ABSTRACT
Many critics have written about Pavese's La casa in collina (1949). 1 Along with La luna e i faló (1950), 2 it represents the best of Pavese's output. Indeed, no less an authority than Calvino considered the earlier work the greater masterpiece. 3 However, even if one accepts the critical consensus that La luna e i faló is the superior work, La casa in collina is of major interest, for it is one of Pavese's most mature works, containing the familiar themes reworked so poetically in La luna e i faló: cittá campagna, childhood/adulthood, the role of myth and universal human experience. La casa in collina also tackles the issue of political commitment and gives a valuable insight into the psychology of a political 'refuser', all the more significant in the light of the document unearthed relatively recently, Pavese's Taccuino, which indicates that the writer's political allegiance at least as late as 1943 was not actually with the anti-Fascist struggle. 4
