The Little World of Don Camillo

The Little World of Don Camillo and the other entries in the Don Camillo series.  By Giovanni Guareschi, Benediction Books, Penguin, 1950-1970.

 

The Don Camillo series consists of numerous fictional short stories, all set in a seemingly idyllic Italian village in the years following the Second World War.  Some of the stories are farces, others depict battles of the sexes, and a few are political satires.  All of them are parables, and the short stories of Giovanni Guareschi are some of the most profound and enjoyable religious-themed fiction of the twentieth century, and certainly rank amongst the funniest stories of any kind ever.

 

Don Camillo is the parish priest of a small town, and though he has no doubts whatsoever about his religious faith or the doctrines of his Church, he still has very human flaws.  On television or in other venues of popular culture, when a priest is portrayed as anything less than saintly, that priest is portrayed as a bigot or incapable of restraining his sexual impulses.  Guareschi is far more believable– and subtle– in his characterization of Don Camillo, where the priest’s primary flaws are his quick temper and his slowness to abandon a grudge.  In all other respects, Don Camillo is a model priest, although he often takes an unorthodox approach to saving people’s souls.  

 

Don Camillo’s chief nemesis is Peppone, the town’s mayor, an equally fiery-tempered member of the Communist Party.  Don Camillo and Peppone are often at each other’s throats, but they often have to work together for the good of the town.  They are never friends, but over the course of the series they develop a highly reluctant respect for each other.  Both Don Camillo and Peppone are physically powerful men who use their fists to resolve their differences much more often than they should.  In extreme cases, Don Camillo picks up a cricket bat or a park bench in order to teach an offender a lesson.  Intriguingly, as a Communist, Peppone officially attacks the Church, in private life Peppone and many of his followers attend church services regularly and make sure that their children receive the sacraments.  Don Camillo has no sympathy for communism whatsoever, although he is as quick to attack the rich and powerful when they stray from God’s Commandments as he is to attack the communists, crooks, and other assorted sinners composing the populace.

 

The other major characters include Peppone’s wife, who is often not as loyal to her husband’s political causes as he would wish her to be.  The local Bishop is an extremely decent and long-suffering figure who competently handles the countless frustrating administrative duties and problems, many of which are due to Don Camillo’s heavy-handed methods to resolving conflict.  Finally, the voice of God himself is a major figure in the series, speaking through the enormous crucifix in Don Camillo’s church, firmly but kindly guiding Don Camillo through moral quandaries.

 

In his introduction to his first volume of Don Camillo stories, Giovanni Guareschi describes his fictional world and the moral compass that directs his characters:

 

“The Little World of Don Camillo is to be found somewhere in the valley of the Po River. It is almost any village on that stretch of plain in Northern Italy. There, between the Po and the Apennines, the climate is always the same. The landscape never changes and, in country like this, you can stop along any road for a moment and look at a farmhouse sitting in the midst of maize and hemp - and immediately a story is born.

 

Why do I tell you this instead of getting on with my story? Because I want you to understand that, in the Little World between the river and the mountains, many things can happen that cannot happen anywhere else. Here, the deep, eternal breathing of the river freshens the air, for both the living and the dead, and even the dogs, have souls. If you keep this in mind, you will easily come to know the village priest, Don Camillo, and his adversary, Peppone, the Communist Mayor. You will not be surprised that Christ watches the goings-on from a big cross in the village church and not infrequently talks, and that one man beats the other over the head, but fairly - that is, without hatred - and that in the end the two enemies find they agree about the essentials. 

 

And one final word of explanation before I begin my story. If there is a priest anywhere who feels offended by my treatment of Don Camillo, he is welcome to break the biggest candle available over my head. And if there is a Communist who feels offended by Peppone, he is welcome to break a hammer and sickle on my back. But if there is anyone who is offended by the conversations of Christ, I can't help it; for the one who speaks in this story is not Christ, but my Christ - that is, the voice of my conscience.”

 

The plotlines are diverse and inventive.  In one, Don Camillo refuses to christen Peppone’s son because the mayor wants him named Lenin (“Have him baptized in Russia,” Don Camillo snaps.).  In another, Don Camillo has to prevent Peppone from committing a murder, and in yet another Don Camillo has to help the dropout Peppone pass a school-level test in order to finally get his grade-school degree.  Sometimes Peppone and Don Camillo join forces to catch criminals or terrorists, or on occaision the mayor has to bail Don Camillo out from the consequences of his bad temper.

 

The Don Camillo stories have been adapted for film and television in Europe, though all of the screen versions of Don Camillo are at this writing completely unseen by me.  I am, however, familiar with a BBC radio dramatization of the stories, consisting of twenty half-hour episodes, faithfully adapting and expanding some of the best tales.  Initially, the well-respected British character actor Alun Armstrong stars as Don Camillo, and Ian Hogg takes over the role later in the series.  The radio series is preternaturally entertaining, perfectly capturing the soul and the style of the stories, blending humor and poignancy in unexpected ways, and never sacrificing a poignant moral for the sake of an easy joke.

 

Though all the human characters have to wrestle with base emotions and feet of clay, stories all have incontrovertible morals, though the humor staves off any preachiness.  In one tale, “A Lesson in Tactics,” from Don Camillo’s Dilemma, Don Camillo bends the truth in order to gain money the town badly needs.  At the end, Don Camillo has the following conversation with God:

 

“Don Camillo went to kneel before the Crucified Christ over the main altar.

“I’m not especially pleased with you, Don Camillo,” Christ said.  “The old man and Peppone and his friends behaved themselves more creditably than you did.”

“But if I hadn’t stirred up the situation a bit, nothing would have come out of it,” protested Don Camillo weakly.

“That doesn’t matter.  Even if some good comes out of your evildoing, you’re responsible to God for what you did.  Unless you understand this, you’ve misunderstood God’s word completely.”

“God will forgive me,” murmured Don Camillo, lowering his head.

“No, Don Camillo, because when you think of all the good which your sin has done for the poor you won’t ever honestly repent.”

Don Camillo threw out his arms and felt very sad, because he knew that Christ was quite right.” (149)

 

The Don Camillo stories seamlessly intertwine a deep and genuine sense of morality into the dialogue and plot resolutions.  No character is purely virtuous (save for Chrst, and no character is beyond redemption or the mercy of God.  The little angel-vs.-devil cartoons scattered throughout the books add to the series’ charm.  Unfortunately, the quality of some translations from the original Italian varies a bit, and some volumes published in America omit certain stories, which is a disappointment for completists.  Indeed, once you visit The Little World of Don Camillo, you may never want to leave.

 

­­–Chris Chan