The SkinThis is the first unexpurgated English edition of Curzio Malaparte’s legendary work The Skin. The book begins in 1943, with Allied forces cementing their grip on the devastated city of Naples. The sometime Fascist and ever-resourceful Curzio Malaparte is working with the Americans as a liaison officer. He looks after Colonel Jack Hamilton, “a Christian gentleman . . . an American in the noblest sense of the word,” who speaks French and cites the classics and holds his nose as the two men tour the squalid streets of a city in ruins where liberation is only another word for desperation. Veterans of the disbanded Italian army beg for work. A rare specimen from the city’s famous aquarium is served up at a ceremonial dinner for high Allied officers. Prostitution is rampant. The smell of death is everywhere. Subtle, cynical, evasive, manipulative, unnerving, always astonishing, Malaparte is a supreme artist of the unreliable, both the product and the prophet of a world gone rotten to the core. |
Contents
The Plague | 7 |
The Virgin of Naples | 42 |
The Wigs | 60 |
The Rose of Flesh | 86 |
The Son of Adam | 131 |
The Black Wind | 154 |
General Corks Banquet | 189 |
The Triumph of Clorinda | 229 |
The Rain of Fire | 258 |
The Flag | 274 |
The Trial | 307 |
The Dead God | 336 |
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Common terms and phrases
alleys Allied ancient arms asked bastard beneath blue boys brow Capri Cassino Christian clouds Colonel Brand Colonel Eliot color conquerors Consuelo Cork corpses cried crowd CURZIO MALAPARTE dark dead Europe exclaimed eyes face felt fish flag Flat flesh gazed Georges GEORGES SIMENON German girl goumiers green Guillaume hair hands head heroes holm oaks horrible human hunger Italian Italy Jack Jack Hamilton Jeanlouis jeep Jimmy Lanza laugh lava liberation lips looked low voice majordomo Malaparte miserable moon mouth Mussolini Naples Neapolitan Negro night pale partisan officer PATRICK LEIGH FERMOR pederasts Pierre Lyautey pity poor Posilipo replied Rome seemed sergeant shouted General Cork silent skin slowly smile Stendhal strange streets suddenly suffering tears thing Torre del Greco trees turned Vesuvius Via Appia walked walls wind window woman women wonderful wounded young zazous