This early (1947) Calvino novel is set during the partisan war against the Germans a few years previously. It is seen through the eyes of a teenage boy, coming to terms not only with the reality of violence but of sexuality (his sister admits German soldiers to her bedroom). Written in the historic present, it is in Calvino's early Neo-realist manner, terse, graphic and raw - though he toned it down in a later edition which removed some of the youthful crudities. It is hardly a masterpiece - in fact, it seems very much a work of its time, but on its own terms it is vigorous and often vivid, while the boy's vision of war and peace is sensitively depicted. Since there were two variant editions, Archibald Colqu houn's original translation has been revised by Martin McLaughlin.
Brian Fallon