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Pavese's words hurt. They have harsh, grating sounds, perfectly in tune with the landscape and the people they describe. They are letters of fire, written with the violence of a man who had already made the dramatic decision to take his own life. Perhaps it is for this reason that his masterpiece, "The Moon and the Bonfires," etches even deeper grooves of suffering into the soul of the reader.
Written at the end of 1949 and published the following year (the one of his death), "The Moon and the Bonfires" represents, in my opinion, one of the most touching, seminal, tragic, and heartfelt episodes in all of twentieth-century Italian literature. The story of the emigrant Anguilla, who returns to the hills of the Langhe (a setting often used by Pavese), is a human story that warms the heart with the way it is told. A reminiscence of memories, of evenings in the small Piedmont villages talking with the musician Nuto, of the countless days spent working in the vineyards, of lost and found friendships, of everyday struggles. The awareness that everything has changed...
I could not say with certainty where the great strength of this novel lies. After all, the matter is subjective and it varies from person to person. What I have understood for certain is the fragile mind of who wrote this book. Pavese always suffered from this world. He suffered from his inability to help the partisans in the Resistance, he suffered from love. All these fears, difficulties, and indecisions of his became the backbone of his works. Anguilla is nothing more than Pavese himself, retracing his life and his failures. Perhaps the great strength of "The Moon and the Bonfires" lies in the very story of the protagonist, who seems a bit like the romantic wanderer we all wish to be. Perhaps it is the eternal return of everything: Anguilla going from Piedmont to America only to return and realize that the world he once lived in no longer exists. Perhaps it is the fire: its power, its warmth reflected in the arid stubble of the Langhe. The fire that was ignited by the farmers in their belief that it could yield better harvests. But this fire only serves to destroy and kill within the novel. It is the combination of all these elements that determines the great emotional strength of Pavese's work.
Reading the words of the Piedmontese writer brings a myriad of sensations to the surface. Yet his writing is not sophisticated; the described scenario, for better or worse, remains the same. The rustling of the linden trees echoes, the taste of wine is felt, the smell of the parched earth is perceived. A world that appears hostile to us, but in which Anguilla finds himself at ease and marginalized at the same time.
"The Moon and the Bonfires" embodies the difference between what one is and what one wishes to be. Daily reality is being, the truth, and it cannot be escaped. It is useless to distance oneself from life, to wander the world far and wide. Reality remains the same wherever one goes, and it is up to man to grasp its meanings. Escaping is useless, but the feeling that binds man to his homeland remains. Now those bonfires, which once meant celebration, gathering, stand there representing death. It is the end caused by the war that has destroyed the houses, the hills, and the men themselves...
"A country is needed, if only for the pleasure of leaving. A country means not being alone, knowing that in the people, in the plants, in the earth there is something of yours, which even when you are not there remains to wait for you."
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