BOYS ALIVE

A colorful, episodic depiction of youths living rough on the outskirts of post–World War II Rome.

Known in the U.S. mainly for his film work, Pasolini (1922-1975) was also a poet, novelist, and essayist. This 1955 novel was the Italian writer’s first and follows several teenage boys over the course of some five years as they struggle with hunger, poverty, and a squalid environment. The author has a tireless eye for ugliness: “blackened, broken stairs, past twisted pipes spilling from the walls”; “a light bulb smothered in fly shit”; “buildings crusted with thick, damp filth…” The adolescents survive by scavenging and theft and occasionally sexual trade. The potential for desperate acts is never far offstage, lending a constant tension to a meandering narrative. Pasolini sometimes raises a threat and leaves a cliffhanger, as when a boy arguing with his mother grabs a kitchen knife, only to resolve it further along. Amid all the squalor and privation, the youths are resilient and resourceful and even amusing, with an ability to shrug off the hard knocks and go on to dig up the next tiny break life might have to offer. This isn’t The Little Rascals, though, and no ship will rescue them like the boy savages of Lord of the Flies. These are nasty youngsters. Everyone is a target for their entertainment or advantage. They steal from each other and they have scant regard for girls or women, having seen their fathers habitually mistreat their mothers. Pasolini spends little ink on female characters, the chief ones here being mocking prostitutes and angry mothers. Parks does a fine job with what seems to have been a challenging translation, while also providing a helpful introduction and footnotes.

A gritty read from one of 20th-century Italy’s leading cultural lights.