Tuesday, 20 December 2016

Cesare Pavese - La Bella Estate

A book that I stole from my high-school’s library. Needless to say, I am not proud of it (also because, as it turns out, I really didn’t enjoy the three novels it contains!), but with said high-school being on the Canadian West coast, I am afraid I am unlikely to have the chance to return it anytime soon.

Pavese is the most celebrated author from my area, but the consensus in my family is that he is no match for Fenoglio – primarily because the latter immersed himself in politics, the Resistance and the hard life of the locals, while the latter, well, ultimately did not (he flirted with the hard life of the locals, but really stirred clear of politics at a moment in time when this truly affected everyone, including pretty much all of his friends).


Of the three novels, Il Diavolo sulle Colline is the only one that I actually came to like, at least partially (possibly because it shows the mini culture-clash experience by provincial students moving to the big city), whereas Tre Donne Sole offers some interesting points about solitude and suicide (something which later on Pavese himself ended up committing), but little more, and La Bella Estate to me is just a short story about the small delusions of a young girl discovering the joys of her sexuality in a rather old-fashioned way. 

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