Corpi nudi e pellicce: la ricerca poetica di Pavese nella trilogia La bella estate. By Yvonne Hauser-Rüegger (Florence: Franco Cesati, 2004. 269 pp.)

Hauser-Rüegger’s exegesis of the trilogy is poetically rich and portrays Pavese’s linguistic and thematic parabola that ends with the exhaustion of the city disillusion and allowes, as a last and final possibility, a return to a revival of Piedmont. Corpi nudi e pellicce is an important contribution for the deeper understanding of Pavese’s poetic research which was continuous and coherent and which, as Yvonne Hauser-Rüegger explains, takes Pavese from the completion of La bella estate to the writing of his final novel which coincides with La luna e i falò, or the return to the origins and myth. La bella estate is the final failed effort before Pavese’s circle closet both intellectually and existentially. The volume contains a chapter dedicated to Pavesean criticism and critical reception of the trilogy, and is completed by a rich bibliography.