In the introduction to this touching collection of several influential writers, William Weaver illustrates with photographic precision the personalities and circumstances that defined the Rome of the postwar epoch. For anyone interested in contemporary Italian writing, Mr. Weaver's profound insight and vast personal knowledge of both Rome and its writers will be an enlightening experience. No other book offers the reader such a fascinating invitation into the lives and stories that were the lost, open city of postwar Rome.

Although he possessed rhetorical power and artistic proficiency, the true strength of Levi's early work Christ Stopped at Eboli flows from his capacity to love. Certainly he could not succor people as Christ did. Nevertheless, Levi helped to impart at least a portion of divine charity to the people of Lucania. Much has changed since the era of fascism, but there is something lasting in Levi's descriptions of Southern Italy. In some ways this portrait in prose is a caustic criticism of political negligence and indifference, but more precisely it is a profound meditation on the ubiquitous longing for human sympathy. Out of this meditation there arises not only an appreciation for the farmers of Gagliano and the surrounding villages, but also a hope that Christ did not stop at Eboli. In other words, Christ descended below all things; the descension of the political prisoner was simply a metaphor for the suffering and compassion of Christ. Christ Stopped at Eboli will satiate the curiosity of anyone who is interested in Italian culture. I recommend this book to such readers, and to anyone who is human.

Carlo Levi as a gifted artist wrote about what he saw. It must be objective for its virtual universal acceptance by scholars and other readers. Certainly it is artistically and beautifully presented. It is an example of objective aesthetics.

For Mr. Martino to advise us in his earlier review that Gagliano and its ilk are not the same as in the 1940's and are now nice places with mature, decent, religious people, is a bit superfluous. Who cares? We are only interested in what was contemporary with Carlo Levi's being there, not what it is like now. Apparently Mr. Martino feels that Levi's book competes with his little travel narrative.

Christ Stopped at Eboli is a classic and an educational fun read. Perhaps it will help those in the future fear fascism enough to prevent it from rearing its ugly head.

This a memoir of Carlo Levi`s experience as a political exile during the fascist regime, at the outset of the Abyssinian war. The setting is a remote village in Lucania, southern Italy, a region characterized by poverty, malaria, completely forgotten and neglected by the State. Levi's artistic sensitivity describes the people, the landscape, with an acute human feeling. This is the other side of Italy, the reverse of the rich, famous, well-developed North. After reading this book, it is easy to understand why so many Italians were tempted to emigrate to the American continent. Levi's ability to socialize and understand the peasant mentality is outstanding; it's a merit to his personality. The fact that he did not isolate himself from the people around the village, regardless of social and cultural level, enable him, after his realease, to write this book with a deep understanding of the social, political, religious, economical, and cultural problems of Southern Italy. The style is simple, direct, and elegant. Why Christ, why Eboli? the author only wants to say that the "civilized world" of Christianity has not reached this region of Italy, be it in Eboli or any other village of the South. An interesting book, written by someone whose main occupation in life was not be a writer. Levi was trained as a doctor, and as a "social doctor" he brush-stroked his thoughts into this memoir.

Carlo Levi (1902-1975) became a distinguished Italian journalist, writer, painter, and doctor, who is best known for his novel "Christ stopped at Eboli," unquestionably his masterpiece. Active in politics as a devoted socialist and antifascist he founded the resistance movement "Giustizia e Liberta." "The Watch" (L'orologio) is best classified as a political documentary novel, pertaining to the Neorealism of postwar Italian literature. Set in the desillusioned period after the war, it portrays a gallery of individuals (family, friends, partisans, and the commom people) all trying to cope and adjust to a new reality and the postwar Cabinet crisis in Rome. Levi foresaw a perpetuation under new slogans and new flags of the worst features of the tendency towards fascism, a culture of the "nostalgia." The heroism and sacrifice of partisan war faces a conservative reaction. Socialism has been a deception of history, the old structure is revived afer the war: the parasites (Luigini) feeding upon their hosts (Contadine), and the overall purpose is to restore the authority of the state. The partisans are blamed for pretending to reform a structure by preserving and restoring the very same structure they initially attempted to reform. The "watch" merely plays the role of a symbol, an attempt to fix an old time mechanism, which eventually is substituted by a similar one.

Besides its political tone, "The Watch" is characterized by an elegant prose and clearly denounces Carlo Levi as a painter, with characters and setting descriptions viewed from the perspective of an artist who is stroking his brush on a canvas.