Review: "The Little World of Don Camillo," Giovanni Guareschi

By Paul Carrier

I may have been in the eighth grade when I first “met” Don Camillo, or perhaps in my first year of high school. Mid 1960s, in any case. Although I’m a little fuzzy on the timing, I remember the location well enough.

The good priests and nuns of Sacred Heart Parish in my hometown of Southbridge, Mass., ran a youth group in St. Joan of Arc School. One of their goals, no doubt, was to steer us toward books that they viewed as appropriate for impressionable young Catholic minds.

And that’s where Camillo came in.

A fictional character created by Italian writer Giovanni Guareschi (1908-1968), Camillo is a short-tempered and pugnacious Catholic priest who stars in a collection of short stories set in rural Italy following the end of World War II. He routinely finds himself at odds with Peppone, the Communist mayor of the small Po River Valley town in which he and Camillo live. 

Peppone is no saint, but neither is Camillo, an earthy firebrand of a priest. Appropriately, The Little World of Don Camillo is illustrated with simple drawings of a childlike angel and a diminutive devil. Not only are Camillo and Peppone constantly scheming against one another, but goodness and mischief vie for supremacy within each man as well.

Camillo and the equally feisty Peppone lock horns in part because of their conflicting political views, but also because they are the most strong-willed men in their village. They are more similar than dissimilar, have a grudging respect for each other, and even find ways to work together from time to time, while never openly acknowledging that they are, in fact, friends.

One protagonist “beats the other over the head, but fairly — that is, without hatred,” Guareschi explains in his introduction. In the end, “the two enemies find they agree about essentials."
 
When the bishop reassigns Camillo to another parish to placate Peppone following a face-off, Peppone quickly takes a dislike to Camillo’s young, wispy replacement, and pleads with the bishop to bring Camillo back.

In another tale, a visiting boxer knocks out Peppone, prompting Camillo to jump into the ring in disguise and KO the champ before fleeing the scene to avoid being recognized.

Guareschi wrote hundreds of these stories, many of which originally appeared in an Italian magazine. Reading The Little World of Don Camillo, which collects more than 20 short stories, it’s easy to see why the Catholic powers that be made them available to us as kids.

These comical, sometimes satirical tales are kindhearted but not cloying. They’re full of likable characters (yes, even the Communists). Innocent humor, generally harmless hijinks and frothy plots are the norm (although in one case a man is murdered). Camillo routinely finds himself holed up in church conversing with God about Peppone’s antics. From his perch above the altar, Jesus gently offers up sensible advice that usually serves to keep the hotheaded Camillo under control, or at least repentant for his sporadic missteps.

“Don Camillo, where are your brains?” Jesus asks the priest when he gets riled up over yet another real or perceived perceived affront tossed his way by those wily Communists. “I can find them with an effort,” Camillo responds.

Becoming reacquainted with Don Camillo more than 50 years after I first discovered him, I have to say I enjoyed Guareschi’s warmhearted look at life in a postwar Italian village as much as I did the first time around. I suppose that makes sense. When I was an altar boy way back when, I served Mass for a gruff but kindhearted priest who, looking back on it now, was a bit like Guareschi’s creation.