Parise, Goffredo

New York. 1955. Knopf. 1st American Edition. Very Good. No Dustjacket. Published In England Under The Title The Priest Among The Pigeons. Translated from the Italian by Stuart Hood. 257 pages. hardcover. keywords: Literature Translated Italy . FROM THE PUBLISHER - Unsentimental but deeply tender, rowdy, raucous and heartbreaking by turns, Don Gastone and the Ladies celebrates the inexhaustible theme of all great Italian art: the human condition. The best Italian novels, like the best Italian movies, have a quality that is inimitable because it derives as much from the genius of the people as from the skill of a particular artist. This quality is a realism so profound that it embraces tragedy and farce, impropriety and innocence without the least incongruity. The narrator of this novel is a ten-year-old boy, precocious in the ways of the world - the world of back alleys and crowded tenements. He accepts his family with affectionate contempt; the one creature he loves is his pal and contemporary, Cena; and no detail of the life around them escapes the exuberant attention of the two boys: in particular, no detail concerning the parish priest, Don Gastone, adored by the old maids of the quarter. But petty thievery, perpetual hunger, and an unabashed acquaintance with the sins and vices of the poor have not brutalized the boys or hardened their hearts. They do not despise the priest for his fastidious aversion to the miseries of his flock, and when he is tempted beyond his power to resist by the artless enchantments of the compassionate Fedora their delight is entirely sympathetic. inventory #12189