Eugenio Corti (1921–2014)

The Red Horse. Eugenio Corti. Originally published in Italian in 1983, in English, 2000. Well, I finished it, all 1015 pages of it, and I am glad I did. The book has been a best seller in Italy. It is family sage that opens when Italy joins the Axis, and follows the family, mostly the sons, into the 1960s. It is anticommunist, conservative, and Catholic. It was not compelling, but interesting to read the “Italian side,” of WWII. I am familiar to the horrors of the Nazis and the Communists. The author was in the war and a prisoner so his descriptions are realistic. What fascinated me was the way in which the Communists were able to infiltrate the political parties in Italy, because the other parties, in the name of tolerance, allowed them. This is not great literature, and the lines in underlined were related to politics and religion, not because they were beautiful.… (more)