a beautiful and opaque book… both more and less than it impresses to be… more, because it *is* a fugue–vittorini actually thought of it more as an opera, but in any case: a beautiful music of characters and basic desires and hopes. less, because its mystery is partly the result of some functional opacity–to hide from fascist censors–so its mystery is somewhat generated by utility rather than an inherent and natural profound ineffable-ness. the result may look the same so it’s eye of the beholder stuff whether that makes a diff to you. …except for the fact that the allegory has no clear signified, a very beautiful allegorical novel.