Christ Stopped at Eboli: The Story of a Year (FSG Classics) Paperback – January 10, 2006

What an interesting book! Set in the 1930s, it is a memoir of the time the author was exiled to a small, primitive town in southern Italy because of his opposition to Fascism. It could also be described as a sociological study of the people in the town and their rigid caste system - the impoverished and exploited peasants vs the manipulative and avaricious upper middle class gentry. The author explores this feudal-like system of exploitation is an objective and sympathetic way. He is definitely on the side of the under class, but not in a dogmatic or political way. Rather, he forms an attachment to the generosity and kindliness of the illiterate peasants, and as a doctor tries to help improve their lives as best he can given the intransigence of the rigid social structure. The author writes in a very engaging way about the social lives of peasant and gentry alike, and closely examines their individual behaviors and motivations. This was a very enjoyable read that I can highly recommend.

The author, Carlo Levi, a doctor who has fallen afoul of the Fascist regime in Italy during the years leading up to World War II is exiled to a form of house arrest. But, this is no house arrest like we read about in the USA. One could call Carlo Levi's plight "Village Arrest". He is exiled to a small, agrarian, rural and primitive village in an isolated region of Italy well South of Naples. The populace is largely uneducated, but good at coaxing what produce they can from the impoverished soil of the region. Animal husbandry is on a very small scale. The village politicians, police and offialdom exact what tribute they can from the peasants. Carlo Levi is placed under the dominion of the village Mayor who exacts what tribute he can from his unhappy charge.The book is translated from the original Italian. Many customs and daily ways of life will be unfamiliar to an American reader from today's modern society. This is what makes the book interesting. As Dr. Levi gets closer to the peasant population by treating them for this and that ailment, he learns about their superstitions , their politics and their family feuds and power plays. Enter another, unfamiliar world by reading this story and perhaps you will learn from Carlo Levi how to live and work with others with whom you have practically nothing in common. In fact some of the local citizenry would be pleased to see Carlo Levi fail altogether.

Christ Stopped at Eboli is a memoir of an Italian dissident exiled to far south Italy in the 1930’s. Despite the title, it’s not a religious tract. It’s just a reference to the remoteness of the area—so remote in Italy that not even Christ bothered to go that far out of His way; he went no further than Eboli.As a memoir, it’s brilliant at capturing the humdrum, day to day lives of the desperately poor peasants, as well as the absurdities of parasitical politicians and the machinations of local gentry. (In that sense, it reminds me of The Soil by Takashi Nagatsuka, a depiction of daily life in early 20th century Japan.)Underlying Carlo Levi’s tale of exile is a critique of the central government in Rome and the lethargy it fostered in the citizens. Toward the end, he says, “There will always be an abyss between the State and the peasants, whether the State be Fascist, Liberal, Socialist…we can bridge the abyss only when we succeed in creating a government in which the peasants feel they have some share…just as long as Rome controls our local affairs and wields the power of life and death over us we shall go on like dumb animals.”He advocates a government “neither Fascist, nor Communist, nor even Liberal, for all three of these are forms of the religion of the State. Instead, the individual must be made the basis of the State, not the other way around. If not, the “ill advised intentions of the State” prevent the peasants from feeling they participate and poverty and deserts result.This is a great story and worth your time for the fun of reading and the message that underlies it.

Levi, a doctor and painter and intellectual, spent a year in the mid-1930's in Gagliano, Lucania, a peasant town in southern Italy, exiled there by the Fascist government for unspecified political offenses. CHRIST STOPPED AT EBOLI is his sensitive and loving portrait of life in Gagliano. In many ways the peasants were still pagans ("everything participates in divinity"); Christianity as a religion had not yet penetrated that far south in Italy; in other words, "Christ stopped at Eboli" (a city somewhat north of Gagliano). Levi recounts in detail the lives and world-view of these Twentieth-Century European peasants, which is summarized in the following passage: "This suffering together, this fatalistic, comradely, age-old patience, is the deepest feeling the peasants have in common, a bond made by nature rather than by religion."Interesting as it is, the book moves slowly -- probably much like the pace of life in Gagliano, but too slowly for me. Levi is not a particularly rigorous or logical thinker; his mentality is more that of a poet. Yet the writing, while not quite pedestrian, is at times ponderous and never really outstanding (perhaps that is in part the fault of the translation). Hence, after reading the book, I was mildly surprised by the mostly glowing reviews on Amazon, and I initially refrained from posting my own review, thinking that perhaps I was being overly critical. But I just finished reading VOICES OF THE OLD SEA by Norman Lewis, which is a portrait of peasant life in two remote villages in Spain in the late 1940s. Despite the different countries and a 15-year gap in time, there are many similarities between the communal lives portrayed by Lewis and by Levi. Yet Lewis's is a much superior book, in large part because the pace is quicker and the prose far better. By no means do I wish to discourage anyone from reading CHRIST STOPPED AT EBOLI, but if you enjoyed it, or think you might enjoy it, I do encourage you to read VOICES OF THE OLD SEA as well.

After having read Primo Levi heap glowing praise on Carlo Levi I thought it really was time to search out a good starting point for his works. As Christ Stopped at Eboli got such warm praise from the other readers here I thought I really should begin with this.This book is a fascinating, if at times slightly paternalistic, insight into peasant Italy under the Fascist dictatorship of Mussolini. It gives us a glimpse of an older Italy which no longer exists where the feudal classes were still in control and the influence of American expatriates had not brought about any change in Italy's social balance.One reader's comments about Anarcho Syndicalism drew me to compare it with Homage To Catalonia (peasants in Feudal Spain as opposed to peasants in Feudal Italy) but I found Orwell's descriptions to be far less sympathetic, far more patronising, and far more obviously from the perspective of an outsider.Carlo Levi's book is very enjoyable, beautifully written, and from the warmth of his warts and all descriptions; it is obvious that he became a part of the community in which he lived for the years of his political exile.A truly admirable book and an enjoyable read.

The print quality of the text in the PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS version (purchased November 2021) is so poor that I cannot read it. Fuzzy letters, missing parts of letters, scum dots between the words, and an overall a lack of crispness make this book illegible. The photos here actually improve the contrast — but I doubt you want to read the entire book while using your iPad camera as an aide!I’m so disappointed that Penguin released a book with such terrible print quality.

A memoir from 1930s at the start of Mussolini's Abyssinia campaign. Levi was exiled as a political prisoner to two remote small towns in Luciana - most of the book is about Gagliano, wind swept and stuck between two ridges on a pale and barren clay.The clash in civilisations is on several levels; between the gentry and the peasants with the former ruthlessly exploiting the latter who are dirt poor; between the North and South (Levi was from Turin) and between Rome and its remote provinces.The book ends with a treatise on the remoteness of Rome and a plea for the peasants to be given a stake in their future through more regional autonomy.The book describes the medical conditions of the peasants (primarily malaria and anthrax), the appalling behaviour of the gentry, the malign fatalism of the church, the superstitions of the community and the fascist politics of the period.A great read and a real eye opener into conditions of the time.

The author describes the people in the village to which he is exiled in such graphic terms that, to me, it seemed more like a film than a book. The hardship experienced by the peasants and their treatment by the government of Italy of the time is heart-rending. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Italy in the years just before the second World War.

Carlo Levi was exiled by the Italian fascists in the early 1930's to rural Puglia and this is his story of his exile. I found it a good read, but it took concentration !