A few years ago I bought for just a couple of
Euros the complete works of Calvino. I got excited and thought I was going to
read them all, then quickly got bored. Il
Sentiero dei Nidi di Ragno, however, is special. Not so much because it’s
about the Resistance against Italian Fascism, but mostly because it’s an
entirely different Calvino from the one I was used to – not fully realist
(despite the fact that the novel has been considered neorealist by some), but
not even completely fantastical.
The novel is touching and deep. It offers an
allegoric portrayal of the internal divisions of Italian partisans that is both
sad and accurate at the same time. The character of Cugino (Cousin) is the kind
of rock we all wish we could have in our lives.
Yet, in spite of all this, Il Sentiero dei Nidi di Ragno – probably because is focuses on the
story of what is, at the end of the day, just a kid – lacks the elements of
violence that to me are so essential to Resistance novels. After all even
Calvino himself admitted that the book his entire generation would have dreamt
of writing was actually Fenoglio’s Una
Questione Privata.
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