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Cargando... The Reprisal: A Novelpor Laudomia Bonanni
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In the bitterly cold winter of 1943, the Italian countryside is torn apart by violence as partisans wage a guerilla war against the occupying German army and their local fascist allies. In the midst of this conflict, a ragtag group of fascist supporters captures a woman in the late stages of pregnancy. Suspecting her of being in league with the partisans, they hastily put her on "trial" by improvising a war tribunal one night in the choir stalls of the abandoned monastery that serves as their hide-out. This sham court convicts the woman and sentences her to die--but not until her child has been born. When a young seminarian visits the monastery and tries to dissuade the fascist band from executing their sentence, the absurd tragedy of the woman's fate is cast in stark relief. The child's birth approaches, an unnerving anticipation unfolds, and tension mounts ominously among the characters and within their individual psyches. Based on a number of incidents that took place in Abruzzo during the war, Laudomia Bonanni's compact and tragic novel explores the overwhelming conflicts between ideology and community, justice and vengeance. The story is embedded in the cruel reality of Italian fascism, but its themes of revenge, sacrifice, and violence emerge as universal, delivered in prose that is at once lyrical and brutal. In her native Italy, Bonanni, a writer of journalism and critical prose as well as fiction, is hailed as one of the strongest proponents of post-war realism, and this is the first of her novels to be made available to Anglophone readers. Translators Susan Stewart and Sara Teardo render Bonanni's singular style--both sparse and emotive, frank and poetic--into readable, evocative English. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)853.914Literature Italian and related languages Italian fiction 1900- 20th Century 1945-1999Clasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio:
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This novel recounts the story of a small group of Fascists who towards the end of World War II seek safety from retaliation in an abandoned mountain monastery in Italy. Little is revealed of the background or motivations of the group members, most of whom were residents of a small village who worked as farmers, a pig gelder, a shoemaker and a schoolteacher. The pre-adolescent Nirli, orphaned when his elderly father is killed in a fire that is blamed on partisans, follows his neighbor in joining the group.
The group accidentally comes across and takes as captive La Rossa, a pregnant female partisan, who seems fearless and taunts her captors continually. Through a kangaroo court process, the fascists declare La Rossa guilty of murder based on highly questionable evidence, but agree to delay her execution until she gives birth. They are subsequently joined by a young peasant seminarian, who remains at the monastery in order to minister to the captive woman. While several members struggle with the sentence they have imposed, it is Nirli, who has a close but ambivalent relationship with LaRossa, who ultimately determines her fate.
The story is told retrospectively by the unnamed schoolteacher, who many years later struggles with whether to reveal the events.
Set apart from the rest by his refusal to carry a gun, the schoolteacher is assigned to guarding La Rossa. Always observing and taking notes, he presents as detached and largely ignored by the others. The introduction to the book draws a parallel between the role of the schoolteacher as narrator and Bonanni herself, who was also a teacher during the war and describes the role of a writer as that of a “fearless spectator”.
Bonanni's writing is visually vivid, while having a simplicity of plot, setting and character portrayal that leaves much in the background unexplained. I felt this actually added to the power of her writing, as it made me feel immersed in a sense of being an outside observer, struggling to understand exactly what is happening and why. The structure of the narrative is also unusual, with each of ten chapters divided into six numbered sections of approximately equal length, inferred by the translators as being reminiscent of Dante’s Inferno: “With this method she gives her Inferno something of the rhythm of a collection of cantos.”