Mussolini - Son Of — The Century

Mussolini: Son of the Century is not a biography. It is a warning written in blood and rhetoric. It asks: What happens when a nation falls in love with its own worst self?

But the wolf ages. The century turns. And the son becomes the father of ruins. mussolini - son of the century

The title is a trap. Son of the Century sounds like praise. It sounds like destiny. But Scurati means it as an autopsy. Mussolini did not invent fascism; he became it. He was the mirror the century held up to itself—and the century flinched. Then applauded. Mussolini: Son of the Century is not a biography

And yet, Scurati’s genius is to show that the wolf was also a son. The son of a blacksmith and a schoolteacher. The son of socialist utopias and Nietzschean ambitions. The son of an age that had just watched millions of young men choke on mud and gas in the trenches—and then, having lost its faith in reason, knelt before anyone who promised to make the trains run on time and the crowds tremble. But the wolf ages

Antonio Scurati, in his novel Mussolini: Son of the Century , does not give us the caricature. No stupid clown in a dented helmet. No mere buffoon hanging upside down. Instead, he gives us the voice —the mesmerising, venomous rhythm of a man who spoke in exclamation points and ended every sentence with a clenched fist.

He wanted to be the century.