This is a work of “autofiction,” written in the vein of Karl Ove Knausgaard and Edouard Louis. What I like most about autofiction is its willingness to go places that other books will not. In “Notes from the Underground,” Dostoyevsky tells us:
“Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has others which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But finally there are still others which a man is even afraid to tell himself, and every decent man has a considerable number of such things stored away…”
These authors are courageous in that they excavate and reveal the latter.
In the case of “The Catholic School,” what emerges is one of the most honest, provocative, and disturbing literary studies of male psychology. Its point of departure is the “Massacro del Circeo,” the rape-torture-murder that took place near Rome in 1975.
Now, normally I would not address other reviewers’ comments, but in this case I feel as though I must. One reviewer gave the book one star and complained that “The first hundred pages were interesting, nice descriptions of school, parents, and growing up, but the next 1,100 pages were a waste. Just on and on about sex, rape, violence…” To which I can only scratch my head. IT IS a book about sex, rape and violence! If you want to read about rolling hills, avuncular priests and the aromas of mama’s home-cooking, then pick up something by Tim Parks. This is a book about sexcrimes, for crying out loud!
Another reviewer calls it “an appalling litany of misogyny.” My jaw dropped when I read this. There is a difference between the representation of a misogynistic world and the recommendation for one! The feminist writer Shulamith Firestone reminds her readers that care must be taken “that criticism be directed, not at the artists for their (accurate) portrayal of the imperfect reality, but at the grotesqueness of that reality itself as revealed by the art.” Albinati is vivisecting a society that is grotesque, perverse and misogynistic; he’s not in favor of it.
Another reviewer dismisses years of work and research with a barely articulate one-line review that begins “Yawn…”. The reviewer couldn’t even be bothered to write a grammatically-correct sentence about a 1200 page book, and three people found it helpful. Really?
To be sure, this book is not for everyone. It is a tough read because it is a disturbing, meandering look at what is commonly called “toxic masculinity” and patriarchy. It is ugly, bloody and honest. It is also, at times, dense, drawing from and critiquing Freudian psychoanalysis and social theory. I thought that the payoff was well worth the effort; others may not. But readers who are familiar with Klaus Theweleit’s two volumes on “Male Fantasies” will have an idea of what they are getting into.
As for the translation, it is fantastic. “Un capolavoro.” If I hadn’t already blabbered too much, I would say more about it. But here we are. I do hope that anyone who is on the fence about the book will find this review helpful. The Premio Strega it won was fully deserved.
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Top reviews from other countries
Diana Brighouse
Don't waste your time on this overblown misogynistic book.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 15, 2019