The Little World of Don Camillo: Discovering An Italian Treasure

A few weeks ago, I made the most amazing discovery. I was looking through books at a second-hand store, with an eye out for anything Italian or Catholic, and put my hand right on The Little World of Don Camillo by Giovanni Guareschi. It obviously sounded Italian, and as I leafed through the first few pages, I noted that it was published 1950 New York by Pellegrini and Cudahy. Pellegrini! Swoon!

Some of you may be nodding and smiling, "Yes of course, how could you not have heard of Don Camillo?" and I have to agree with the sentiment. The author and his characters were quite famous internationally a couple of generations ago. Not just books, but film, radio, and television productions.

The little cartoon illustrations made me think the book was juvenile fiction, but in fact Guareschi takes on some of the heavy political and religious themes of his day in a playful and humerous manner. The overlying theme is Christianity/Catholicism versus Communism. The writing style, along with the illustrations, remind me of James Thurber, one of my favorite humorists.

The Little World of Don Camillo opens with a chapter called, "How I Got Like This." The chapter is actually a letter from Guareschi to the reader and is somewhat an explanation, somewhat an apology, and largely a shrug. The letter is so humerous, painful, and matter-of-fact, sometimes in one sentence, that I fell in love with the author and Don Camillo (whom I hadn't met yet) on the first page. Some exerpts from "How I Got Like This":

"I was born in Parma near the Po River; people born in this area have heads as hard as pig iron and I succeeded in becoming editor-in-chief of Bertoldo. This is the magazine in which Saul Steinberg, who at that time was studying architecture in Milan, published his first drawings and for which he worked until he left to go to America.

"For reasons entirely beyond my control, the war broke out and one day in 1942 I went on a terrific drunk because my brother was lost in Russia and I couldn't find anything about him. That night I went up and down the streets of Milan shouting things which filled several sheets of legal-size paper - as I found out the next day when I was arrested by the political police. Then a lot of people worried about me and they finally got me released. However, the political police wanted me out of circulation and so had me called into the army, and on the 9th of September 1943, with the fall of Fascism, I was taken prisoner again, this time at Alessendria in Northern Italy by the Germans. Since I did not want to work for the Germans, I was sent to a Polish concentration camp. I was in various concentration camps until April 1945, when my camp was taken over by the English, and after five months I was sent back to Italy.

"The period I spent in prison was the most intensely active of my life. In fact I had to do everything to stay alive and succeeded almost completely by dedicating myself to a precise programme which is summarized in my slogan 'I will not die even if they kill me'. (It is not easy to remain alive when one is reduced to sack of bones of which the total weight is one hundred pounds, and this includes lice, bedbugs, fleas, hunger, and melancholy.)

"When I returned to Italy I found that many things were changed, especially the Italians, and I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out whether they had changed for the better or for the worse. In the end I discovered that they had not changed at all, and then I became so depressed that I shut myself in my house."

"I am 5 feet 10 inches high and I have written eight books in all. I have also done a movie which is called People Like This, now being distributed throughout Italy. Many people like the movie; others do not like it. As far as I am concerned, the movie leaves me indifferent. Many things in life me indifferent now, but that is not my fault. It is the fault of the war. The war destroyed a lot of things we had within us. We have seen too many dead and too many living. In addition to 5 feet 10 inches, I have all my hair.
G.G. "

The main characters of The Little World of Don Camillo are Don Camillo, the priest in a town in the Po Valley in Italy; Peppone, the Communist Mayor, who is athiest but shows up in Don Camillo's church regularly, just in case; and Christ, the Crucifix figure hanging in the church, whom Don Camillo consults and converses with. About his characters, Guareschi writes:

"If there is a priest anywhere who feels offended by my treatment of Don Camillo, he is welcome to break the biggest candle available over my head. And if there is a Communist who feels offended by Peppone, he is welcome to break a hammer and sickle on my back. But if there is anyone who is offended by the conversations of Christ, I can't help it; for the one who speaks in this story is not Christ but my Christ—that is, the voice of my conscience."

If you are a Catholic reading the book [and this is me the blogger talking], you might squirm a little. That seems to be Guareschi's intent. I am new to Catholicism and Guareschi, so I can't really be sure. However, if you are Protestant, you are almost certain to squirm, which might be good for you. If you find yourself squirming too much, give the book to a Catholic, preferably Italian, and repent for reading it. You will probably be forgiven. For athiests or Communists, or any of the rest of you, I have no warnings, but would love to hear anyone's opinion of Guareschi's writings.

There are many web sites devoted to keeping alive Don Camillo, the memory of Guareschi, and Guareschi's other literary and artistic contributions. However, I recommend that before you Google and are any more tainted by outside opinion than I have already done, you get a copy of The Little World and read it for yourself. Amazon.com has copies for as little as $3.91. I paid $1 for my first edition at the second-hand store. I told you it was a treasure.