Word: coccioli
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Dates: during 1952-1952
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HEAVEN AND EARTH (318 pp.)-Carlo Coccioli-Prentice-Hall...
...Believes It? In Heaven and Earth, Italian Novelist Carlo Coccioli uses his characters as a guardrail. He tells most of his story through their mouths, and thus remains at a safe distance himself. His priestly hero, Don Ardito, is one of those men who, like Tolstoy, struggle to tell the world that it has totally forgotten what Christianity is. "We say that the Father sent His Son to earth in the flesh and that the Son died ... in order to redeem us ... And we say further that every day we are allowed to repeat His sacrifice for our eternal salvation...
Heaven and Earth ends with an act of expiation. Don Ardito persuades a German officer to execute him for acts committed by the partisans. In this way, Author Coccioli attempts to bring all nations, creeds and parties within the sphere of his theme-to throw Don Ardito's girdle of love around the earth...
...surprising that Coccioli fails to bring off this master throw. "How incapable I am of explaining!" writes one of his characters of Don Ardito. "What was there about his words that makes them ring with such intensity? ... I could weep over my own ineptitude. It is all the crueler because as soon as I stop writing I can see the essence of his secret in absolute clarity...