SON OF THE WOLF

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 629, 20 July 1951, Page 15

SON OF THE WOLF

A HERO OF TODAY, by Vasco Pratolini, translated from the Italian by Eric Morswoe Hamish Hamilton. English price, HE irony of the title is revealed when one meets Sandrino, an Italian youth of sixteen who has lived long enough to be a Fascist, to be practised in seduction, and to be brutal. and ruthless with people weaker than himself. His affair with Virginia, a woman more than twice is own age, is quickly over when he has taken all her money; but Virginia cannot let him go, and their meeting near the end of the book leads to a savage climax made bearable only by the compassion implicit in the closing sentences. The intention is to show what was done to young minds by Fascism; but the artist is stronger than the propagandist, so that the novel gradually becomes a study in evil which seems to need more than social-political explanations. Vasco Pratolini is one of the most interesting novelists mow writing in Eurove. In his previous book, A Tale of Poor Lovers, he saw his people in groups and gave them a vitality taken from the alleys of a city slum. His new ‘novel is the story of a few individuals, brought to life with a sharp insight into human behaviour. But he can handle his people with equal skill when he takes them singly or in the mass. And his prose, even in translation, is clear and strong.

H.