Some time back I was introduced to Giovanni Guareschi’s delightful world of Don Camillo, a parish priest in a small village in Italy a little after World War II.  Don Camillo loves his villagers dearly, though they cause him many problems, and none more than one Peppone, the mayor and the local Communist Party leader.  As a Communist, Peppone has no use for the Church, and as a priest, Don Camillo has no use for the Communist Party, and so the two are frequently at odds.  And yet, somehow they can’t quite do without each other either.

Consequently, when I found Comrade Don Camillo at the local Dollar Bookstore (every book a dollar, no matter what it is), I nabbed it, and as expected I enjoyed it thoroughly.

In this book, Peppone, now not only a Communist Party bigwig but also a member of the Italian Senate, is arranging a trip for himself and nine party stalwarts to the Soviet Union, there to see the marvels of the Worker’s Paradise.  By indulging in a bit of blackmail—Don Camillo had done a favor for Peppone, and Peppone didn’t want anyone to know—Don Camillo manages to get a place on the trip as one Comrade Tarocci.  He spends the rest of the book subverting the party loyalty of the other folks on the trip, mostly by adopting a More-Correctly-Communist-Than-Though attitude and relying on the other’s Italian sense of the ridiculous…and on his own native goodness, which he’s mostly unaware of.

It’s a fun book, and I stayed up late last night finishing it.