Quo's Reviews > Christ Stopped at Eboli: The Story of a Year

Carlo Levi's Christ Stopped At Eboli represents an act of memory-recovery, a reflection on a particular kind of exile during the period leading up to WWII in Italy, at that point under the thumb of Mussolini & the Fascists.


In fact, the tale of Levi's exile, begins by detailing his transit in handcuffs by carbinieri from a prison in Rome, together with his dog "Barone" to distant Aliano (called Gagliano in the book) in the midst of southern Italy's Calabrian Mountains, the result of his strident opposition to Italy's invasion of Ethiopia & to Fascism.

Christ Stopped At Eboli, although based on a personal journal, seems at times rather like an anthropological field study, focused on a place that time forgot but beyond that, time never had any recollection of. For...

Christ stopped short of Lucania (at Eboli), and so did hope & history. No one came to this land except as enemy or conqueror. Neither the Greeks nor the Romans came. And because Christ stopped short, so did civilization. Its population is not even thought of as Christian but simply beasts of burden, even less than beasts, mere creatures of the wild.

Into this milieu, Carlo Levi appears in 1935 as a doctor, though he hasn't practiced medicine in quite some time. In spite of that, he becomes a kind of conscience of the town & surrounding province, in part because though he is an outsider & Jewish as well, he is always approachable, in a place where "life involves a continuous renewal of old resentments, a closed world with deep & often violent secrets".

However, oddly enough, when suspicions about his background & motives begin to vanish, he is eventually seen not only as a member in good standing within the town & nearby area but as a "Christian" as well, that word standing for much more than a religious affiliation.

Gagliano/Aliano is a town where many reside in marginal dwellings & cave-like shelters, where there is only one indoor toilet (which doesn't flush) & a single car, brought back from the U.S. by a man who worked in New York City for a decade, returned to the area of his birth for a visit & became stranded.

There are no meaningful shops & no hotel, causing Carlo to live with a widow initially, prior to finding a small space of his own with a patio offering views of the valley below. The town's newest resident begins to explore the town, commenting that "like Dante, I too began to go down circle by circle by mule path to the very bottom."


There are many colorful characters detailed in Carlo Levi's book, including an alcoholic priest named Fr. Don Trajella who has fathered a child or two & calls the people "cursed heathens", threatening to excommunicate them; a town mayor, Don Luigi, with a sense of grandeur but little power, a man who despises the priest & sees the people as "good but primitive"; and also a woman named Giulia who serves as Levi's housekeeper at times but with her duties extending to the "conjugal" & who, as a functioning "witch", teaches Carlo all sorts of spells & incantations, in addition to applying the "inspiration of love".

In attempting to heal those in need of medical attention, the author explores the interior of countless homes of the town's poor residents, noticing that...

In almost every house were the inseparable guardian angels that looked at me from the walls. On one side was the black scowling face of the Madonna of Viggiano, while on the other a colored print with sparkling eyes behind gleaming glasses & the hearty grin of Franklin Roosevelt. No other images were present--not Garibaldi, not Il Duce, not the Italian king or any saints.

The Black Madonna appeared to be a fierce, pitiless, mysterious, ancient earth mother, the Saturnian mistress of the world, while FDR appeared as an all-powerful Zeus, the benevolent & smiling master of a higher sphere.

To Dr. Levi, the church ceremonies seemed like pagan rites celebrating innumerable earthly divinities of the village. And yet, at one point, he offers to add a musical compliment by playing the harmonium at a church service. Always, there seems an odd merger of the semi-sacred & the profane, even a sense of prevailing "black magic".


Carlo Levi came to feel that whether the government was Fascist, Socialist, Communist or Liberal, there would always be an abyss between the peasants in places like Aliano, the middle class and Rome. The divide represents...

two different civilizations, neither of which can absorb the other. Country & city, a pre-Christian civilization & one that is no longer Christian stand face to face. As long as one imposes the deification of the state on the other, there will be conflict, with places like Aliano lawless & despairing and Rome despairing & tyrannical.

During his year in Aliano, Carlo Levi spent a considerable amount of time writing & painting, exercising skills that served to define him then, in the days following his exile in Southern Italy & after WWII. In spite of the poverty & lack of hope, Levi came to form a deep bond with the people of Aliano. It is said that after he died, he chose to be buried there.

I found Christ Stopped At Eboli a very compelling case study, peopled by some rather quirky but memorable characters. This is hardly a "mainstream" book & yet rather remarkably 14 readers who are listed as my Goodreads friends have either read the book or list it as a book they intend to read.

*Within my review, the 1st image is of Carlo Levi; the 2nd a contemporary view of the village of Aliano; the 3rd, a painting by author Carlo Levi of some of the peasants he encountered in the area where he spent his period of exile.

**There is an excellent 1979 film version of Christ Stopped at Eboli, directed by Francesco Rosi & featuring Gian Maria Volante (as Carlo Levi) and Irene Pappas.