The Beach

Doro, now married and living in Genoa, hasn't seen his old friend -- an unmarried high school teacher in his thirties -- for far too long. Eager to rekindle their friendship, they decide to spend the summer holidays together in a small village on the Italian Riviera. They are joined by Doro's wife, Clelia, a captivating and unpredictable woman -- perhaps too much so for their marriage to endure.<br> What unfolds is a wry comedy of manners, filled with vignettes of life at a seaside resort. Light and airy on the surface, the novella gradually reveals its deeper insights, sneaking up on the reader with the subtlety of an ambush.<br> <br> "There can be no excuse for not reading Pavese, one of the few essential novelists of the mid-twentieth century." -- Susan Sontag<br> <br> "Pavese's short novels constitute the densest, most dramatic and homogeneous narrative cycle of modern Italy... above all they are works of extraordinary depth, in which one never ceases to discover new levels, new meanings." -- Italo Calvino