Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #432538 in Books
• Published on: 1987-05-01
• Original language: Italian
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 300 pages

Customer Reviews

Fontamara, an insight on centuries of Italian popular mentality
Fontamara is a book that anyone who was about to live in Italy should read: it explains the modes of centuries of exploitment of the populace and the very roots of the persistent endemic mistrust of Italians towards all institutions. Through the collective and individual outlook and voice of its deprived, ignorant protagonists (in the tradition of Italian verism) it implicitly explains why the state - and all its controlling mechanisms - are considered a hostile entity that will rip you off if you do not avoid it or rip it off first.
This may help to explain why, in modern-day Italy, embarrassing characters that encounter unanimous disapproval abroad for openly manipulating the state for personal purposes, make their way to the highest levels of political power and become heros in the eyes of their supporters- thus polarizing the public opinion as fiercely as only Mussolini had done.
It also explains the social, economic and cultural substrate that allowed Italian fascism (the matrix of all 20th century fascisms) to flourish, and ardent anti-fascism to develop.
Bread and wine is a more explicit declaration of the author's peculiar, very independent-minded, communist views.