Comrade Don Camillo by Giovannino Guareschi, author of The Little World of Don Camillo http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-little-world-of-don-camillo-by.html , one of the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read - 8 out of 10

 

Comrade Don Camillo by Giovannino Guareschi, author of The Little World of Don Camillo http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-little-world-of-don-camillo-by.html , one of the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read

8 out of 10

 

 

If The Little World of Don Camillo is a fine comedy, included on the list of 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/19/1000-novels-comedy-part-one, the sequels, prequels and spin offs of the franchise do not seem so enticing, indeed, not even the original World of The Priest looks all that elating, looking back with some insight, it would not do for a second read.

 

The subject could not be more important, treated with a light touch, as it is, the Don Camillo series are comedies and have been adapted for the big screen http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/09/78-out-of-100-for-don-camillo.html with the mirthful Fernandel in the title role of the intrepid, mischievous, amusing clergy.

We can see this as the eternal dispute between the religious and the atheist, God versus Satan for those who are sure that those two exist and fight each other, upstairs and here, on earth…if for centuries there had been no question on who the winner is, the church could take you down with its Inquisition and I have read a magical novel, winner of the last, 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Literature, The Netanyahus http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-netanyahus-account-of-minor-and.html by effendi Joshua Cohen that gives the reading public a completely new perspective on the Spanish Inquisition

 

The absolute favorite creator of the past few years is Kingsley Amis, the one who has temporarily toppled Marcel Proust with the indefatigable A La Recherche du Temps Perdu http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/04/le-temps-retrouve-by-marcel-proust.html from the pole position – I mean, yes, Proust is the Divinity, but for a good many years, maybe as many as twelve, I have not read again from the roman fleuve, and in the meantime I have more than twenty works by Amis (a couple from Amis Junior) under my belt – and much of the time, I am reminded of some aphorism of his

Or a quote, like the one about a short dialogue with a Russian poet (maybe this is not true) who asked ‘you atheist’ and Kingsley Amis replied ‘it is not that, it is more that I hate Him’ or something to that effect (Insha’Allah) which might be from The Russian Girl, or One Fat Englishman, but it could just as well come from Ending Up http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/07/ending-up-by-kingsley-amis.html or another masterpiece...

 

Wait, I have something that is clearly from Ending up, and has to do with the image of the absurd, preposterous and at the same time the cathartic and hilarious, when one of the characters renders the enormity of a situation, they explain it something like ‘imagine you are at the Ritz (or it could have been another, equally prestigious, exorbitant, dazzling venue) and you order, the waiter comes back and sits to chat with you’ – I started laughing now, as I put this down, which is part of the point of writing all this nonsense, nay, often the only point, as I enjoy the privilege of offering myself rare treats, I am the only reader of an unique manuscript (well, it used to be that, now it is just some fool’s gold on the blogs) and treat myself royally, with access to something that nobody else gets to see…

 

Evidently, it is posted online, for the world to read and enjoy, but then humanity does not care, this might be corrected in the not too distant future, when Artificial Intelligence will have reached the Singularity stage – explained in the magnificent Why The West Rules For Now by glorious Ian Morris http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/10/why-west-rules-for-now-by-ian-morris.html - when AI will have all the knowledge of humanity, past and present, and the ability to surpass all our minds combined, or something to that effect, a time when this Super Galactic Brain will take all my texts (tens of thousands of them it looks like at times) and all the other and ingest them in record time, with the progress they make, it could be just days until that Superhuman Intelligence takes it all in, anyway, all my ‘productions’ will be consumed in a billionth of a billionth of a second and thus, I will have had my reader

Nathaniel Branden is the author of the quintessential The Six Pillars of Self Esteem, considered a classic, but he has also taken the subject of religion, which is key for our Don Camillo and his misadventures, in The Psychological Effects of Religion http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/04/psychological-effects-of-religion-by.html wherein he explains that these effects are all badass

 

The notion that we have an Almighty Fellow looking over our shoulders all the time, night and day, is in itself horrendous – yes, for the faithful, it works often as a solace, comfort, they feel protected, nut nonetheless, I shudder – and he has this habit of thundering, puffing, and making mischief, striking you down at seventy, for the masturbation you indulged in (self-fornication, what would they call this in their parlance, the lingo talks of self-abuse, if I remember well) for The top Guy never forgets…adjectival, as Peter Carey used to say with munificence in his marvelous, phenomenal The True History of The Kelly Gang http://realini.blogspot.com/2015/11/true-history-of-kelly-gang-by-peter.html winner of The Booker Prize and a magnum opus without any doubts, adapted for the big screen twice

As for myself, I am hesitating between deism, atheism and it could happen that I become penitent, with age, start repenting and who knows, like the patriarch (played by Magister Ludi Sir Laurence Olivier in the miniseries) in Brideshead Revisited by another outstanding creator, Evelyn Waugh, http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/11/brideshead-revisited-sacred-profane.html honoring the Wager of Pascal, the one that said there are two alternatives, and if you believe in god, you are safe, if he does not exist you will have lost nothing (as aforementioned, Nathaniel Branden begs to differ) while if you reject the faith, think of what happens if he is The top Man Upstairs…there are obviously a number of arguments on both sides, however much the scientific and materialistic view is getting ground, there is that ‘finding the watch, and then realizing it is not just an accident, somebody must have made it ‘and a good many more…meantime, I am trying to find The Absolute Truth, as evidenced here: http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world