SOURCE: White, Lawrence Grant. “Time and the Man.” Saturday Review of Literature 34, no. 26 (30 June 1951): 8-9.

In the following review, White maintains that The Watch is a well-written and worthwhile book.

Carlo Levi, the gifted author of Christ Stopped at Eboli, has written another book about Italy. Its obscure title, The Watch, refers to a graduation present from his father, symbolizing the unity of time and recurring as the subject of a curious dream.

The method used in the two books is similar: the meticulous recording of the author's impressions of scenes and events and the conversations and opinions of the people he meets. But within these similar frames the subject matter differs widely. For Eboli is a vivid picture of life in a remote and primitive town, and The Watch is a record of a few days among intellectuals in Rome during the confused times immediately following the...