An edition of The skin (2013)

The skin

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The skin
Curzio Malaparte, Curzio Malap ...
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Last edited by MARC Bot
October 4, 2024 | History
An edition of The skin (2013)

The skin

  • 2 Want to read

"'It is a shameful thing to win a war.' The reliably unorthodox Curzio Malaparte's own service as an Italian liaison officer with the Allies during the invasion of Italy was the basis for this searing and surreal novel, in which the contradictions inherent in any attempt to simultaneously conquer and liberate a people beset the triumphant but ingenuous American forces as they make their way up the peninsula. Malaparte's account begins in occupied Naples, where veterans of the disbanded and humiliated Italian army beg for work, and ceremonial dinners for high Allied officers or important politicians feature the last remaining sea creatures in the city's famous aquarium. He leads the American Fifth Army along the Via Appia Antica into Rome, where the celebrations of a vast, joy-maddened crowd are only temporarily interrupted when one well-wisher slips beneath the tread of a Sherman tank. As the Allied advance continues north to Florence and Milan, the civil war intensifies, provoking in the author equal abhorrence for killing fellow Italians and for the "heroes of tomorrow," those who will come out of hiding to shout "Long live liberty" as soon as the Germans are chased away. Like Celine, another anarchic satirist and disillusioned veteran of two world wars, Malaparte paints his compatriots as in a fun-house mirror that yet speaks the truth, creating terrifying, grotesque, and often darkly comic scenes that will not soon be forgotten. Unlike the French writer however, he does so in the characteristically sophisticated, lush, yet unsentimental prose that was as responsible for his fame as was his surprising political trajectory. The Skin was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, and placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. "--

Publish Date
Publisher
NYRB Classics
Language
English
Pages
343

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Edition Availability
Cover of: The skin
The skin
2013, NYRB Classics
in English

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Book Details


Edition Notes

Translation from Italian of: Pelle.

Series
New York Review Books Classics, New York Review Books classics

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
853/.912
Library of Congress
PQ4829.A515 P413 2013, PQ4829.A515

The Physical Object

Pagination
xv, 343 pages
Number of pages
343

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL27212100M
ISBN 10
1590176227
ISBN 13
9781590176221
LCCN
2012045914
OCLC/WorldCat
814706235

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October 4, 2024 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
October 5, 2021 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
October 18, 2020 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
July 19, 2019 Created by MARC Bot import new book