Customer Reviews

The Devil in the Hills (Peter Owen Modern Classics)

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Cesare Pavese is regarded by many to be one of the best Italian writers of the mid-20th Century. All of his work was produced in the 1940s; he committed suicide in 1950.

THE DEVIL IN THE HILLS is set in Turin and in the wild countryside of the Piedmont, from where Pavese hailed. It features an ensemble of young people casting about for the meaning and purpose of life. It begins with three males, about 20, transitioning between adolescence and manhood. They carouse, tease one another, assume airs of worldliness, sunbathe in the nude, and philosophize (often, fatuously). They are both cocksure of themselves and unsure of themselves. Their growing up becomes more complicated when they go for an extended stay in the hills at the estate of Poli, a rich young man, slightly older than they. Poli is a cocaine addict, he is spiritually debauched, and he maintains a curious and open marriage with Gabriella.

In the end, nothing much happens in the novel. It might be thought of as an existential novel, somewhat representative of its time. It is freighted with the tensions and mysteries, the joys and anxieties of maturation. I believe it would have appealed to me more when I too was in my early twenties. Now, it strikes me as rather jejune.

The writing tends to be plain and matter-of-fact. At times it becomes choppy, though this might be due to the translation. Another translation, by R.W. Flint, is contained in "The Selected Works of Cesare Pavese", published by New York Review Books Classics. I don't regret reading THE DEVIL IN THE HILLS, but doing so has not sparked a burning desire to read more of Pavese.

Marvelous, sensuous novel which brings to mind nothing so much as an Italian F. Scott Fitzgerald at the top of his form. Achingly romantic, lushly cinematic and beautiful. One of my favorite writers of this century.