THE PULSE BEAT OF A SICK SOCIETY
STEPANCHEV, STEPHEN
The Pulse Beat of a Sick Society By STEPHEN STEPANCHEV THE SOWING OF THE SEED. IIy Ezio Taddei. New York: The Dial Press. 263 pages, $2.75. EZIO TADDEI, a noted anti-fascist Italian writer,...
...Admirably, his angers do not cloud his insights...
...It is precisely...
...The venal middle classes follow the Duce In similar fear of pauperization arid consequent sliding down tho social scale...
...That, essentially, Is what the novel Is about The corruption of the ruling groups is Illustrated by the fat, Irresponsible "cnoral Curln Contl, who, when he is put in charge of Rome's milk depots, succumbs to the temptation of taking baths in the city's milk tanks with a pretty girl attendant...
...For their part, tho .working masses patiently bear the burden of labor and su.Tcring and gradually proper* the old Italian soil for the sowing of new seed...
...The novel is notable for the tact that Taddei has succeeded1 in making his politics an Integral part of tho story he tells...
...Representative of'these., is tho strongwilled Bepplno Colantuoni, messenger of the underground...
...In this lack of emotional unity and power' that Taddei falls short of the achievement' of hla compatriot, Ignazlo Silone...
...EZIO TADDEI, a noted anti-fascist Italian writer, spent eighteen years of his life In Mussolini's prisons...
...The selectivity out" of which the acenes and characters emerge Is clearly the selectivity of an artist, The problem of presenting the reactions of diverse segments of sny given society to a series of social and economic events has plagued many writers before Taddei, He has attempted a solution by writing numerous' very short scenes thai take tho reader from placo to place wtl...
...what fatality is evident derivea from a recognition of the complexities and ambivalences of human behavior...
...the rapidity of a ncwsreel-camera...
...Out of this experience and his knowledge of political activity in Livomo, Genoa and Rome has come The Sowing of the Seed, his remarkable new novel about fascist Italy on the eve of her war with Ethiopia...
...Brutalized in their attempt to hold on to their positions, they mercilessly beat down the classes from which they would like to disassociate them--' selves...
...Thi experiment is not wholly successful however, because informational snd not emotional requirements dictated th< shifts In scene...
...Fearing to lose their accustomed luxuries, the pleasureseeking upper classes prop up the tottering fascist regime and support Mussolini's grandiose schemes of foreign conquest...
...The book records the feverish pulse beat of sick society and the signs of Its degeneracy and decay...
...there ere no rulcof-thumb slogans here...
...As a result of such pathological excesses, the antifascist forces inevitably grow in power...
Vol. 30 • January 1947 • No. 4
