Italian · Advanced
Read Con gli occhi chiusi in Italianwith every sentence explained
English title: With Closed Eyes
Federigo Tozzi · 1919
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About the book
Con gli occhi chiusi by Federigo Tozzi was first published in 1919. In Passage you read the full text in the original Italian, marked advanced and filed under historical fiction and romance. It runs to about 47,000 words.
A shy boy, a domineering father, and a peasant girl he loves without ever really seeing her.
Pietro Rosi grows up in Siena, the dreamy, awkward son of Domenico, a coarse, hard-driving man who runs a busy trattoria and owns the farm of Poggio a' Meli in the countryside outside the city. Domenico wants a tough, practical heir. Pietro is fragile, bookish and lost in his own thoughts.
On the farm, among the labourers, the animals and the endless work of the fields, Pietro finds Ghìsola, a lively, quick peasant girl. He falls for her with all the intensity of youth and builds his whole future around her. But Pietro keeps his eyes closed to the world around him, and to who Ghìsola really is.
Federigo Tozzi's major novel, set in the Tuscan countryside, was long overlooked and is now recognised as a modernist classic of Italian literature. With Closed Eyes is raw, poetic and quietly devastating.
- Author
- Federigo Tozzi
- First published
- 1919
- Language
- Italian
- Level
- Advanced
- Genre
- Historical Fiction, Romance
- Length
- About 47,000 words
How it opens
Usciti dalla trattoria i cuochi e i camerieri, Domenico Rosi, il padrone, rimase a contare in fretta, al lume di una candela che sgocciolava fitto, il denaro della giornata. Gli si strinsero le dita toccando due biglietti da cinquanta lire; e, prima di metterli nel portafogli di cuoio giallo, li guardò un’altra volta, piegati; e soffiò su la fiammella avvicinandocisi con la bocca. Se la candela non si fosse consumata troppo, avrebbe contato anche l’altro denaro nel cassetto della moglie; ma chiuse la porta, dandoci poi una ginocchiata forte per essere sicuro che aveva girato bene la chiave. Di casa stava dall’altra parte della strada, quasi dirimpetto.
Reading Con gli occhi chiusi in Passage
Passage sets the book as a quiet, paginated reader in Italian. Read at your own pace, and when a sentence stops you, tap it. You get:
- a natural translation of that exact sentence,
- a short note on the grammar, in plain words,
- the key words, which you can save with the sentence they came from,
- all of it in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Turkish or Portuguese, whichever you read best.
It's marked advanced, with richer vocabulary and longer sentences. If it feels heavy, start with an intermediate Italian book and come back to it. The words you save come back later in short review games, so the book keeps teaching after you close it.
