[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 “history” or “Christian civilization” or “consciousness”—in the person of Mr. Levi—to see, or establish continuity with, something that is very much not itself. The product of this attempt is a new kind of modern lyricism: the book is a well-wrought, lyrical vase.

There are two very striking aspects of this new lyricism: one is its great objectivity—the calm, almost total submission to the reality of the Other; the second is the silent, pervading dream quality which is created by this admission of an alien but genuine reality. Considering the material dealt with—the submerged, hopeless lives of peasants whose chief and almost exclusive relation to the civilization of the West (which we so much treasure) has been that of a deadly, even senseless exploitation—considering this, the rather complete lack of tension in the book is surprising. Its primary quality is charm! And Mr. Levi seems to represent, quite adequately, moreover, the highest expression of Western values. Justifiably one might expect an explosion—at least in Mr. Levi, if not in the peasants. But on the contrary the two come together as lovers, with satisfaction. Essentially, I think, Mr. Levi was fulfilled by a thrilling awareness of the peasant sense of timelessness and death (p. 255, read in relation to his failure of will as a doctor). And the peasants were able, in their own way, finally to incorporate Mr. Levi into their pattern of life as a symbol of future good from the Christian civilization which had heretofore always manifested itself as a vile but powerful thief. They made of him a kind of witch-doctor.

I believe Mr. Levi got the best of the bargain, as is clear from the book. He had cleaned out of him enough of the Christian world to be able to perceive the basic meanings that that world attempts—so successfully—to deny. But this denial can never match the eternal willingness to wait of the underworld of instinctual reality. The peasants of Lucania have waited more than two thousand years. Mr. Levi seems to be saying that this fact is not to be bewailed too loudly, that it is perhaps just as well that Christ stopped at Eboli. But one likes to think that it would have been good if he had traveled farther, even all the way to Gagliano. One likes to think that he might have learned something from the peasants there.