Fifth Estate

Library Journal

Along with his Memorial (Marlboro, 1983), winner of a Pushcart Small Press Prize, these two novels comprise the author's ``Il ciclo degli ultimi,'' his paean to the peasantsthe lowliest, the least, the lastof rural Italy. Camon considers The Fifth Estate his first novel, issued in Italy in 1970 with a preface by Pier Paolo Pasolinito be his ``geography'' of the pre-World War II peasant people. It tells the ``story of an archaic community and `the way it works' through a myraid of figurespersons, angels, devils, animalsand a mist of legends.'' Life Everlasing , the ``history'' of the peasant people, ``isolates, within this galaxy, the bright star of the Peasant Resistance: a barbaric and visceral struggle with neither ideology nor program.'' Both novels are told in long, lyrical sentences, beautifully translated, that unwind with the vivid detail of stream-of-consciousness recall. Highly recommended for fiction collections. Marcia G. Fuchs, Guilford Free Lib., Ct.