La storia
La storiaElsa Morante
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La storia (1974)

Elsa Morante

Others: Positive

The central character in this powerful and unforgiving novel is Ida Mancuso, a schoolteacher whose husband has died and whose feckless teenage son treats the war as his playground. A German soldier on his way to North Africa rapes her, falls in love with her, and leaves her pregnant with a boy whose survival becomes Ida's passion. Around these two other characters come and go, each caught up by the war which is like a river in flood. We catch glimpses of bombing raids, street crimes, a cattle car from which human cries emerge, an Italian soldier succumbing to frostbite on the Russian front, the dumb endurance of peasants who have lived their whole lives with nothing and now must get by with less than nothing.

ISBN:
9781586420048
Length:
564 pages

Genres: historical fiction

Lists: …

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Reviews1

Loved it

lastoria feels very much like war and peace to me with its capacity for embracing the movements of history of its tradition of oppression and suffering while also being able to tackle the intricacies of the psyche