The Little World of Don Camillo (No. 1 in the Don Camillo series)

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That world is the flood plain of the River Po, Emilia Romagna in Italy. The soil there, nourished by thousands of years of effluvium from the flooding Po, is the richest in Italy. Bologna, the provincial capital, has the best food in the country. But these are the stories of the people of the plain, of the farmers and mechanics and one large, ham-handed priest who suffer through the unrelenting glare of the summer, then suffer through the rising fog and the long damp of the winter. It was a malarial land, dangerous as well as bountiful, and its people were touched by its geography: harsh, generous, superstitious and pious. My relatives live there now, and it hasn’t changed so much since Don Camillo’s days in the middle of the 20th century. Yes, it’s richer, the coast is tourified, but the geography is still overwhelming. Guareschi is a world-weary comedic writer who had lived through the Mussolini era, two world wars and a German prison camp. He isn't putting fascists in these stories, but he finds a lot of humor in pitting dogma against dogma. And while it's clear that he is no communist sympathizer, he puts heart into all sides of the conversation. L'esposizione dei fatti, poi, mette in rilievo tematiche di altissimo spessore etico e sociale, con una coerenza programmatica degna della più alta letteratura. That doesn't matter, not at all. Peppone the mayor is an ardent communist, Don Camillo a Catholic priest who has Jesus as a conscience. Both were involved in the partisan war against the Germans and have a healthy respect for each other's physicality. This doesn't stop them doing battle over the conflicts in their beliefs and anything else about which they have chosen to disagree. In spite of this both men remain humane and capable of working together in an emergency, putting political differences aside. The stories are simple, straightforward and dispense with lengthy examinations of setting and long descriptions of the cast - the author moves through letting the character's actions define them. Cleverly, their actions often are completely different than the things they say, or the roles they play. Even Christ, more often than not, chastises the Priest in light of his actions regarding Peppone.

BBC Radio 4 Extra - The Little World of Don Camillo, Series 5

Don Camillo's Last Round (Italian: Don Camillo e l'onorevole Peppone; French: La Grande Bagarre) [8] (1955) Non è possibile, ed è bellissimo che sia così; perché leggendo le storie del Mondo Piccolo nella mia testa risentivo le voci del film, con le loro musicali intonazioni dialettali, rivedevo il cipiglio di Peppone, la faccia tosta di Don Camillo, la pacata rassegnazione del Cristo crocifisso motteggiante; una magnifica lettura multisensoriale! Don Camillo set out on the return journey and when he reached the doorway of the church and turned around so that Christ might bestow a final blessing upon the distant river, he found standing before him: the small dog, Peppone, Peppone's men and every inhabitant of the village, not excluding the druggist, who was an atheist, but who felt that never in his life had he dreamed of a priest like Don Camillo, who could make even the Eternal Father quite tolerable.At first because of the format and simplicity of some of the stories I mistakenly thought that these were simply light hearted tales, featuring simplistic morality. Nothing could be further from the truth. However, the simplicity is deceptive and the problems that the characters must solve are often true to life and painful. Last fall my mom brought up a series of stories she used to enjoy with my grandfather when she was young - "They were about this Italian priest in a little village, and the communist mayor who was his enemy, and they would fight all the time - they were funny."

I suspect the translator did a very good job for this edition -- if he could conjure laughs alongside great imagery, that's a great endorsement. But I'm sure there were a lot of other bits of comedy that couldn't cross the great divide created by language, time, and space. Still, I find a lot of the stories fulfilling, the comedy well-timed, and the experience relevant enough to revisit.

The Little World of Don Camillo (1952) - IMDb

Riccardo F. Esposito, Don Camillo e Peppone. Cronache cinematografiche dalla Bassa Padana 1951-1965, Le Mani - Microart's, Recco (Gênes, Italie), 2008, ISBN 978-88-8012-455-9 Capace di divertire, come di commuovere e suscitare concreti spunti di riflessione a livello morale, Guareschi in patria è stato a lungo sottovalutato e molto semplicisticamente considerato uno scrittore "popolare" nel senso più deteriore del termine, quando all'estero l'apprezzamento per le sue doti letterarie non ha conosciuto cedimenti. È stato quindi relegato nella schiera dei personaggi minori, forse perché "scomodi"; lo testimonia anche la sistematica esclusione dei suoi scritti dalla maggior parte delle antologie del Novecento. Tomēr esmu sava laika produkts, un grāmata arī ir sava laika produkts - teksts mūs ieved pasaulē, kurā par normālu lietu uzskata, ka puikas ar akmeņiem nomētā zosis un vecāki tik vien kā kaimiņiem dod vietā jaunas, dzīvas. Tur ir normāli suni uzrīdīt ceļa strādniekiem un noskatīties, kā viņi to nosit. Un normāli ir tas, ka ciema vecākais Peopone un priesteris Dons Kamilo regulāri viens otru iekausta. Man nekas no tā neliekas normāli. Lord," said Don Camillo, "Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted."Don Camillo, Peppone and several other recurring characters fought in the Italian Resistance during WWII. Don Camillo is a priest and Peppone the Communist Lord Mayor of the little Po Valley town of Mondo Piccolo. Don Camillo: Monsignor (Italian: Don Camillo monsignore ma non troppo; French: Don Camillo Monseigneur) [9] (1961)