PADRE PADRONE: My Father My Master

by Gavino Ledda ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1979

At six, Gavino was snatched from a rural classroom by his father and removed to the family tanca (sharecropping enclosure) to tend sheep--a frequent practice in 1940s Sardinia; but this unsentimental, in no way bucolic memoir, the basis for a prize-winning film, takes its power from the central relationship between father and son, a harsh, unloving antagonism that culminates in Gavino's near-mythic rebellion at age 24. The father, incapable of tenderness or even simple kindness, gave the scantest of instructions and expected instant facility--at milking, or driving sheep; he would beat the boy savagely for the slightest infraction, such as listening to a neighbor's songs. Gavino did learn a few important lessons from neighboring shepherds (masturbation was ""the one true consolation of solitude"") but he had to sneak visits, for most were considered enemies. Although at first the boy resented his isolation, he came to love the landscape and when, after several years, the entire family moved to the tanca, he shared his misery with his equally victimized siblings. The father's only paternal gestures were reserved for a grove of olive trees he nursed for 30 years; when they were destroyed in a single night's frost, he raged uncontrollably and then returned, his grief unrelieved, to his daily rounds. Gavino Ledda skillfully recalls these Sardinian hillsides where bandits frequently outsmarted solitary shepherds and a woman was valued as ""a sheep without a tail."" By the mid-Fifties, his father's way of life was threatened: emigration of the young to Canada and Australia became common. Gavino found his way out through the army where he resumed his education--a prideful struggle--and developed the presence to face up to his father and challenge his selfish, unsparing cruelties. An insinuating, unhurried narrative.

Pub Date: May 15, 1979

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Urizen

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1979

Categories: NONFICTION