BOOKS
531
cloying, hygienic atmosphere, with the right people doing the :right things,
as, for example, Spina's rectitude in his relation with his lover, Faustina,
because he believes her to he the mistress of a friend. Similarly, the
literal execution of the symbolism of good and evil leads to such in–
genuous, idyllic scenes as that in Simone's hut, where Spina, the deaf–
and-dumb Infante, the old, loyal, Simone, a worn out donkey, and a
starved dog-all warm themselves over the fires of mutual trust and
friendship.
As a result, Silone's basically tragic theme is lost in the vagaries
of the good life. There is no . struggle to speak of within Spina, while
the conflict between him
a~d
the brute forces of fascist society is really
more picaresque than tragic. Nor does the denouement strike us as any–
thing hut foolish heroics, for Spina's giving himself up to the police is
too accidental to suggest any tragic inexorability. And, surely, Silone
did not mean to imply that the hope of man is to he found in the bruised
psyche of the half-conscious Infante?
Silone's difficulty-there were signs of it in
Bread
and
Wine-lies,
I think, in his attempt to project his own conflicts into one of the most
backward regions imaginable. For once ·the crisis of belief is removed
from the consciousness that produced it, it loses its psychological as well
as its social meaning. How can one expect to reproduce the tensions
of moral or intellectual frustration in the almost instinctual life of the
oppressed Italian village?
As
a matter of fact, Silone has not even
attempted to do, and this I take to he the real failure of the novel, for
the resolution of Silone's problem has actually been made prior to the
development of the novel. The characters merely re-enact the religious
synthesis Silone has reached: Spina, with some awareness, the others,
blindly.
From a creative point of view, there is some aptness in the fact that
Silone's new faith is given fictional representation in the ingrown,
dreamy life of the peasantry. Practically speaking, Silone's philosophy
reduces itself in the course of the novel to a kind of itinerant preaching,
and the still uncorrupted, credulous folk of the Italian provinces form
for Spina an almost ine:xhaustahle supply of saveable souls. But, at the
same time, it seems to me that Silone's seemingly obsessive interest in
rural life explains, in large measure, his religious turn. For one thing,
the dispersed and elemental nature of peasant existence has always made
it a breeding ground for every conceivable variety of mystification. And
it is evident that for Silone immersion in the pieties of the country
actually amounts to a repudiation of city culture. His present distrust–
understandable, to he sure--of social theories has been cast in the image
of peasant stoicism.
If
one looks behind Silone's new faith, one can
discern the immemorial passivity of the village, with its instinctive faith
in the great mysteries of life and death and salvation.
WILLIAM PHILLIPS
