Book Review: “The Bishop’s Villa” by Sacha Naspini
Based on a True Story
Without meaning to sound harsh or slighting the publisher, the release date for Sacha Naspini’s The Bishop’s Villa in America comes a little late. This World War II novel begs to be read before November 11, the day we remember the sacrifices people, whether soldiers or civilians, made during the major armed conflicts of the 20th century. Instead, the book is being released closer to another holiday, American Thanksgiving, which doesn’t have the same weight or gravitas as Remembrance Day (as we call it here in Canada, where I’m from). Regardless, The Bishop’s Villa is a slightly intriguing tale of what it’s like to be a civilian in an area seemingly untouched directly by the war and what happens when war finally rears its head in said small village. It is the story of a cobbler named René, who lost three fingers on his right hand from a working accident when he was young (though we’re not told much more than that). He lives in rural Italy and is living through a brutal winter with food shortages. That’s until things turn worse when Jewish prisoners in his neck of the woods start being rounded up and sequestered away in a seminary, leading to questions of whom is loyal to whom. You see, René is fond of a woman named Anna, who lives in an apartment beneath him and is mourning her son’s loss in the resistance. Eventually, she fights in the resistance to get revenge — and René soon finds himself implicated in this activity. What will happen to him if he’s to be packed up and shipped to the seminary as a political prisoner?
That’s the central question the first part of The Bishop’s Villa poses to readers. However, once the answer is revealed, the account is less shocking than it would appear. Don’t get me wrong: any novel about the atrocities of the Holocaust is worth reading if only to bludgeon home, again and again, the sheer brutality of the Second World War. However, the critical problem with this work is that it isn’t all that shocking. The worst thing that happens to René outside of a broken leg (and I’m not sure how he got the broken leg, so you need to pay close attention and not let your mind wander even for a second reading this) is that someone spits in a water bowl he’s using to wash his face. Let me go back to the fact that you can get confused if you let your mind wander: characters in this novel sometimes have two names, one their real name and another their “battle name” used in fascism fighting activities, so, yes, things can get very confusing in short order. However, I must wonder if that’s part of the rouse Naspini has scrounged up: make it hard to tell people apart so their loyalties can be questioned. If so, it’s a card well played.
Readers may be interested in knowing this work is based on a true story. There really was a seminary in Italy that was used for holding political prisoners and captured Jewish peoples before they were sent northward to concentration camps such as Auschwitz. The story of René and Anna is just window dressing on this authentic event, which illustrates that there is still enough material some 80 years on to mine for original stories of World War II. And I suppose all of these stories need to be unearthed and held up to the light so that history will not repeat itself — though I’m holding my breath as I type this as I’m writing two days before the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election, which could very well be an example of, well, history repeating itself. I wish a little more of a story could be told here. Anna is introduced as a significant character early on but disappears for a very long stretch. So, a lot of this novel is René working at his cobbler’s bench, trying to please his German and Italian Fascist masters and those of his fellow partisan townsfolk. That’s boring. By deliberately centering the story away from the front lines, there’s not much of a sense of adventure in what’s trying to be an adventure story.
But am I quibbling? Perhaps this novel wasn’t for me, and you might find something to enjoy here. I just really thought that this book was a little dry. The one good thing I could say about this direct criticism is that the novel is short — less than 200 pages. So, even if you dislike it, you’re not investing more than two or three hours reading it. And you might want to consider reading this, especially around this time of year when the poppies come out in full bloom. As a result, The Bishop’s Villa is one of those crucial novels for November. Still, maybe something of its nuanced story got lost in the translation from Italian. If I can say this without spoiling anything, the story is a bit unresolved by the novel’s end, so I wasn’t sure what happened to Anna. Instead, we find out what happened to a soldier with whom René frequently interacted. Again, maybe that’s the point — this is World War II, and we don’t get a satisfactory ending to a simple love story. Still, I found it made for a weak ending.
In conclusion, I would try The Bishop’s Villa if you want something different from a World War II story. Otherwise, there’s not a lot here to chew on. What more can be said about a hard-to-categorize novel that comes out a week after we commemorate our veterans? Still, interest in World War II will continue, as will novels like this — even if they are a curiosity at best.
Sacha Naspini’s The Bishop’s Villa will be published by Europa Editions on November 19, 2024.
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