Don Camillo Stories Of Giovannino Guareschi

Giovannino Guareschi (1908-1968) was an Italian journalist, humorist, and cartoonist best known for his short stories based on the fictional Catholic priest Don Camillo. In this study, Alan R. Perry explores the Don Camillo stories from the perspective of Christian hermeneutics, a unique approach and the best critical key to unlocking the richness of both the author and his tales. The stories of Don Camillo, the cantankerous but beloved priest, and his sidekick, Communist mayor Peppone, continue to entertain viewers and readers. Their Cold War adventures, mishaps, arguments, and reconciliations have a timeless quality, and their actions reflect endearing values that prevail even today. The stories delight, to be sure, but the best of them also force us to stop and think about how Guareschi so powerfully conveyed the Christian message of faith, hope, and love. To appreciate the true genius of Guareschi, Perry argues that we must delve deeper into the latent spiritual meaning that many of his stories contain. In reflecting popular understandings of the faith, the Don Camillo tales allow us to appreciate a sacred awareness of the world, an understanding communicated through objects, gestures, expressions, and actual religious rites. The first full-length scholarly examination of the Don Camillo stories to appear, this book offers a solid appreciation of Italian cultural values and discusses the ways in which those values were contested in the first decades of the Cold War.

Set against the post-war backdrop of a rural village in the Emilia-Romagna, this is the second in a new series of hilarious and incisive Don Camillo anthologies, which offer 215 stories translated into English for the very first time. As ever, the townsfolk, riven by their disparate allegiances to the hot-headed Catholic priest and his equally pugnacious adversary Peppone, the Communist Mayor, are relieved of their prejudices by the gentle humour and insights coming from high above the altar in the village church. REVIEWS 'Written with such warmth and simplicity, so concerned with the trivialities of everyday life and giving us so shrewd a glimpse into the minds of the people . . .' London Evening News 'Charming and enchanting...witty and wise' -- Edinburgh Evening News 'You'll find Don Camillo not just enchanting and lovable, and at times hilariously funny, but also strangely moving in his simple but certain faith.' -- BBC Radio Books by the Fire ABOUT THE AUTHOR Giovannino Guareschi, known as Giovanni to his millions of English language readers, was born at Fontanelle in the Valley of the Po on the 1st of May, 1908. His father wanted him to become a naval engineer. He, for the very enjoyment of going the opposite way, determined to become a lawyer, but found his vocation when he sent some cartoons he had drawn to the satirical magazine, 'Bartoldo'. Later he founded a satirical magazine, 'Candido', and wrote 346 stories featuring Don Camillo, a character who has done for Italy what Cervantes Don Quixote did for Spain.

Disaster threatens when a mild-mannered Italian priest wages a personal war against the village communists.

This collection of short stories set in the Valley of the River Po, Italy's widest and most fertile plain, with its unique atmosphere, culture, and natural history. The author was a native of this area, and these stories reflect his life of conflict, but also his search for enlightenment. In episode after episode, the hot-headed Catholic priest, Don Camillo, and the equally pugnacious Communist mayor, Peppone, confront one another, sometimes in a serious and violent manner. But the clever bit is the way Giovanni not only engineers a resolution to this, but transforms the situation to the great benefit of the local community, so that the two men put their political convictions aside, and however, begrudgingly, develop respect for each other (from Editor's preface).

Don Camillo, fictional character, a pugnacious Italian village priest whose confrontations with his equally belligerent adversary, the local communist mayor Peppone, formed the basis for a series of popular, humorous short stories by Italian author Giovanni Guareschi.