|
So Camilleri is upping
the ante on his protagonist (and the reader), who wants nothing to do with this
sort of evil. It's a playful rebuff to his critics while at the same time
underscoring that their choice of depravity and desire for sadism and deep
violence isn't his and that "Montalbano Says No". In actual fact, Camilleri's
crime fiction is brutal, but it's the joie de vivre style that offsets
the bad vibes by balancing comedy against tragedy, and his hero's affirmation
of life over 'man's inhumanity to man'. There's enough realism in the
Montalbano death scenes to make them credible, even if the TV pathologists out
there demand more.
'Montalbano Says No'
is judiciously placed near the end of this collection, and while you wouldn't
want this sort of game narrative to predominate, its inclusion at this point
adds an intellectual dimension that addresses, perhaps, a criticism that has
some validity. Camilleri is clearly a confident writer, relaxed enough to be
metaphysical if metaphysics are required, despite the appalling global demand
for voyeurism and photo-neurotic realism. He comes out of an Italian tradition
that includes Curzio Malaparte and Luigi Pirandello, writers who certainly had
plenty of contact with 'realism' but who chose to seek poetry in the absurdity
of life and the inherent contradiction of being and nothingness.
It's possible that the
'feel-good' critics base their objection on the TV series rather than an actual
reading of the Montalbano novels. Even if you've seen only one or two episodes,
you can't miss the burlesque production style, that much of the action has been
"sent up" -- to use theatre parlance -- and scenes edited to remove coarseness
and "excessive violence". While very nice to look at, the dramatization is
Prime Time, staged to avoid offending or upsetting sensitive men, women,
children and animals. But there's no reason why a filmed drama of the
Montalbano series couldn't be more real, accentuate documentary naturalism more
in line with, say, the Henning Mankell Swedish crime series 'Wallander' or the
Michael Connelly Los Angeles crime series 'Bosch'. Eliminate the buffoon
Catarella from the ensemble and maybe the Montalbano dramas aren't so funny.
It must be admitted
that some of the stories in this collection aren't 'short stories' but novellas
or discarded chapters or sub-plots from the Montalbano oeuvre. These are
episodic rather than axiomatic, and rely heavily on a previous knowledge by the
reader of the characters. It could be argued that the first long story --
'Montalbano's First Case' -- sets up the naive reader for all else that
follows, yet there's a sense of stasis to some of these tales as the supporting
cast doesn't evolve. Mimi is Mimi, Fazio is Fazio, and Catarella is just a
clown with one routine. The best stories -- or the ones that come closest to
the compressed narrative ideal of the short story are 'Fellow Traveller',
'Pessoa Maintains', and 'Judicial Review'.
The ending of
'Judicial Review' is probably too enigmatic for most addicts of crime fiction,
is too similar to the judge's dramatic suicide in a burning house earlier in
the story. But, like a surrealist painting, enigma can be its strength, forcing
you back into the imagery. Judge Attard, the man in black who walks the beach
in front of Montalbano's house, is like a metaphysical figure from a Giorgio de
Chirico painting, real enough, but unconstrained by time and space. With his
house jammed full of transcripts from a lifetime of trials and judgements, his
situation has the grim, Kafkaesque absurdity of a nightmare. Yes, you might
think of Pirandello or Borges, where symbolism explains everything and
nothing.
'Pessoa Maintains'
references a Spanish writer called Fernando Pessoa (1888--1935). While Pessoa
wrote under many aliases (or "heteronyms" as he called them), dabbled in the
occult (he corresponded with Aleister Crowley) and subscribed to Futurism, it's
his mysticism and logic that appeal to Camilleri/Montalbano, i.e., just because
the body is lying in the street doesn't mean the man fell down there. While
this might seem obvious, it does make a nice lead into the logic of this story
about a peasant poet (oral) called Antonio Firetto and his mafioso son.
Montalbano is called to investigate the death of a man in a rural house. The
man is sitting at the kitchen table, shot through the back of the head,
execution style... and turns out to be Firetto's son Giacomo, a mafia hitman
who has been on the run for a few years. It doesn't take the clairvoyant
Montalbano long to figure out who killed Giacomo; it's how he settles the
matter that provides the interest.
According to his
preface, Camilleri wrote 'Fellow Traveller' for a Crime Writer's "Noir in
festival" at Courmayeur (north-west Italy) in 1997 at the behest of the
organizers... and wouldn't you know it, a French writer who was also asked to
write a story, wrote one "essentially the same: both unfolded inside a railway
sleeper cabin with two beds, one occupied by a police inspector, the other by a
killer." Camilleri goes on to say: "Those present at the conference didn't want
to believe that it was a coincidence; they were convinced that the French
writer and I had worked it out together. But in fact we had never met or spoken
before then." Interesting... but does it make any difference to you or I now?
