SOURCE: "Ragazzi Will Be Ragazzi, and Sometimes They'll Be Scugnizzi," in The New York Times Book Review, November 10, 1968, pp. 4, 44.

In the following review, Crichton criticizes The Ragazzi, asserting that "there is a sensation of the writing being fashioned because the style is fashionable, that it is an artifice, not an art, a stylization and not a style."

Thirteen years ago, when this book was published in Italy, it set off a storm of controversy. There were those who wished to do to the author what was done to Mussolini: up by the heels in some vacant lot in the shabby outskirts of town, Pasolini country. American readers today will be puzzled about the reasons for the uproar. By present standards The Ragazzi conceivably could be merchandised as one of those hip "young adult" novels coming into vogue.

There isn't much to be puzzled about. As Luigi Barzini has...