What is the author's style in Christ Stopped at Eboli by Carlo Levi?

Carlo Levi was a political prisoner during the period covered by Christ Stopped at Eboli . He was a member of the far Left, although not a communist. He appears to have been an anarchist at the time, holding that the nation-state is the cause of major social problems. He is also a man of some culture, a physician, a painter, a pianist, and a writer. His time in Gagliano is lonely, detached and depressing, full of boredom, frustration and anxiety over sickness in the town.

All these facts color the author's perspective. He writes in the first person, occasionally recording what he says to the townspeople. For the most part, though, he operates as a somewhat impartial spectator. In some ways, though, he is not trying to be objective. Economic, social, political, personal and spiritual themes pervade the book and they are often clearly shaped by Carlo's experience and directly injected into the story. For instance, Carlo sees the townspeople's frustrations as with the State itself, rather than as merely with the State as it currently operates. And as a member of the far Left in the mid-20th century, he tends to see social conflict as one of class struggle, rather than as varied struggles between individuals. He argues in Chapter Twenty-Four that the only solution to Gagliano's problems and the problems of Southern Italy generally is a Peasant Revolution. Thus the perspective is the one of a detached, humanitarian intellectual living among the oppressed, a common perspective of many leftist intellectuals in the 20th century. There is a cool impartiality colored by searing social commentary mixed with a touch of ennui.