Elizabeth Leake. The Reinvention of . Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. viii + 200 pp. $56.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8020-8767-6.

Stanislao G. Pugliese. Bitter Spring: A Life of Ignazio Silone. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009. 448 pp. $27.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-374-11348-3.

Reviewed by Richard Drake

Published on H-Italy (October, 2009)

Commissioned by Dora M. Dumont

With Fontamara (1933) and Bread and Wine Communism. Silone had been one of the founders (1936), Ignazio Silone became one of the leading in 1921 of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), anti-Fascist writers of the decade. Both novels which looked to the Bolsheviks in Russia for in‐ dealt in part with the negative impact of struction and guidance. Then, as he explained in a on the peasant world of his beloved native Abruz‐ famous memoir essay that appeared in Richard zo. He voiced other concerns as well, but the read‐ Crossman’s God That Failed (1949), the culmina‐ ing public of that day focused on his anti-Fascist tion of Soviet Communism in disillu‐ themes. Published originally in German transla‐ sioned him. In 1931, the PCI expelled him, and tion, the two books would appear in Italian much from that point on, he had to face opposition from later, and then to a much less enthusiastic re‐ both the Fascists and the Communists. sponse than elsewhere in the West. The post- Silone found a new home in the Socialist Par‐ World War II Italian literary establishment, ty (PSI) and continued to write voluminously. Al‐ deeply infuenced by the Communist cultural though none of his later novels or plays found fa‐ hegemony, found him objectionable for his anti- vor equal to the success of Fontamara and Bread H-Net Reviews and Wine, he enjoyed a celebrity achieved by very in a book that he coauthored with Mauro Canali, few Italian writers of his generation. Always a L’Informatore: Silone, i Comunisti e la Polizia man of controversy, he attacked Fascism and (2000) and in his Silone: La Doppia Vita di un Ital‐ Communism as irredeemably totalitarian ideolo‐ iano (2005). Around the world, these newspaper gies. After the Second World War, he thought it reports and scholarly publications produced only a matter of time before Communism would shock, dismay, and anger among Silone support‐ follow Fascism into the dustbin of history. He ers, while his adversaries greeted the revelations equated democracy with socialism, arguing that delightedly and with a sense that history at long economic inequalities would always be politically last had brought his reputation to the bar of jus‐ decisive wherever they existed. Communism, tice. Elizabeth Leake and Stanislao G. Pugliese however, aggravated the deplorable socioeconom‐ both use the Biocca revelations as the starting ic conditions under capitalism by depriving peo‐ point for their books. ple of all freedom. Leake, a literature specialist, reveals in the ac‐ Although Silone sided with the United States knowledgments and frst chapter--“Silone and the in the Cold War, he nevertheless characterized Fascists”--that she holds Biocca’s work in high re‐ American consumer society as a soul-destroying gard. She does not question the authenticity of contradiction of the Christian Socialism that he es‐ Biocca’s documents or raise probing questions poused. The United States made use of his anti- about his interpretation of them. Indeed, in de‐ Communism, but he proved to be an unpre‐ scribing her research experience in Rome’s dictable ally. George Orwell, who admired Silone Archivio Centrale dello Stato, she comments with and shared many of his ideological viewpoints, some exhilaration about “working at that time in thought of him as an independent-minded man tandem with the historian Dario Biocca” (p. 9). naturally inclined to go against the grain of every Elsewhere, she expresses gratitude for the efcacy orthodoxy. The British writer’s appreciative char‐ of his insights, vouchsafed to her during the acterization of Silone captured the main outlines course of “many discussions” (p. vii). In her mind, of the preponderantly positive image that he en‐ Silone stands guilty as charged by Biocca of be‐ joyed at the time of his death in 1978. traying his party by working as a paid informer Beginning in the mid-1990s, however, some for the Fascist regime. For a comparable scandal disquieting newspaper reports about Silone began in the annals of American literature, one would to appear. The Italian archives were said to con‐ have to imagine a scenario in which incontrovert‐ tain incriminating documents concerning his al‐ ible proof had been found to demonstrate Mark leged longstanding collaboration with the Fascist Twain’s secret collusion with the Republican ad‐ police during the 1920s. Dario Biocca, the re‐ ministrations he publicly excoriated in the impe‐ searcher who discovered these documents, pub‐ rialist aftermath of the Spanish-American War lished an initial report of his fndings in the May- even while giving them damaging information June 1998 issue of Nuova Storia Contemporanea, about the Anti-Imperialist League in which he “Ignazio Silone e la Polizia Politica: Storia di un held high ofce. What a fall would be there. And Informatore.” Biocca claimed that the evidence in so it has been for Silone, once the shining anti- the archives showed that Silone had led a double Fascist hero now transformed into a venduto, a life. While serving the PCI in key leadership posi‐ term that carries an especially heavy freight of tions, he had furnished damaging information condemnation in a land described by Niccolo about the party to a Fascist policeman, Guido Bel‐ Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini as the lone. Biocca’s full indictment of Silone appeared

