The Moon and the Bonfires

The Moon and the Bonfires, a novel by Cesare Pavese is difficult to analyze because every sentence has an underlying meaning that cannot be found in the text, but it is necessary to read between the lines - a task that is not always easy. In the introduction we learn the Pavese committed suicide shortly after this novel was published, and so throughout my process of reading the book, I tried to think to myself, "Does any of this hint towards his impending suicide?" The book focuses around the past, and the hopeless present. Pavese's narrator paints a picture of a past that, while at times harsh and unpredictable, was also filled with much joy that may never be recovered. Even though the past was troublesome, for the narrator, referred to by some as Eel, it was home. After living in America for ten years, Eel realizes that he will never be able to feel at home in such a foreign place. Eel does not like America at all, and portrays it as an uninhabitable, unwelcoming wasteland filled with murderers who kill women because they feel swallowed up in the sheer mass and loneliness of the country, and commit crimes simply to be noticed once more.

After returning to his home, Eel finds that it was not what he expected. Except for his old friend Nuto, all of the people who he expected to recognize and welcome him back with open arms were dead. None of them lived happy lives after he left, and none of their lives ended peacefully. While back home, Eel realizes that poverty leads people to be cruel, as a result of how hopeless they have become. The old, especially, become cruel with the loss of control over their own lives. They are stuck in misery, because they know their pasts can never be found again, and so they are ignored, and left to suffer on their own. Throughout the novel we see that money and sexual arousal are two of the only things that are universal, although they both lead to sin. Eel has returned to Italy in search of a home that he never had, and never will have. He has no family, no home, no father or mother that he knows of. He is, as Kuto says, "His own father." Eel has created a life for himself, but he is a wanderer, and his inability to adapt to life in America, and his inability to adjust to living in the village again, has destined him for a life of someone who will never be able to plant his roots anywhere. It seems that Pavese's depression can be seen in the book's hopelessness for the past and the future. With all the death and unhappiness, it seems that Pavese believed that the only certainties in life were suffering, and then death.