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Rating: 'The life of shepherds in Aspromonte is not easy' wrote Corrado Alvaro, a Calabrian author from the first half of the 20th century, in the only one of his works known and famous in Italian literature of that entire period, 'Gente in Aspromonte', and the only successful work written by a Calabrian.
If the life of the shepherds in Alvaro's book is difficult, that of Gavino Ledda was 'impossible' from childhood to youth among the mountains of Sardinia, in the villages of Siligo and Baddevrustana (in the province of Sassari, ndr/reviewer's note), under an authoritarian and violent father who withdrew him from elementary school after just a few months of attendance, needing him for work with sheep, as the family was poor.
And thus began a long path of humiliation and sacrifice, until during military service a desire arose in him to continue studying to graduate (having already achieved two necessary diplomas at two moments in life here) which the father and the rest of the family tried to hinder, given the mindset of the people of Siligo linked to work and conditioned by poverty, until the protagonist's departure to work as a teacher in a private school in Salerno.
The author matured during an important period in Italian history, from the height of World War II (we are in 1944) to the early '60s, through the economic transformation of Italian society from agricultural to industrial and its profound consequences on the population and the emigration of many Italians, especially from the South, abroad.
With 'Padre padrone', I had come across it in middle school, studying the episode of the protagonist's withdrawal from school in the study book, and struck to the heart by the dialogue between the teacher and the protagonist's father about the reasons for the son's withdrawal, still remembering it as the years go by. And I came across it again a few months ago, finding it in a bar on a shelf of books dedicated to book exchange, the 'book crossing'.
A book full of moments of violence and no less of Sardinian phrases that strangely led me to remember Nico, the Sardinian character of Giovanni from the comic group 'Aldo Giovanni e Giacomo', who resolves many negative situations with 'cazzotti!' (and tells how the Sardinians use them for many situations) and mentions many invented words linked to things and situations that in some cases change if the circumstances change (see the character's videos on Youtube, from 'Mai dire gol').
But it also reminded me, normally, of my father's memories when he was little in Puglia, in a period not much distant from that of the book, helping my grandfather and some of his brothers with the sheep and for the natural settings recounted in some songs by Fabrizio De André set in the places where he had lived (in the album of the song 'Fiume Sand Creek' from '81) and where he had faced the kidnapping (in '79).
An absolute must-read book, which moved me for its story of redemption from cultural and social difficulties of an environment from another time, having heard many stories, especially from relatives.
And it is making the desire to see the mountainous Sardinia grow, more than that of the sea, now that I am focused on some places in Tuscany for reasons related to my passions (such as that of the book 'Maledetti toscani' by Curzio Malaparte, which I reviewed two years ago).
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