Characterisation
In the post-war years (after 1945), Don Camillo Tarocci (his full name, which he rarely uses) is the hotheaded priest of a small town in the Po valley in northern Italy. Don Camillo is a big man, tall and strong with hard fists. For the films, the town chosen to represent that of the books was Brescello (which apart from being a lovely municipality, currently has a fine museum dedicated to Don Camillo and Peppone including a Russian T34 Tank) after the production of movies based on the Guareschi's tales, but in the first story Don Camillo is introduced as the parish priest of Ponteratto.
Don Camillo is constantly at odds with the communist mayor, Giuseppe Bottazzi, better known as Peppone (meaning, roughly, Big Joseph) and is also on very close terms with the crucifix in his town church. Through the crucifix he hears the voice of Christ. The Christ in the crucifix often has far greater understanding than Don Camillo of the troubles of the people, and has to constantly but gently reprimand the priest for his impatience.
What Peppone and Camillo have in common is an interest in the well-being of the town. They also appear to have both been partisan fighters during the war; and while Peppone makes public speeches about how "the reactionaries" ought to be shot, and Don Camillo preaches fire and brimstone against "godless Communists", they actually grudgingly admire each other. Therefore they sometimes end up working together in peculiar circumstances, though keeping up their squabbling. Thus, although he publicly opposes the Church as a Party duty, Peppone takes his gang to the church and baptizes his children there, which makes him part of Don Camillo's flock. Don Camillo also never condemns Peppone himself, but the ideology of communism which is in direct opposition to the church.
Many stories are satirical and take on the real world political divide between the Italian Roman Catholic Church and the Italian Communist Party, not to mention other worldly politics. Others are tragedies about schism, politically motivated murder, and personal vendettas in a small town where everyone knows everyone else, but not everyone necessarily likes everyone else very much.
In one story, Don Camillo visits the Soviet Union pretending to be a comrade. In another, the arrival of pop culture and motorcycles propels Don Camillo into fighting "decadence", a struggle in which he finds he has his hands full, especially when the Christ mainly smiles benevolently on the young rascals. In this later collection, Peppone is the proprietor of several profitable dealerships, riding the "Boom" years of the '60s in Italy. He is no longer quite the committed Communist he once was, but he still does not get on with Don Camillo—at least in public. Don Camillo has his own problems—the Second Vatican Council has brought changes in the Church, and a new assistant priest, who comes to be called Don Chichì, has been foisted upon him to see that Don Camillo moves with the times. Don Camillo, of course, has other ideas.
Despite their bickering, the goodness and generosity of each character can be seen during hard times. They always understand and respect each other when one is in danger, when a flood devastates the town, when death takes a loved one, and in many other situations in which the two "political enemies" show their mutual respect for one another and fight side by side for the same ideals (even if they are each conditioned by their individual public roles in society).
Guareschi created a second series of novels about a similar character, Don Candido, Archbishop of Trebilie (or Trebiglie, literally three marble balls or three billiard balls). The name of this fictional town is a play on words of Trepalle (literally 'three balls'), a real town (near Livigno) whose priest was an acquaintance of Guareschi's.
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