We think of Borges, of course, just allow this inside-outside metaphysical
possibility, admit that the universe is full of doppelgängers and destinal
conjunctions. Who, at least once in a lifetime, has not confronted the face of
Janus? Again, it's the simplicity of the plot, the sense of unity and its
inverted logic that makes the story interesting.
Others have strong,
pattern narratives. In 'The Cat and the Goldfinch' old women are shot and
robbed by a bandit on a motor cycle, his handler a cunning lawyer who has only
one real target in mind as part of his greedy masterplan. You might think of
Aesop's Fables here, although this cat-bird motif is introduced a bit late in
the action with no foreshadowing; Montalbano outwits the lawyer, of course, in
classic Camilleri fashion:
'Giuseppe Joppolo,
the handsome lawyer, lost his cool. "You don't have a shred of evidence you
fucking moron."
But then, of course,
since when did Montalbano need evidence?
In 'A Kidnapping' a
peasant finds a note inside a bùmmolo (a terracotta cistern for
keeping water cool), brings it to Montalbano. Simply, the note is a cry for
help from someone unknown. All the peasant can do is tell the detective where
and when he acquired the bùmmolo. While Poe's famous story 'Ms.
Found in a Bottle' might come to mind, Camilleri's is nowhere as convoluted and
picaresque; indeed, it's the very simplicity of its 'follow the thread' plot
that gives subtle power and an unexpected resolution.
'Seven Mondays' is
another acrostic, with a bizarre chain of animal killings that start with an
anonymous man concealed in a cardboard box on a wet chilly night. Perhaps
Camilleri was inspired by a children's book showing the evolution of the mammal
from the sea to the zoo. After an elephant gets whacked, the next target can
only be... well, once again Montalbano saves the day. This simple dialectic
demonstrates Camilleri's appeal for the general reader, where the child in the
adult can be indulged without ditching intellectual possibility, or the dark
side of life trivialized by 'feel-goodism'.
First story, last
story:
'Better the Darkness',
is an interesting choice to wrap up the collection. It has a very good opening.
A priest called Don Luigi Barbera approaches Montalbano, tells him about a
disturbing confession by a ninety-something old woman in an old folks home run
by nuns, but of course can't tell the Inspector what it is; instead, he drags
Montalbano to the old woman's bedside, and Montalbano has the eerie pleasure of
hearing one last line before she dies. The woman -- Maria Carmella Spagnolo --
whispers "It wasn't poison" that she gave her friend Cristina. Who, what, when?
This new but ancient mystery both attracts and repels Montalbano, perhaps
because of his antipathy to the priesthood, especially when Barbera says,
"Don't let me carry this burden alone, my son."
Yet... what's past
should stay in the past, and what the hell can Montalbano do about it anyway?
But he has a dream
about that infamous poisoner, Lucretia Borgia, and Barbera continues to bug
him, despite the fact that he balks when Montalbano says he is going to
investigate:
"Fifty years after
the fact?"
"You know
something, Father Barbera? Sometimes I ask myself what proof God had to accuse
Cain of murdering Abel. If I could, I swear I'd reopen the case." (p. 509)
Could it be that the
cleric is setting the naturally inquisitive Montalbano up? Like a woman
flashing her thighs to break a disciplined man?
'The old woman lay
sprawled out in an armchair, asleep, warmed by the sun bursting through the
windowpanes. Her head was thrown backwards and from her open mouth dripped a
shiny string of spittle, as her laboured, raspy breathing broke up moment by
moment, only to restart with increased effort. A fly passed undisturbed from
one eyelid to the other, which had become so thin that the inspector feared
they might cave in under the insect's weight. Then the fly slipped inside one
of her transparent nostrils. The skin on her face was yellow and so taut and
close to the bone that it looked like a layer of colour painted on a
skull.' (p. 546)
Is this a journey he
wants to take, a destination he wants to reach?
He has to go all the
way back to the early 1950s and to be sure, it's a fascinating tale... although
the narrative loses its identity in places -- too short to be a novel, too long
to be a short story. Despite Camilleri's easy, oral fluency, some of it is too
dense and expositional, especially those passages that paraphrase the trial and
conviction of Cristiana for the murder of her husband. Couple this with several
pages of filler where Montalbano runs the story past his associates and his
lover -- none of which advances the action -- you're left with verbal padding,
pure and simple. This isn't a criticism as much as it is an observation of
Camilleri's strength and preference as a writer, and the technical
difference(s) between the traditional and contemporaneous narrative methods
that are usually sweetly balanced in the Montalbano novels, just like a cleanly
draughted painting by Carlo Carrà or that master of bad taste
masquerading as good taste, Salvador Dali.
