The Moon and the Bonfire by Cesare Pavese

  The Moon and the Bonfire

by Cesare Pavese

Hello I'm back for a review of a modern classic of Italian Literature. 

Check out my last review about The Mirror Visitor Saga by Christelle Dabos :)

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Today's review will talk about the book The Moon and the Bonfire (in Italian La Luna e I Falò) by the Italian writer, poet, translator, and critic of literature, Cesare Pavese. 

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The book was the last of his published in 1950 and dedicated to the woman in his life: Constance Dowling. It presents autobiographical elements and it takes place in Piedmont, a region in Northern Italy. 

The story revolves around the main character, of which the name is never told, but only his nickname: Anguilla ("Eel" in English). It focuses also on the other characters that he relations with in a town in the Valley of Belbo, of which we also don't know the name of. The book is a mixture of past and present, with events being told thanks to the thoughts and reflections of the protagonist. 

The book begins with Anguilla coming back as an immigrant from America after the Liberation (from the war). He comes back home with the thought of how his life started there, abandoned at the doorstep of the Duomo of Alba and then brought to the hospital of Alessandria, where he would have later been adopted by Padrino and Virgilia. 

After her death and a hail storm that destroyed their vineyard, Padrino decides to sell their house. Anguilla then will be transferred to the farm of the Mora, where he starts to work for the first time. There he finds wealth together with Sor Matteo and his three daughters: Irene, Silvia and Santa (the youngest). 

As a reader I happily got lost in the memories, sometimes sad that Anguilla relives with his friend Nuto because he is able to understand how much everyone needs a town, a family, an anchor, a point of reference that keeps us connected somewhere. Anguilla realises this when he's been called back from that sense of belonging together with a mix of nostalgia.  

Because of this, Anguilla will go to visit the house of Padrino, now belonging to an old man called Il Valino and his son Cinto, a crippled and solitary young boy. Cinto will remember to him how it feels to be young and he will try to be to him what Nuto has been to him. Thanks to this relationship, they will begin to be friends and Cinto feels like he can trust him with a shocking revelation that will happen later in the book. 

Anguilla will then find out about the other people who were part of his life before leaving for America, and it will make him realise that everyone of us needs a town. 

"A town means never being alone, knowing that in the people, in the plants, in the ground there's something yours that even when you go away, it's there, waiting for you."

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At the beginning it started really nice but then got lost in the middle for a bit of boring plot, but I must admit that reaching the end was totally worth it. The revelation of the fate of the other characters interconnecting with him were shocking and unexpected. Especially the fate of the poor Cinto and the three sisters. 

The friendship between Anguilla and Nuto, is that kind that everyone would like to have. Even if he left for America, when he came back, Nuto was back for him, as if, he actually never left. 

If you're into books talking about the after war period, this is totally the one for you ;)