2 H-Net Reviews home of the most exquisitely ruthless betrayals in analysis for her theoretical guides, most notably history. Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Žižek. Antonio Gram‐ Taking a psychoanalytical approach, Leake sci’s ideas receive attention from her primarily examines three key Silone texts. She begins with a for the ways they are diminished in favor of the collection of his early short stories, Viaggio a Pari‐ theoretical supplements provided by psychoanal‐ gi (published in 1934, though written in 1929), ysis. which should be seen as the frst installment of The novelist’s reinvention of himself achieved “the quiet confession Silone rehearsed throughout defnitive expression in Bread and Wine, with the his literary career” (p. 15). In short, the docu‐ character of Pietro Spina “the prism through ments discovered by Biocca confrm Silone’s art‐ which we view Silone” (p. 122). By this Leake fully hedged autobiographical portrayals of his means that in the public view Spina’s heroic anti- own acts of spying, dissimulation, and betrayal. Fascist and humanitarian Marxist story replaced Beniamino Losurdo, the central fgure of the col‐ the embarrassingly messy one that Silone had lection’s title story, stands out in the Silone canon lived, with all of its moral failures and political as an anomaly. Leake comments on the stylistic ambiguities. She sees in the character of the in‐ singularities of Silone’s maiden literary efort: its former Luigi Murica “a sanitized version of overt eroticism, irreverence toward holy images, Silone’s decision to spy for the Fascists” (p. 135). mockery of peasants, and the inclusion of poetry The central meaning of Bread and Wine unfolds in the narrative. Yet the theme of deception that against the background of Silone’s anguished life would always hold Silone the writer in obsessive and times. Silone’s reinvention now complete, all thrall appears here. Silone would disavow this of his subsequent protagonists followed in Spina’s book as a substandard literary performance, but footsteps, with each new work further substanti‐ Leake efectively makes her case in this chapter ating the author’s image as a lonely existential “that Silone’s early writings perform a therapeutic hero in dubious battle for the common man function for the author” (p. 86). against egotistical exploiters, corrupt institutions, Bernardo Viola in Fontamara represents the and perverted ideological systems. next stage in “the fctionalization of Silone’s self- Having provided a reading of Silone “that documented experience” (p. 107). Leake inter‐ takes place from within the nexus of his personal prets the book in the light of “a psychoanalytical and political life, the historical period in which he reading that incorporates a Gramscian reading” wrote, and ideological debates in the air at the (p. 114). It is not entirely clear what this combina‐ time,” Leake has, in quite traditional terms, made tion of theoretical approaches means in practical a valuable contribution to our understanding of terms. Here, The Reinvention of Ignazio Silone his work. Her statements about theory in the fnal calls to mind the highly imaginative but ultimate‐ chapter, however, do not inspire confdence and ly futile attempt by Herbert Marcuse in Eros and fall very far short of the book’s actual achieve‐ Civilization (1955) to unite Karl Marx and Sig‐ ments as a work of research and analysis. After mund Freud. Marcuse addressed Freud’s obliter‐ following her densely packed argument regarding ating dismissal of Marxism for its infantile ideas the abundant connections between literary texts about human psychology by agreeing with him. and biographical-historical contexts, it comes as a Marxism, to be plausible, had to be turned into a severe anticlimax to read that “professional and theoretical amalgam that Marx never would have non-professional readers alike would be well- recognized or acknowledged as his own. Similarly, served, I would argue, to reintroduce into our in‐ Leake relies primarily on proponents of psycho‐ terpretive toolkit the notion of curiosity, of em‐

