Home » Antonio Pennacchi » Canale Mussolini (The Mussolini Canal)

Antonio Pennacchi Canale Mussolini (The Mussolini Canal)

Pre-war Italian history is not well-known in the English speaking world but this book will certainly give you an idea of what was going on. The focus is on the Peruzzi. family. Like other Italian families in the similar situations they have very few rights. They have to work hard to stop from starving. If the land owner decided to evict them they were evicted without any rights. The book opens with the latest eviction and it is decided to send the two oldest men to Rome to plead their case. It is a long hard journey by bicycle and, though Italy was in theory unified at that time, you could not just go from one part of it to another without a permit.

A visit to Rome is not just random. They plan to visit Edmondo Rossoni. He is very much a historical character and was associated with Mussolini as well as before that he was involved in various left-wing causes. We learned how the family know him, having rescued him from the police, though no too successfully. He will stay in touch with them and he occasionally visits them. On one occasion he brings along a very intelligent and personable friend with him. The man is Mussolini when he was still something of a left-wing agitator.

However, before we get into the details of what happens to them in Rome, we get a long and fascinating account of why things are the way they are. We follow the story of the.Perruzzi family. Our narrator is a descendant of that family and tells the story of the family, including the several interestingly named uncles – Pericles, Themistocles Adelchli , Iseo, Treves, Turati.

While of course they do have to spend a lot of time working they get involved in politics, not surprising mainly left-wing politics. The politics inevitably lead to violence as there is opposition to the rich and powerful land owners. We are well into the book before we see what happens in Rome. They had been cheated by the landowner of both their money and livestock and have also been evicted from the land and they hope hope that Rossoni can help. He cannot except offering them lots of land in thePontine Marshes. One of the uncles had been there while doing his military service and is very much opposed to this, not least because it was known as an area where there is a lot of malaria and few people live there. It turns out that a lot of has changed. Throughout history, we are told there had been efforts to drain the marshes, but they had had limited success till Mussolini came along. We now learn that a certain amount had been drained. Lots of people are being brought in from the north of Italy to help carry on the work. We get a considerable amount of detail about what has been done and what is to be done and how our family fit in. Yes, they have to work hard but they will get a holding in return.

In the hands of a lesser writer, this could have been fairly boring but Pennacchi is a superb storyteller, mixing in the factual with stories of of various people, including of course Mussolini himself as well as others, both the good and bad, the real and fictitious. We follow our family and many others there who will improve this land and make it usable.

We also learn about the rise of fascism and how Mussolini takes power and how, certainly initially he seems to do a lot of good for his country. Italy had been a very backward country and in many respects almost feudal l. It does start to move forward from the problems caused by World War I and the way the country was run entirely by and for the benefit of the rich and powerful.

If you had not heard of Mussolini before reading this book, you would think, at least reading the first two thirds of this book, that he was very beneficial to Italy and the people in it particularly,as the peasants get more land and get work. Mussolini seems to remain in touch with the people including our family and he is very concerned about improving thePontine Marshes. It is only towards the latter part of the book that the Mussolini we know comes to the fore. He becomes more ruthless. He attacks what was then Abyssinia and the Italians are cruel with the native population. He will later support Franco in the Spanish Civil War and then of course become friends with Hitler, though interestingly enough, we see that initially Hitler defers to Mussolini and it is only later that the relationship is reversed.

However, while all this is going on, we are following the highly colourful stories of our extended family and the people they come in contact with, including Mussolini and his henchmen.

We learn a lot about a whole range of aspects of living in the marshes, including disease, what to grow and how, and managing various ways of controlling the water. This is not told in the form of dry history but mixes in with the stories of our family so that it always remains interesting, not least with Mussolini popping up every now and then and even a hint of what is to come later, including the damage caused during the war by both the Germans and Americans.

Initially, as we know things do seem to get better for the Italians under Mussolini and our family become ardent Fascists fully supporting Mussolini and his associates. But of course once the Italians get involved with Hitler and then have to fight the Allies and things get decidedly worse not just for Mussolini and Italy, but inevitably for our family. The young men are called up and have to fight in various places, including East Africa, North Africa, and even Russia. Inevitably, it does not go well for all of them.
Pennacchi is a superb storyteller so we will learn a lot about the history of the time, the actual facts, but also in particular how it affected the ordinary people. It does not end with Mussolini’s death but carries on much further and we find our family and the other people in the area seemingly at war with both the Allies and the Germans which makes life somewhat complicated for all of them. As for the narrator, as he himself raises the question, who is he? Well you will find out if you read this book as even he has a role to play.

I can thoroughly recommend this book which tells a whole amount of engaging, sometimes amusing, sometimes deadly serious stories and, despite their fascist views, and we get involved with the family and their fortunes and misfortunes. But at the same time we learn how a considerable amount about what went on in Italy during the period from the First World War to the end of the Second World War told not like a history book but nor frivolously but rather in a manner that will get get you interested in what happened during the period.

Publishing history

First published in 2010 by Mondadori
First English translation in 2013 Dedalus
Translated by Judith Landry