Seasons in Basilicata
A Year in a Southern Italian Hill Village
Chapter One
The Lure of Levi
This is a closed world, shrouded in black veils, bloody and earthy-that
other world where the peasants live and which no one can enter without a
magic key ... Here there is no definite boundary between the world of
human beings and that of animals and even monsters. And there are many
strange creatures here who have a dual nature ... everything is bound
up in natural magic ... and a subterranean deity, black with shadows
of the bowels of the earth ...
Carlo Levi, Christ Stopped at Eboli
Some say his coffin is full of rocks.
It lies deep in the heavy clay soil at the edge of the cemetery in Aliano.
The cemetery is at the highest point of the village, on a watershed ridge
above the Sauro and Agri Valleys. The views from there across the eroded
calanchi canyons, which seem to be melting like cake frosting into the
scrubby and scraggly olive orchards far below, are the finest in the
village. And Carlo Levi's grave has the best view of all, west across the
calanchi, the muscular outlines of the Pollino range and, on a clear
spring day, the massive bulk of the Calab ... read full excerpt from: Seasons in Basilicata ebook
