Ignazio Silone's novel Bread and Wine is a story about politics, religion and, simply put, life. Silone gives the reader a view of life in a changing society overwhelmed with political struggle and personal choice. The author personally identifies with this period in Italian history, which makes the novel even more dramatic and meaningful. The tone is light, but the characters express the deep philosophical thoughts of the author.
Silone sets the novel in the mid-1930s, when Mussolini was at his political height. He was about to go to war against Ethiopia, and the Fascist and Communist movements were ripping the country apart. The reader is not introduced to any battle scenes, nor the revolutionary action and the turmoil that comes from it. However, the reader can imagine the struggle, the moral problems, the hostility, and the apathy, as well as the zest for a better Italy and a better life.
Basic plot development begins with the characters of Don Benedetto, Martha, and Nunzio. They are the first to introduce the reader to the central figure of Pietro Spina, who is an intellectual, an idealist, and a Communist. Throughout the novel, he has been forced to flee from Italy and other countries because of his revolutionary ways. However, Spina cannot forget nor leave Italy for good. This is the first time in the novel that wine and, later, bread, are seen as symbols. Spina cannot help but compare himself to wine--a kind of Italian wine that is not good for export, but good only in the vineyards of Italy. This allusion to belonging to something and not giving up or letting go is central to Spina's convictions about humanity.
Spina is soon taken ill and is forced to flee to Pietrasecca, a small mountain village in the Abruzzi district. Here, he takes on the guise of a priest called Don Paolo. Silone centers the major portion of his novel on the people and political attitudes in the Abruzzi. The atmosphere of the...