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Rating: From the series "The great classics of Italian literature".
I had never read anything by Ignazio Tranquilli (a.k.a. Silone). I was unaware of his tragic family story (mother and 5 siblings killed in the Marsica earthquake in 1915, another brother tortured to death by the fascists), nor his political story (first a revolutionary communist, anti-fascist, then an anti-Marxist socialist to eventually become a disillusioned ex-something), nor his journalistic endeavors (collaborator with L'Avanti, La Riscossa, Information, etc...).
The story of Luca Sabatini brought me back to the agrarian and ignorant Italy of the 1950s depicted by Carlo Levi, to those simple yet profoundly deep tales of social and moral commitment. It is a story of miscarriage of justice, 40 years served in prison for a murder never committed just to save the honor of an impossible Love.
The truth slowly comes to light thanks to the partisan Andrea Cipriani, the "new" advancing politician, who with passion and tenacity uncovers the classic Italian omertà and the shameful silences of the clergy, cornering an entire town that "knew but didn’t want to say".
A mystery that seeks, unsuccessfully, to reaffirm the value of justice, suffocated by codes and legal quibbles reminiscent of Manzoni. There is no penal code that can judge human feelings, no divine justice that can guarantee certainty of punishment. In "The Secret of Luca", published in 1956, everyone is guilty: the vile and hypocritical people trapped in their prejudices against the ex-convict, the parish priest Don Serafino, a friend of Luca guilty of covering up the scandal of an extramarital affair, the judge at the trial seated on his cold jurisprudence, and even Luca himself, capable of burying his own dignity just to preserve the appearance of a peaceful life. Only Cipriani provides that burst of optimism and the will to act to ensure a more dignified and equitable future for "our" world.
It is love that seems to triumph, that unique feeling that makes you soar and dream, capable of writing history as much as a great hero or statesman.
It is the uniqueness of the human being and their feelings that triumph against everything and everyone. And if a disheartened ex-communist underscores this with simple yet precise prose, the value of this novel reaches even more immeasurable levels.
A masterpiece, a must-read.
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