5 Ways The Watch by Carlo Levi Will Change How You See the World

I once met a guy who told me books were dead.

He said nobody reads anymore. He said the internet killed literature, and that novels were just old people talking to themselves.

Then he pulled out his phone to watch some influencer explain why “we live in a society” in a 30-second clip.

I told him to read The Watch by Carlo Levi. He laughed.

Then I read a few lines to him. And he shut up.

Carlo Levi was an Italian writer, painter, and doctor who spent time in political exile because Mussolini didn’t like him.

That’s all the biography you need.

The Watch is a novel about Rome after World War II, but it’s really about everything—power, time, life, death, and why nothing changes.

And why, somehow, everything does.

Here’s why The Watch will break your brain in the best way possible.

1. It Will Make You Rethink Time (And Your Stupid Schedule)

Levi’s watch isn’t just a watch. It’s time itself—cracked, broken, unreliable.

A little machine made to keep order, but it fails, just like everything else.

He gets it fixed. It breaks again. The hands move when they feel like it, ignoring appointments, ignoring logic, ignoring him.

It ticks when it shouldn’t and stops when he needs it most. Sound familiar?

You wake up to an alarm that doesn’t care how tired you are.

You rush to a job that drains you so you can buy food that keeps you alive just long enough to do it all over again.

You watch the clock, waiting for five, waiting for Friday, waiting for something to happen. But the clock is laughing at you.

The book makes you realize time isn’t what you think. The book makes you realize time isn’t what you think.

We measure it in hours, in deadlines, in missed trains and late dinners, in emails sent and meetings endured.

But that’s not time. That’s just numbers on a screen, numbers on a piece of paper some old dead men decided would control our lives.

Real time is in the way the sun feels on your face after a long winter.

In the way a cigarette burns slow when you’re thinking about someone you shouldn’t be thinking about.

In the way a streetlight flickers when you walk home alone at 2 a.m., wondering if this is all there is.

The clock is a liar. The calendar is a joke.The clock is a liar. The calendar is a joke.

Your to-do list means nothing.

Go outside. Look at the sky. That’s real time.

2. Politics Will Never Look the Same Again

Rome after the war was a mess.

Everyone had a plan, and none of them worked. The communists wanted to change the world.

The conservatives wanted to keep it the same. The Americans wanted to play hero. The politicians wanted their seats.

And the people? The people wanted to eat.

Levi shows how politics isn’t about big ideas—it’s about survival.

The watch breaks, the system breaks, and the people keep walking because they have no choice. No matter who’s in charge, the story stays the same.

If you think voting will save you, read The Watch. Then think again.

3. It Will Make You Question Who’s Actually in Charge

There’s an old man in the book who says, “They do what they want, and we suffer.”

He could be talking about Rome in 1945 or your boss on a Monday morning.

Levi paints power as something fluid—sometimes visible, sometimes not.

The ones with titles don’t always pull the strings.

The ones in uniforms aren’t always the real soldiers.

The people making speeches don’t believe what they’re saying. Sound familiar?

Next time you’re at work, in traffic, watching the news—ask yourself: Who’s actually running this show?

4. The City Will Never Look the Same Again

Rome in The Watch isn’t a postcard. It’s broken roads, half-built dreams, and shadows moving under streetlights. It’s people rebuilding a world that keeps collapsing.

Levi describes the city like a living thing—wounded, exhausted, but still breathing. If you’ve ever walked through a place that felt ancient and new at the same time, you know the feeling.

After this book, you won’t just see cities. You’ll feel their ghosts.

5. You’ll Realize Nothing Lasts—And That’s Okay

The watch breaks. The revolution stalls.

The city crumbles into dust, brick by brick, like a thousand forgotten dreams.

People die—some quietly in their beds, others in gutters, screaming for a world that never cared.

Some die inside, slow and unnoticed, like a plant choking under its own weight.

But the thing is—life keeps going. It doesn’t give a damn if you’re ready for it. It doesn’t stop to ask if you need a minute.

It keeps ticking, whether you’re paying attention or not, dragging your broken ass along, whether you want to go or not.

Levi doesn’t write happy endings. He writes real ones. He’s not interested in the neat little packages with ribbons and happy conclusions.

What he gives you is the truth. And the truth is, nothing lasts forever.

Not your job, not your heartbreak, not the idea of who you thought you were supposed to be. Nothing.

The world moves on, whether you’re standing still or running to catch up.

Your favorite bar closes, your friends fade into other lives, the woman you loved leaves without a word—and the clock just keeps on ticking.

The world changes, whether you like it or not. People get up, they keep fighting their fights, they build empires out of trash and ruin, and in the end, they all die too.

And yet—somehow, you survive. It’s like an old, dirty miracle.

You keep breathing, even though you don’t know why. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, even when you’re sure there’s no point.

Life doesn’t stop for you to figure it out. It just keeps pushing you forward, dragging your sorry self along for the ride.

And then one day, you’re here. Still here. Against all odds. Still fighting, still breathing, still stuck with the mess that was supposed to break you.

You survive. And you’ll keep surviving until the watch breaks again, and you don’t even care anymore.

Table Summary: 7 Points to Consider

Point	Why It Matters
Time is an illusion	Your schedule is a lie.
Politics is survival	Big ideas won’t feed you.
Power is a game	The players aren’t who you think.
Cities are alive	Every place has ghosts.
Nothing lasts	And that’s okay.
The past never really leaves	History repeats. We just change costumes.
You’ll see the world differently	And you can’t unsee it.

Conclusion: Read the Damn Book

There are two types of people: those who read The Watch and those who think they understand the world.

You can keep scrolling. Keep refreshing your feed. Keep pretending history isn’t laughing at us.

Or you can pick up The Watch and see the cracks in the system, in time, in yourself.

Either way, the watch is still ticking.