The skin / Curzio Malaparte ; introduction by Rachel Kushner ; translated by David Moore.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextSeries: New York Review Books ClassicsDescription: 343 pages ; 21 cmISBN:
  • 9781590176221
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • FIC MAL
LOC classification:
  • PQ4829.A515 P413 2013
Summary: "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 Celine, 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. The Skin was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, and placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.
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Item type Current library Collection Call number Status Date due Barcode
Fiction / Ficción Biblioteca Pública de San Miguel de Allende, A.C. Sala Ingles General FIC MAL (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available 028771

"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 Celine, 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. The Skin was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, and placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

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