Goodbye, Salvo
I read in the paper about a week ago that Andrea Camilleri has died. He had a massive heart attack last month and had been in a Rome hospital since then. Between that, and the fact that he was 93, and already blind, I suppose it should have been no surprise.
But it is a sad occasion. He was the writer of the Inspector Salvo Montalbano series of novels, set in Vigàta (Porto Empedocle), Sicily. He's also written many other books, and was a script writer for Italian television, but he gained renown after beginning his Montalbano series when he was already seventy, back in the 1990's. His first books were so widely read in Italy, that they were translated to the English from then on, and his fame became worldwide.
I think I picked up one of his first books in the tiny English corner of a bookstore in Santiago. After reading it (I don't remember which one it was), I was hooked, and went online and started buying all the ones published until the moment. We also have one in Spanish that I shared with my husband. When the television channel, La 2, airs the television series based on the novels, which is filmed in Ragusa, Sicily, we watch them avidly, even if they are reruns.
When I first read them, I thought, "This sounds like something that could just as easily happen here." The relationships, the connections between people, the circumventing of particularly obnoxious laws, all that happens in Spain, too. I would love to be able to read the original Italian. In the books, Camilleri paid attention to how people would talk in Sicily. He mixed Sicilian dialect with Italian, according to how the characters were designed. One of the comic characters is Catarella, the policeman who mans the front desk and gets names hopelessly mixed up, yet is a computer genius. Ironically, Montalbano, who will catch the most subtle message in seemingly banal conversation, has no idea how to use a computer. In the English translation, Catarella's speech is garbled, like a mix of proper English, gutter English, and Cockney English. In the original books, Camilleri has him mix Sicilian with Italian, probably with a touch that makes most Italian speakers laugh out loud.
Montalbano is Camilleri's man against the tide, though. Through him, Camilleri laments and rails against the state of things, both from above, and from below. He also talks about aging, and how it is a dark night against which there is no relief. In all the books, Montalbano laments that he is no longer young, yet his age is not revealed, and, from the years that he has existed, would probably be almost as old as the author himself by now.
Montalbano is a policeman that attempts to see the human side of the problems he has to solve. More than once, he hasn't been above manipulating evidence or events so that the guilty party pays. Or is set free, if it is necessary for real justice to be done. He is Camilleri's voice on social justice, and the unfortunately real lack of it in modern life. He has touched on different subjects, from the Mafia, to illegal immigration, to human trafficking. Always, he has Montalbano frustratingly trying to buck the system so that the inhumanity can stop. He does make it stop in certain cases, but realizes that the drop he has cleaned up is nothing compared to the buckets of water that have been spilt.
He is also a voice on the sublime beauty food can acquire. Every novel has references to Sicilian dishes, especially seafood. The English translator has notes at the back of each novel, explaining the different references to cultural mentions that someone outside Sicily or Italy wouldn't understand. He also explains the different dishes. "Arancini: Traditional Sicilian fried rice balls. Literally "little oranges," arancini are normally considerably smaller than the ones Adelina has made for Montalbano." "Spaghetti alle vongole veraci (and truly veraci): Vongole of course, are clams, but the dish is generally served with either one of two species of small clams: telline, which are the smaller variety, with smooth shiny shells: and the vongole veraci, the "real" vongole, which are larger, and with striated shells, and more savory and prized." After reading one of these books, I tend to become hungry.
I now await next month to order one or two of the most recent books I still haven't read. About three or four are still awaiting translation to the English. And then, I shall read the saddest of all. Years ago, shortly after his Inspector Montalbano books became famous, Andrea Camilleri wrote the absolute last book of the saga, and left it with his publisher. It was to be published whenever he decided to end the saga, or when he died. I suppose it will now be published shortly. As Camilleri mentioned that, after this book, there would be no return of Inspector Salvo Montalbano, I assume that Montalbano shall end his detective days with it. And so has Andrea Camilleri ended his writing days.
But it is a sad occasion. He was the writer of the Inspector Salvo Montalbano series of novels, set in Vigàta (Porto Empedocle), Sicily. He's also written many other books, and was a script writer for Italian television, but he gained renown after beginning his Montalbano series when he was already seventy, back in the 1990's. His first books were so widely read in Italy, that they were translated to the English from then on, and his fame became worldwide.
I think I picked up one of his first books in the tiny English corner of a bookstore in Santiago. After reading it (I don't remember which one it was), I was hooked, and went online and started buying all the ones published until the moment. We also have one in Spanish that I shared with my husband. When the television channel, La 2, airs the television series based on the novels, which is filmed in Ragusa, Sicily, we watch them avidly, even if they are reruns.
When I first read them, I thought, "This sounds like something that could just as easily happen here." The relationships, the connections between people, the circumventing of particularly obnoxious laws, all that happens in Spain, too. I would love to be able to read the original Italian. In the books, Camilleri paid attention to how people would talk in Sicily. He mixed Sicilian dialect with Italian, according to how the characters were designed. One of the comic characters is Catarella, the policeman who mans the front desk and gets names hopelessly mixed up, yet is a computer genius. Ironically, Montalbano, who will catch the most subtle message in seemingly banal conversation, has no idea how to use a computer. In the English translation, Catarella's speech is garbled, like a mix of proper English, gutter English, and Cockney English. In the original books, Camilleri has him mix Sicilian with Italian, probably with a touch that makes most Italian speakers laugh out loud.
Montalbano is Camilleri's man against the tide, though. Through him, Camilleri laments and rails against the state of things, both from above, and from below. He also talks about aging, and how it is a dark night against which there is no relief. In all the books, Montalbano laments that he is no longer young, yet his age is not revealed, and, from the years that he has existed, would probably be almost as old as the author himself by now.
Montalbano is a policeman that attempts to see the human side of the problems he has to solve. More than once, he hasn't been above manipulating evidence or events so that the guilty party pays. Or is set free, if it is necessary for real justice to be done. He is Camilleri's voice on social justice, and the unfortunately real lack of it in modern life. He has touched on different subjects, from the Mafia, to illegal immigration, to human trafficking. Always, he has Montalbano frustratingly trying to buck the system so that the inhumanity can stop. He does make it stop in certain cases, but realizes that the drop he has cleaned up is nothing compared to the buckets of water that have been spilt.
He is also a voice on the sublime beauty food can acquire. Every novel has references to Sicilian dishes, especially seafood. The English translator has notes at the back of each novel, explaining the different references to cultural mentions that someone outside Sicily or Italy wouldn't understand. He also explains the different dishes. "Arancini: Traditional Sicilian fried rice balls. Literally "little oranges," arancini are normally considerably smaller than the ones Adelina has made for Montalbano." "Spaghetti alle vongole veraci (and truly veraci): Vongole of course, are clams, but the dish is generally served with either one of two species of small clams: telline, which are the smaller variety, with smooth shiny shells: and the vongole veraci, the "real" vongole, which are larger, and with striated shells, and more savory and prized." After reading one of these books, I tend to become hungry.
I now await next month to order one or two of the most recent books I still haven't read. About three or four are still awaiting translation to the English. And then, I shall read the saddest of all. Years ago, shortly after his Inspector Montalbano books became famous, Andrea Camilleri wrote the absolute last book of the saga, and left it with his publisher. It was to be published whenever he decided to end the saga, or when he died. I suppose it will now be published shortly. As Camilleri mentioned that, after this book, there would be no return of Inspector Salvo Montalbano, I assume that Montalbano shall end his detective days with it. And so has Andrea Camilleri ended his writing days.
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| Ragusa, Sicily, where the series is filmed. |
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