501. The Ragazzi

The Ragazzi
Pier Paolo Pasonlini
1955
Around 260 pages

Yet another crossover episode! Pier Paolo Pasolini also appeared on the 1001 movie list, having directed 120 Days of Sodom. Yes, I have experienced that story in all sorts of ways, most recently in my nightmares. 

Pasolini was run over several times by his own car and his testicles were crushed with a metal bar. Probably due to his...artistic endeavors. It's always a bit eerie reading the novels of people who died gruesome deaths. We don't get a lot of murder victims on this List. And Pasolini is pretty creepy anyway, so it's an unsettling combination. This novel is centered on the exploits of Riccetto, a young street urchin, and his gang of misfits. It's like Oliver Twist, without the charm.

This wasn't crush-your-testicles terrible, but I found it to be a fairly slow read. I get the impression the main objective of this novel was to expose middle-class Italians to the seedy underbelly that exists in post war cities. He wanted to shock people, which I guess he did, although I was more mildly disgusted than completely aghast. 

Lucky for me this guy never came out with an album. 500 to go!

RATING: **---

Interesting Facts:

The government led by the Christian Democrats condemned its "obscenity." The communists did not approve of the book, as well, charging it with "artificiality, an absence of positive heroes, and, especially, a lack of 'perspective'".

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