This is a good reminder when US politics look so drearily depressing at present. There are certainly worse forms of “democracy” and democracies functioning even more poorly. In fact, probably most are.

I will be keeping an eye out for Romanzo Criminale in film or book, but always in English….at least for now.

Thanks for your perspective on Italian politics. Something I know far too little about, my information generally being filtered through the entertainment-style coverage it generally receives in US media.

Romanzo Criminale exists as a book (which is in translation), a film and a tv series (which I’m currently watching). The series does come with English subtitles, but tracking down DVD copies seems quite difficult sadly.

This one does fit the “literary crime” bill. Trevor has impeccable taste, so my own endorsement is mere piling on.

I love that bottom of the well quote too (obviously). Sciascia is doing more than simply telling a story. In fact, the story is largely subservient to his (I would say) larger purposes. That’s my kind of book.

Thanks for the perspective on Italy. I know far less about present-day Italy than I would like to or than I should, frankly. But the whole Berlusconi drama suggests that there is much more ugliness behind the scenes. (I extrapolate from what I know of American politics. The ugliness that sees the light of day is the tip of the cliched iceberg.)

I love that word, too: “dietrologia”. We should import that word because, as the GOP debates going on right now illustrate, there is the political theater and then there is the reality of the way Washington operates. The outcomes of elections are too often and too much based on candidates’ positions on issues over which they have no, or almost no, control. Meanwhile, everyone studiously ignores, in public, the important questions with which America must deal because there are no easy, jingoistic answers.

I will keep an eye out for Romanzo Criminale (assuming the book is in translation and the film has subtitles).

It sounds superlative. Everything good crime should be. I just came from commenting on the German crime novel you read, but here you have a great example of literary crime and how that can work.

The truth at the bottom of the well quote is excellent. The irony, tragedy really, is how little has changed. Italy is still only a kind of quasi-democracy. Ostensibly free, but ruled from behind the scenes. Presently they have another technocratic government. Everything must change so that everything can stay the same.

There’s an Italian word, dietrologia, in English roughly behindology. It’s the study of what lies underneath public events. The existence of the word itself says a great deal.

I’m watching at the moment the marvellous Italian crime series (also a book, originally a book in fact, and a film) Romanzo Criminale (Crime Novel). It’s set during the anni di piombo, the years of lead (the 1970s) and it takes as read links between the government, organised crime, criminal gangs and terrorists. I doubt any Italian viewers blink at that. A lovely country, but extraordinarily dark in places. The literature, some of the cinema too, makes that apparent but so few tourists read or watch the local stuff.

I have another Sciascia on hand (To Each His Own), so I am looking forward to that one too. I didn’t know Calvino was a fan. I have been impressed by the Calvino I’ve read. It makes sense I would like Sciascia.

Thanks for that bit of info!