SocialistStories حكايات اشتراكية

This novel (255pg) by Giovanni Verga proves once again how radical and progressive an author this great Sicilian was. There are so many things to point out, but I will start first with the structure of this novel: you will notice that the first two pages of this novel contain a "cast of characters" much like that of a play. Normally you don't see this in a novel, which is why it is important to point out that this novel is really about a small Sicilian town, and as such about the collectivity of the town, about all of the residents of this town, although it does focuses on a family, the Malavoglia family, in specific. Thus this is more a novel of a collectively, of a mass of people, of a community rather than the normal "individualistic," narrow-minded novels which focus almost entirely on one person or only a few people. Thus we really should consider even the very structure of this book to be radical, even more so than the "socialist realist" novels by Gorky which were all much more narrow, and usually only focused on a few people at most.

Anyway, to get to the actual content: first a brief description of the location of this novel, which I wish I had known when I first read it. I Malavoglia is placed in the small port town of Aci Trezza in east Sicily. It is 11 km north of Catania. This novel is placed around the middle 1800's, and as is obvious in the novel, Aci Trezza is a very small town: even today it's population is only 5,000. Also, I don't remember if this is relevant to the novel, but the patron saint of Aci Trezza is San Giovanni, who's saint's day is June 24th.

Now: this novel is about a proletarian fishing family and their continuous and often futile attempts to survive. Verga portrays the suffering and struggles of the Malavoglia family, and of the lower class of Aci Trezza as a whole, in a vivid and realistic manner, and he doesn't fall pry at all to reinforcing the capitalist myth that if you work hard enough you will become rich. In fact, this novel attacks that myth if anything, as the Malavoglias work very hard, but never really improve their lot, and some members of the family give up working completely and turn to "illegal" activities because they feel that what is the point of working yourself to death when the money you recieve hardly feeds you and doesn't allow you any break or relaxation at all? Verga was very accurate in this portrayal of what makes people become "criminals", and who can blame them? Verga also attacks moneylenders and portrays Aci Trezza's greedy old moneylender in the right light, and shows how greedy, lying, manipulative, and all around shit, capitalists are.

Enjoy this great novel comrades:

Download: 

I Malavoglia - Giovanni Verga.pdf