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Though I am neither Catholic nor Italian, I feel a closeness to this book -- this novel especially, but all the collected stories in the series -- and wish I could impart to everyone just how wonderful this novel and its message are.
Actually this book is also collected stories but together they create a narrative of one story, different from the other books by Guareschi.
At one time, he was THE largest-selling author in Italian, surpassing even Dante. Maybe he still is, but I fear that his positive sense of life, not to mention his Catholicism, and especially his anti-communism, will have relegated him to that proverbial trash heap.
Instead, the popular authors of today wallow in cynicism and violence, which is why they're popular, and why they are promoted by the pop media.
And a Guareschi is diminished.
Let me repeat: His stories are wonderful. His characters are wonderful. His settings are wonderful.
Oh, there are some dramatic moments of heart-breaking sorrow, especially his story of the wheat, but Guareschi and his characters know that life is not about sorrow and tragedy, even if both are parts of life.
Guareschi apparently believed in Catholic teachings of life and after-life that I don't, but I will forever be grateful his books are available, sometimes even online.
I just wish I could find his cartoons, especially the one of the character with three nostrils, which drawing got him threatened by the Antifa of his day. Some, maybe most, of his stories are illustrated with one of his drawings, but that paucity just makes me all the more want to see the rest.
I cannot stress too much the extent to which I love and recommend all the works of Guareschi, but "Comrade Don Camillo" is, I think, his best. ( )

Don Camillo, a village priest, manages to get Peppone, the mayor of the village and Senator who represents the Communist Party, to take him on a tour of the Soviet Union in a select group of ten of the best of the Communist party men of Italy. What follows is a funny yet poignant adventure of their complicated friendship and Don Camillo's calling. Even while poking Peponne and aggravating him to extremes, Don Camillo never forgets his true calling and is faithful.

Written in installments in 1959 for the paper Candido, this story was meant to be a nail in the coffin of Communism in Italy. It certainly laid its blows effectively, but what lives on are the characters and their very human interactions with each other and with God. This is a book I will read again, not for its political ideology, nor for its Theology, but for its warmth and humor and fine story-telling. ( )

I read this when I was in high school as it was a selection from the Book-of-the-Month Club . It was an entertaining and humorous account of a visit to the then Soviet Union by a group of Italians. Don Camillo surreptitiously gains access to the group and proceeds, disguised as a loyal Communist party member. As you might expect, the expedition provides one comic moment after the other. ( )