“It is a shameful thing to win a war.” The reliably unorthodox Curzio Malaparte’s own service as an Italian liaison officer with the Allies during the invasion of Italy was the basis for this searing and surreal novel, in which the contradictions inherent in any attempt to simultaneously conquer and liberate a people beset the triumphant but ingenuous American forces as they make their way up the peninsula.
Malaparte’s account begins in occupied Naples, where veterans of the disbanded and humiliated Italian army beg for work, and ceremonial dinners for high Allied officers or important politicians feature the last remaining sea creatures in the city’s famous aquarium. He leads the American Fifth Army along the Via Appia Antica into Rome, where the celebrations of a vast, joy-maddened crowd are only temporarily interrupted when one well-wisher slips beneath the tread of a Sherman tank. As the Allied advance continues north to Florence and Milan, the civil war intensifies, provoking in the author equal abhorrence for killing fellow Italians and for the “heroes of tomorrow,” those who will come out of hiding to shout “Long live liberty” as soon as the Germans are chased away.
Like Céline, another anarchic satirist and disillusioned veteran of two world wars, Malaparte paints his compatriots as in a fun-house mirror that yet speaks the truth, creating terrifying, grotesque, and often darkly comic scenes that will not soon be forgotten. Unlike the French writer however, he does so in the characteristically sophisticated, lush, yet unsentimental prose that was as responsible for his fame as was his surprising political trajectory. The Skin was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, and placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.
库尔齐奥?马拉巴特(CurzioMalaparte,1898-1957),意大利作家。一战期间以志愿者身份加入法国军队,获得法国棕榈战斗十字勋章。战后回国从事新闻工作,曾任米兰《新闻报》主编。1931年在巴黎出版《政变术》,这是欧洲首本反对希特勒及法西斯的著作,并因此被流放五年。二战中以战地记者身份去东线战场采访,这段经历为他后来的小说提供了素材。1943年英美盟军登陆后不久,在那不勒斯出版《完蛋》。意大利解放前夕在游击队与盟军指挥部之间充当联络官。战后继续从事文学创作,并导演了电影《被禁止的基督》。1949年出版小说《皮》。1957年7月从中国访问归来不久在罗马病逝。
许多都超出了我的认知
知道了很多心里曾经疑惑但没获得过解答的地方
很接中国地气
非常值得一看的好书