Foxes Hill

by Franco Arbore

Overview

In this autobiographical novel of his, through a very simple and linear exposition, from the expressive point of view, Franco Arbore tells his true experiences as a boy of just seven years who, alone and on board a bus(no less than three), in the hot summer of 1955 goes from Corato to Rocchetta Sant'Antonio, a small town in the Dauno sub-Apennines where Filomena lives, the energetic and tireless maternal grandmother always with a big handkerchief on her head and, even if "small and petite" still dedicated, no longer young, to daily work in her vineyard, in the Foxes Hill district ( hence the title of the novel), surrounded by fields of ripe wheat, corn and sunflowers, and here she spends the whole summer... Arrived at the village, Franco - the Gina's son - in addition to grandmother Filomena (widow for five years), sees her aunts Paola (teacher) and Lina subject to the strict rules of her mother, because she is an authoritarian woman with a severe character, her uncles Armando ("initially with brusque ways and severe") and Ferdinando (young university student). But the first to welcome him is the only barber in the village, master Paolo; whose shop, also frequented on Sundays by people accustomed "aloud" to talking about politics, land to the peasants, PCI (Communist Party) and DC (Christian Democracy), Americans and the Soviet Union and capable of playing the accordion and "humming" refrains, fruit of his imagination. Faithful keeper of these memories, "which are in my mind as in a mine and i am the miner", Arbore offers them to the reader with a calm delicacy and with the candor of a chidish gaze. A story that takes place between the life of the village and that lived in the fields with grandmother Filomena. The reader will not miss the pleasure of capturing in their smallest particular environments and people in every detail. Franco is in fact an attentive observer not only of the splendid nature that surrounds the village, but also of the animals, both small ( the dog, the butterflies, the hawks, the grasshoppers) and large (the donkey "Cerasella", on the back of which he goes to the countryside with the grandmother, who always has the Rosary in her hand, the pig, the cows, the mare) not excluding those who usually scare or disgust (snakes, leeches) and whom he learns to love, describing their behavior with equal detail. In his story, the author often resorts to digressions, when he pauses to denounce the many problems that have marked and mark the daily life of the people of this southern Italian country. Another feature of the story is the significant importance that the author attributes to the words, because often it is they, the dialectical expression, that gives rhythm and presents the various characters. But other characters also participate in Franco's summer: the old winemaker (who speaks Italian with Franco even though initially declaring himself "illiterate" but who later will tell him about important events related to the history of Italy and will recommend him to "always be free and to become an honest man"), the farmer Luigi ( who talks to him about the war he fought in Russia) and his wife Carmela (cook of the harvest company and skilled in the preparation of pasta), the tobacconist (used to barter with uncle Ferdinando the cigarettes "Exports without filter: five against three eggs), the policeman Arduino (great funny guy and the only policeman of the village), aunt Michelina of Ascoli (the water drop sister of grandmother Filomena), the shepherd boy (the same age as Franco, the son of "P'coscia", with whom he enjoys taking long walks toward Mount Calvario and who also becomes his friend in field games), the new friends Vincenzo and Pompeo, the baker, the harvesters of the "Valle Traversa" farm and among them Teresina (the youngest and the nicest, surprised by Franco flirting with a young man. The author thus succeeds in giving life or giving life to things and people (when he speaks of his father, through whose memory he refers to the conquest of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and the Second World War, and of his grandfather "producer of cereals and breeder of saddle horses, the latter also requested by the Royal Italian Army", but then pushed to sell various properties by the communists, who first became fascists and then again communists, managing at the same time to build situations and moods who are now grotesque and now serious, now melancholy and now funny, but always so pleasantly tasty. In fact, a few pages are enough for Franco's "beatiful summer", with its daily events, references to the customs of the village and to historical ones (also through the rich history told by the old winemaker) of which they were spectators or in which they took part directly even the grandmother and parents, immediately attract the reader.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940162340751
Publisher:	Franco Arbore
Publication date:	05/05/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	958 KB