But sometimes not,
especially in terms of the short story or the 'American' objective style (or
'Protestant style'). Sometimes we get too much speculation, too much background
noise. Just cut to the chase, sir, we think. The short fiction narrative wants
to be existential, wants the action to reveal all. Despite the modernity of
Camilleri's novels, they are old-fashioned in that the hero makes everything
happen. This centricity increases as the novels progress and Montalbano ages...
although, perhaps, it's the same for all of us.
Camilleri over-writes
at times simply because he is fluent... and because the puzzle-narrative
encourages interior debate. Although a loner, Montalbano is sometimes an
internal motor-mouth. He rattles on, arguing with himself like a Pirandello
hysteric. There's a sense of schizophrenia in his character that increases as
the novels progress and he ages... although, again, perhaps it's the same for
all us.
And the title story of
the collection?
'Montalbano's First
Case' will appeal to all who find the Montalbano series addictive, as it fills
in historical gaps without messing up the embedded fantasy. It won't replace
The Shape of Water or The Terracotta Dog as "the beginning of it all" -- the
shaping of Salvo Montalbano, genius cop, neurotic loner, social chump, and
apprentice mystic -- although it does confirm the obsessions and character
types. For example, the damsel in distress is a familiar Camilleri woman, the
erotic illiterate who only makes sense speaking body language: Rosanne Marullo,
zombie girl on a mission. Or there is the Honourable M.P. Torrisi, mafia
lawyer, a snake-tongue just like Guttadauro, the another loquacious mafia
lawyer seen in Excursion to Tindari.
As usual, Camilleri's
portrait of the Sicilian underclass is photo-electric:
Gerlando Monaco
(father of zombie girl):
"Mr. Inspector, try
to think. Isn't it enough to have a whore for a daughter without having a
bastard for a grandchild?"
And Montalbano's Sir
Lancelot complex in a nutshell:
"Now came the
question: was it proper for a police inspector to want to free the girl, give
her back her gun and tell her to shoot whoever she felt like shooting?"
Montalbano is a
liberal arts man with a credential in law, a '60's campus radical who exchanged
punches with the current police Commissioner, but now about to be promoted to
Chief Inspector. His reading recommendation this time around? 'The Blood of the
House of Atreus' by the French author Pierre Magnan. So the blurring of the
author and his alter-ego continues.
Livia, "Montalbva's"
on and off lover, isn't in the story; it's Mery, a old girlfriend from his
university days, who helps him move from his uneasy mountain posting in
Mascalippa, "a godforsaken backwater in the Erean Mountains", to beautiful
sleepy old Vigàta by the sea. Mery doesn't figure much in the action;
she's like a postage stamp, just a way of getting the hero from one place to
another and showing that there was life before Livia. Catarella? Not in the
story. Sergeant Fazio and Assistant Inspector Mimi Augello are there, take some
time to adjust to Montalbano's "off the books" method of investigation, the
psychic trickery and ad hoc decisions.
It's a mafioso story
and as to be expected, the new cop in town isn't one bit intimidated, and
indeed, quickly earns the respect of everyone concerned, including the
Cuffaros. Old readers will be satisfied, new ones intrigued, and critics left
to marvel at Camilleri's marvellous descriptive ability and psychological
understanding of Sicilian society.
But it's in the last
story that Camilleri has the last word:
'...why would he
want, by investigating, to turn a serial novel into a detective novel? Because
that was all he could aspire to: a good mystery -- and never, ever, one of
those 'dense, profound' novels that everyone buys and nobody reads even though
the reviewers all swear that they've never come across such a book in all their
days.'
(p. 512, Better the
Darkness)
Get it from Amazon
Canada
|
USA
|
UK
© LR June
2017
*Check out LR's
OUTLAW
ACADEMIC »»
or LR's novel
RADIO
BRAZIL »»
Other Montalbano
novels:
The Scent of
the Night [2005] |
The Wings of the
Sphinx [2006] |
the Paper
Moon [2008] |
August
Heat [2009] |
The
Dance of the Seagull [2009] |
The Age of
Doubt [2012] |
Blade of
Light [2012] | Death
in Sicily [2016]
|
