The Watch: A Novel [Paperback]

Carlo Levi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1999

The Watch, first published in 1950, is a portrait of Rome and Italy in the dopoguerra - the period after the war - when the heroism and sacrifice of the partisan war against the Germans ran head-on into a rockwall of conservative reaction. The year is 1948, the main character works for a newspaper in Rome, his friends and family and partisan comrades are all trying to get by and make do.
The watch of the title was given to the hero by his father; it's broken, he thinks of fixing it, then wonders if it would be cheaper to buy a new, modern watch. Around him people are forever talking, looking for jobs, wasting time in cafes, grumbling about big business, the church, conservative politicians.
The hero is summoned to Naples to visit the sickbed of a favorite uncle. The trip south is dangerous and difficult, along ruined roads through country infested by bandits. The passengers are crowded, they complain and tell stories, all have suffered, none has given up hope.
The Watch is a brilliant and unusual tale of life and its torments, and it ends on a note as sweet as it is bitter.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English
Original Language: Italian

About the Author

CARLO LEVI had three careers - as a medical doctor, as one of Italy's leading painters, and as a writer who won an international reputation with his first book, Christ Stopped at Eboli, which tells the story of his exile to a village in the impoverished south of Italy. He died in Rome in 1975.

Product Details

• Paperback: 440 pages
• Publisher: Zoland Books (June 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1883642817
• ISBN-13: 978-1883642815
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,840,606 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Political documentary novel, February 4, 2001

By 

Esther Nebenzahl - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Watch: A Novel (Paperback)

Carlo Levi (1902-1975) became a distinguished Italian journalist, writer, painter, and doctor, who is best known for his novel "Christ stopped at Eboli," unquestionably his masterpiece. Active in politics as a devoted socialist and antifascist he founded the resistance movement "Giustizia e Liberta." "The Watch" (L'orologio) is best classified as a political documentary novel, pertaining to the Neorealism of postwar Italian literature. Set in the desillusioned period after the war, it portrays a gallery of individuals (family, friends, partisans, and the commom people) all trying to cope and adjust to a new reality and the postwar Cabinet crisis in Rome. Levi foresaw a perpetuation under new slogans and new flags of the worst features of the tendency towards fascism, a culture of the "nostalgia." The heroism and sacrifice of partisan war faces a conservative reaction. Socialism has been a deception of history, the old structure is revived afer the war: the parasites (Luigini) feeding upon their hosts (Contadine), and the overall purpose is to restore the authority of the state. The partisans are blamed for pretending to reform a structure by preserving and restoring the very same structure they initially attempted to reform. The "watch" merely plays the role of a symbol, an attempt to fix an old time mechanism, which eventually is substituted by a similar one.

Besides its political tone, "The Watch" is characterized by an elegant prose and clearly denounces Carlo Levi as a painter, with characters and setting descriptions viewed from the perspective of an artist who is stroking his brush on a canvas.