CONTENTS

1) The Non- Camillo Books (Introduction)

2) Early Family Stories
- Introduction
.
- "He and She"
- "Age Forty"
- "Venice..."
- "Birthday Cake"
.
- "Travelling..."
- "...Revolution"
- "Prisoner..."
- "Purgatory Cake"

3) Later Family Stories

4) Drawing Room Farces

5) Notes from Prison Camp

In one of his later essays Giovannino Guareschi explains that, as an author, he'd created two sets of characters: one "for outside stories, for export" and another "for the inside stories." The first group, we know well; it comprises Don Camillo, Peppone, and the other denizens of the Little World. The second group is perhaps less well-known among Guareschi readers in English, but not for real lack of opportunity to meet them. For they are the author's own family-- Giovannino, Margherita, Albertino, and Carlotta-- and they are featured in three collections of stories and essays published in English in 1953, 1966, and 1970, respectively.

The third collection, which was also GG's last book to appear in English, was called The Family Guareschi, and it is sufficiently different from the first two that I've given it its own page. On the other hand, 1953's The House That Nino Built and 1966's My Home, Sweet Home are very similar to each other, so I thought it made sense to treat them together here.

For those who don't know them: Guareschi's classic family stories, as exemplified in the two earlier books, are like snapshots or slices of life, where "life" is lived in the developing Italy of the early 1950's. [I know My Home, Sweet Home was published in English in the '60's, but it's actually a translation of 1954's Corrierino delle Familglie.] And I don't know how typical the real Guareschis were of Italian families at that time, but the literary Guareschis are offered as a kind of middle-class Everyfamily with whom we are all invited to identify. They face the problems that bourgeois Western families generally faced at mid-20th-century (such as adjusting to post-war prosperity and various burgeoning technologies), as well as the usual challenges that confront and have confronted families of every class in every era (you know: budgeting resources, settling sibling rivalries, aging gracefully, making sense of one's spouse, educating the children).

The Guareschis live in the country, but Dad has an identity in the city-- and somehow, the tone of the tales manages to split the difference, making for an almost suburban feel. As for the composition of the family, it's straight from Central Casting: that 50s sitcom set-up of Working Father, Housewife Mother, and matched set (one boy, one girl) of precocious primary school-aged children. There's even a dog! All that said, the characters' personalities (and I have this on the authority of the grown-up Guareschi children) are not completely contrived; they are based on those of the real-life family, while the vignettes contained in the family stories also represent real events in the Guareschis' life-- though of course they are recounted with the usual liberties taken by a humor columnist.

And whom do we meet in the pages of House and Home? Well, there's Dad "Giovannino," ostensible head of this household of independent characters; Mom "Margherita" (not Mrs. G's actual name, BTW), whose lopsided logic frequently confounds her more down-to-earth hubby, but whose apparent helplessness hides a rich interior life; son "Albertino," a serious boy who makes his few words count; and daughter "Carlotta" (nicknamed by her father "La Passionaria"), the headstrong youngest Guareschi, who seems to believe that she's really the one in charge...

The Guareschi Family
and two friends

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In order to give you a taste, I've selected a few stories from each these two books. One factor, however, complicated the selection process a bit: it turns out that several of the stories in House also appear in Home (and in fresh translations, since Frances Frenaye did House, while "Joseph Green" did Home)! It seems a shame to me that effort should have been spent re-translating any Guareschi stories that already existed in English, when there are so many other, never-translated pieces.... Oh, well; since it's possible, I decided to include among the selections below one story in both of its versions, so you could compare the translating styles directly. [When you read that one--it's listed last in each column--notice how Frenaye uses a dynamic equivalence translation for little Carlotta Guareschi's nickname, calling her "the Duchess." Green, on the other hand, transliterates the Italian "Passionaria". Which do you think works better?]

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Okay, here's the sampler.  Click on the title of any story you want to read; a link at that story's page will bring you back here (or use the Contents bar at left).