A vivid, fast-paced account of the militant struggles of the youth, workers, and unemployed led by the Italian Autonomist Marxists in the 1970s. The book gives us a slice of life of the people who were caught in the current of this powerful movement which stood up against the bourgeois state at a time when the official communist party and its politics of class collaboration could no longer serve as a channel of workers' resistance. Nanni Balestrini's prose form of free flowing statements arranged in blocks with no punctuations strangely helps rather than impede the novel's exhiliratingly racy and forceful movement. We read the great sacrifices and oppression endured by an entire generation of youth, which is depressing. We get a glimpse of the exploits and weaknesses of the Autonomists' horizontalist organization, direct action, lumpen antics, uncompromising posturing, and later on a form of armed focoism. But most importantly, we are told the story of the class struggle that raged in Italy's prisons by political prisoners--"The Unseen." Balestrini never fails to point out the creativity, dynamism, and solidarity of people enmeshed in a collective endeavor to transform an unjust society even in the most hopless and repressive conditions.This is a stunning masterpiece. A must-read!
