SOURCE: Bazelon, David T. “Outside of History.” Nation 164 (24 May 1947): 635-36.

In the following review, Bazelon describes Christ Stopped at Eboli as a “new kind of modern lyricism.”

Plot is always the essential—even, or perhaps especially, when it is so subdued as to seem negligible or secondary. When moments are big, it is the context that enlarges them. Overtly, Christ Stopped at Eboli is merely sensitive reporting of a year (1935-36) spent in exile by a cultured Italian anti-Fascist. Most of the book consists of description of the daily life and mind of the peasants who live in Gagliano, a village in Lucania, where Christianity—in its ancient or its modern version—has never become an integral form in life. Thus, to some extent outside of history, the peasants are pictured carefully, with interest, in detail. The silent plot of the book, however, resides in the attempt of...