ADDIO SALVO
The primary perk of the pensioner period in life is, at least in theory, time. Lots and lots of time. Even if you still don't know where it goes to. Which, to me, means time to read. All those books I've bought over the decades (because I really needed them...) but never got hold of one of those 'round tooit' thingies you need to get going on reducing the great pile of the unread. But I've been able to find my reading 'tooit' (many others continue to go missing).
One of the great joys of having the freedom to read and read, day after day, is immersing oneself in a series of novels so that, for a period of weeks or months the characters become a part of your family. I'm particularly fond of consuming detective series in this fashion. And so, in the past few years, I have become friendly with the likes of Rebus, Wallander, Beck, Van der Valk and, my personal favourite, Castang.
Salvo Montalbano, Commissario of police in the fictional Sicilian town of Vigata, achieved some fame in the UK throuigh the regular showings of his eponymous series (and the prequel Young Montalbano) on BBC4. It appears to be a cheap filler for them when there's nothing better to hand. And cheap it is. This is one of those "so bad it's good" TV programmes. At times the acting is risible, direction predictable and the settings devoid of real life. But it was a fun watch, sometimes funny in unintended ways, and the basic storylines were usually well worked out. Because the stories themselves closely followed the plots of the original books, from the hands of Andrea Camilleri.
Those books have gathered a lot of critical praise, and a large readership, in part due to the screen versions no doubt. I picked one up a while back, liked what I read, and decided I would wait to acquire the complete set before setting off to spend a few weeks in a fictional Sicily.
I began with a book that was out of sequence chronologiocally, but made sense in setting the scene. This was a book of short stories which opened with Montalbano's First Case, which explains how Salvo got to become the Chief Inspector of Vigata. This would later become the basis for the first episode of TV's Young Montalbano.
Then into the novels. All twenty eight of them. It is soon apparent that this is vastly superior to the TV version. While most of the main characters are broadly similar, Salvo has a much richer inner life. The books are very funny (Intentionally!). Like Mankell and Sjöwall&Wahlöö, Camilleri uses the genre to make comments on the political and social situations of the day (he has a lot of fun highlighting the idiocies of the Berlusconi period, rather less showing up how badly cross-Med migrants are treated).
There's an interesting development about half way through the series. By then the TV programme has taken off, and the name of Montalbano was much better known in Italy. Which the Salvo of the page resents, complaining that the TV version is a decade younger, and often sharper of thought, than he is. Although at least he's still got a decent head of hair. But his obsession with the ageing process becomes a permanent theme from then on.
The credit for conveying so much of Camilleri's Sicilian authenticity goes to translator Stephen Sartarelli, who does an excellent job of conveying the idiomatic sense of the originals (which were written in a mix of Italian and Sicilian), and providing footnotes to help the reader understand references that would otherwise pass the them by. He's also helpful in explaining much about the food that Montalbano consumes so much of - the gourmand of the page is there on the screen, but without the loving descriptions of the dishes being enjoyed. Reading has never made me feel so hungry, or given me so many recipe ideas to try out.
Much as I'd enjoyed the series throughout, by the begining of book 27 it was good to know the end was not far off. And yet. 27 contained a surprise, turning into more of a full blown thriller than the others. And 28 breaks the mould. To begin with, it was written out of sequence, several years before publication, and was given to the publisher with the instruction not to make it public until after the author's death. The title, Riicardino, is at odds with the rest of the series. And the story takes the meta laspects of the fictional Montalbano mentioning his own (more fictional?!) TV alter ego, and raises it with phone conversations between the character and his own author. This final volume is a much more literary effort than the others, more philosophical, and a reminder of the essential humanity of these books.
And isn't a policeman who cares about his fellow human beings what we all want? Along with convoluted plots, unlikely but logical explanations, and a cast of familiars that are recognisably flawed people. On the debit side women get a raw deal, little more than adjuncts, or provocations, most of the time, although in part that's a reflection of Sicilian patriarchal culture. And in Ingrid Sjöström, Salvo's Swedish friend, there is one female character who is strong and highly competent, although it's a shame she dfoesn't crop up more frequently. But I will still miss Mimi, Fazio, Cat, Livia, Enzo, Pasquale, Adelina and, most of all, the main man. He was always as entertaining as I could have wished for, no mean compliment over so many volumes (and 2 months dead from 1 to 28).
Now... has anyone got a complete set of Simenon to hand?
[The photo shows the late Andrea Camilleri with Luca Zingaretti, who plays Montalbano in the RAI TV series.]
