political Prisoner, 1955). Shortly after receiving the Strega Prize for it, Pavese committed suicide in his hotel room by taking an overdose of pills.
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