3 H-Net Reviews barking on a reading in order to learn something” but we never learn why. The analysis does ac‐ (p. 157). The book is much richer than she makes quire greater depth, however, for the later stages it seem with her closing call for us as readers to of Silone’s life. be open “to the possibility of learning new things, A historian rather than a literary critic, or of giving voice to impressions outside the Pugliese does not navigate beyond Leake’s inter‐ boundaries of current wisdom” (p. 158). Literary pretation of the early foundational novels, but he criticism in this book appears to have come full makes some highly important contributions of his circle, back to some basic postulates of a Socratic own to our understanding of the writer’s personal order about why we should engage in a life of the life. His interviews of Silone’s Irish wife, Darina mind at all. Laracy, constitute one of the book’s principal ar‐ Pugliese fnds inspiration in Leake’s interpre‐ eas of strength. From her, he received some vivid tation of Silone’s early novels and cites her ap‐ testimony about the punishing efects on their provingly. The main point of his biography, how‐ marriage of Silone’s depression, melancholy, cru‐ ever, concerns the aggressively anti-Biocca stance elty, and infdelities. She told Pugliese that her that he takes. He aspires to be evenhanded, writ‐ husband “had no talent at all for human relation‐ ing, “certainly this biography will please neither ships” (p. 174). Incapable of fnding happiness in Silone’s many admirers nor his myriad critics” (p. life, he took every particle of humanity that he xix). He has not written a hagiographical book, had and crammed it into his writing. When but his enormous sympathy for Silone emanates Pugliese asked her about the spying scandal, she from every page. could tell him nothing. On that subject, as on most Pugliese’s book is worth reading, if only for others, he remained an indecipherable personali‐ the systematic analysis that he provides, in the f‐ ty to her. Such crippling drawbacks in their mar‐ nal chapter, of Biocca’s published claims and their riage did not prevent her from assiduously pro‐ bitterly contentious aftermath. The other chapters moting his literary legacy until the day she died in contain valuable information as well, although 2003. His death, Pugliese observes, “she somehow for some of the turning points in Silone’s life he sensed as a belated gift of liberation” (p. 177). ofers only superfcial explanations. He shows a Bitter Spring deserves praise as well for the sensitive awareness of the ways in which Chris‐ thorough job that Pugliese does in describing tianity survived in Silone’s mature thinking, but Silone’s post-World War II intellectual and politi‐ we do not get from him a satisfactory explanation cal life. He provides a lively account of Silone’s ca‐ for why he abandoned Catholicism at a time when reer as a writer, his work as an editor for various the infuence of the priest, Don Luigi Orione, con‐ Socialist publications, and his ongoing battles to tinued to be a powerful force in his life. Similarly, keep the party free of any involvement with the Silone’s subsequent embrace of Marxism does not still-Stalinized PCI. Haziness does overtake the materialize in this book as a consequence of a se‐ analysis when Pugliese tries to make implausible rious conversion experience. He makes little ef‐ distinctions between Silone’s relentless attacks on fort to trace the young Silone’s intellectual and po‐ the PCI and his allegedly tender feelings toward litical odyssey. We see him one day as a Catholic Communism. He provides such a wealth of exam‐ schoolboy and the next as a Communist revolu‐ ples regarding Silone’s ever-deepening aversion tionary, without any in-depth analysis of how toward Communism that the reader experiences such a leap between faiths could have been made. bewilderment tinged with exasperation when this Once in the extreme left-wing fold, Silone moved sibylline sentence appears: “The task for modern from Amadeo Bordiga’s faction to that of Gramsci, Socialists, according to Silone, is not to deny Marx,

4 H-Net Reviews but to emancipate themselves from his thought” inating facts of the case. Less than ever before can (p. 209). we think of him as a man of unstained moral rec‐ Some outright errors of fact and usage detract titude, but such a thought always belonged to the from the book. The Italian Republic came into ex‐ antihistorical realm of hagiography. For the truth istence in 1946, not 1956 (p. 194). Pugliese has in the Silone case, or as close to the truth as we Bread and Wine beating out Grapes of Wrath as a can get, Pugliese points us in the direction of “the Book-of-the-Month Club selection in 1937, two no-man’s land between hagiography and the ar‐ years before the publication of John Steinbeck’s chive” (p. 330). I take this sensible recommenda‐ novel (pp. 214-215). The Communist Party leader, tion to mean that we should read Silone’s books, Palmiro Togliatti, died in 1964, not 1963 (p. 231). which “remain what they always were: powerful Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the pride of Besançon, testaments to a struggle for justice and liberty” France, becomes a Russian anarchist on page 240. (p. 341). From his lowest moments in the cesspool Pugliese also did not receive the critical back-up came books that will be read as long as people that he needed and deserved for this book: A sen‐ have an interest in studying the ideological illu‐ tence with a missing word or phrase is found on sions of the twentieth century. page 288. Pugliese omits the plural and the italics for the Pescinesi, the people of Silone’s birthplace (p. 291). On page 392 a bibliographical misattribu‐ tion occurs. Bitter Spring, however, rises above its errors and blemishes, most impressively in chapter 8, where Pugliese comments in a sustained way on the controversies arising from Biocca’s fndings. He writes as a fair-minded defender of Silone. His admiration for the novelist does not prevent him from following where the evidence leads. That Silone had a longstanding relationship with Bel‐ lone he accepts, asserting that at least some of Biocca’s documents are authentic and say what they appear to say. The fundamental question for Pugliese has to do with how that relationship and the documentary evidence for it should be inter‐ preted. In answering that question, he ofers intel‐ ligent and balanced observations about the major spokesmen from the prosecution and the defense in the Silone case. After magisterially considering the many warring interpretations of Silone’s involvement with the Fascists, Pugliese concludes that the spy‐ ing almost certainly took place. No one has been able to ofer a completely convincing explanation for why he did it. Nevertheless, even the ardently pro-Silone Pugliese does not challenge the incrim‐

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Citation: Richard Drake. Review of Leake, Elizabeth. The Reinvention of Ignazio Silone. ; Pugliese, Stanislao G. Bitter Spring: A Life of Ignazio Silone. H-Italy, H-Net Reviews. October, 2009.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25624

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