La vita agra
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (September 2012) |
 First edition (Italian) | |
| Author | Luciano Bianciardi |
|---|---|
| Original title | La vita agra |
| Translator | Eric Mosbacher |
| Language | Italian |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Rizzoli |
Publication date | 1962 |
| Publication place | Italy |
Published in English | 1965 |
| Pages | 200 pp. |
La vita agra, known in English-speaking countries as It's a Hard Life, is a novel by Luciano Bianciardi published in 1962 by Rizzoli. It became a best-seller in Italy and it is considered one of the most important novels in contemporary Italian literature.
The novel was also made into a 1964 film of the same name, directed by Carlo Lizzani and starring Ugo Tognazzi and Giovanna Ralli.
Plot
[edit]An intellectual moves from a small Tuscan town to the industrial hub of Milan with the secret intention of carrying out an act of rebellion: bombing the headquarters of a mining company responsible for a tragic workplace explosion in his hometown.
Upon arriving in Milan, however, the protagonist becomes ensnared in the daily grind of urban life and the dehumanizing nature of neo-capitalism. His lofty revolutionary goals gradually give way to existential disillusionment as he takes on various writing and translating jobs in an alienating and oppressive corporate culture.
Reception
[edit]In 1962, when the novel was released it was praised by the public and the critics. It became a best-seller and was translated into English, French, German and Spanish. Italo Calvino wrote a review in which he regarded the novel positively and compared it to other works of the so-called letteratura industriale (Industrial literature), a current which spread at the beginning of the Italian economic miracle, such as Paolo Volponi's Memoriale and Giovanni Arpino's Una nuvola d'ira. He praised the all-encompassing language that succeeds masterfully in expressing and representing the industrial reality in a more complex way, even if he saw some weaknesses connected to the book's uncontainable autobiography that is limited, in his opinion, to a "private anarchist protest".[1]
English editions
[edit]- La vita agra: or, It’s a Hard Life, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1965; translation by Eric Mosbacher.
- La vita agra. It's a Hard Life, Viking Press, New York, 1965; translation by Eric Mosbacher.
References
[edit]- ^ Gino Ruozzi, Vite difficili nella letteratura del boom economico. Dalla dolce vita alla vita agra, in Carlo Varotti, La parola e il racconto. Scritti su Luciano Bianciardi, Bologna, Bononia University Press, 2005, pp. 29-36.