מצויין. מדכדך. ( )

Uno scandalo che dura da diecimila anni.

Un capolavoro, basta questa parola per definire questo libro, per me, di una bellezza sconvolgente. Uno sguardo spietato e al tempo stesso struggente, straziante ma anche dolcissimo, sul periodo dell’ultima guerra e che fa da sfondo al racconto delle vicende di Ida, Nino, Useppe, Davide e di tantissimi altri personaggi che li accompagnano in quegli anni difficili e durissimi.
Letto la prima volta alla sua uscita nel 1974 è un libro da leggere e rileggere, assolutamente.
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What an amazing book. A morbid tale of failure and death in Rome around the last few years of WW2 and the few years after that is compellingly readable.
I enjoyed the writing and the vividness of the characters - flawed, and highly believable. I also learned of the disaster of those years in Italy - which, for me, casts a new light on the lives of all those Italian migrants of the 1950s.
I came across the book in Motherlands, a recently published book of the Australian descendant of Italian migrants who is searching for her roots. I owe the author a debt. I got the English translation of the book via an inter-library loan organized by my local library on the Sunshine Coast - I count myself as very lucky that such institutions exist, and deliver such a service. ( )

2011 (my review can be found at the LibraryThing post linked)
http://www.librarything.com/topic/120136#3046184 ( )