Next year marks the 20th anniversary of the publication of Sicilian author Andrea Camilleri’s acclaimed Inspector Montalbano series. The series has been translated into numerous languages and adapted for a TV series starring Luca Zingaretti. More recently, Michele Riondino starred as a younger Montalbano in a series of prequels. Both are English sub-titled.
The novels are based in the imaginary Sicilian town of Vigàta, modelled on Camilleri’s home town of Porto Empodocle (Portu Empedocli in Sicilian), adjacent to Agrigento on Sicily’s southern coast. So famous has Camilleri become in Italy, the town has now changed its official name to Porto Empedocle Vigàta.
One thing that sets Andrea Camilleri’s series apart from other – particularly English language – murder mystery series is the pervasive feeling one gets that no event (Sicilian in this case) can exist in isolation – disconnected from the island’s complex, interwoven cultural network. To solve Sicilian crimes, it would therefore seem necessary to be immersed in this network – making it unsurprising that crime investigators will tend to have friendships, contacts (and enmities) on both sides of the ‘law’.
Without this knowledge for example, an ‘outsider’ would be hard pressed to explain the apparent paradox of Inspector Salvo Montalbano’s housekeeper/cook also being the mother of two small-time criminals (one of whom he has personally arrested); or that his childhood friend, Gegè Gullotta, is now both a trusted informant as well as a pimp and drug pusher.
In each of Camilleri’s translated Montalbano novels, there is invariably a series of intertwined narratives to be explored and unraveled by the hero, including – in the true spirit of vendetta – some that had their beginnings several generations earlier.
Like the Persian rug makers that many Sicilians could no doubt point to in their ancestry, Camilleri instinctively weaves together these (often seemingly unrelated) narrative threads to seamlessly advance the story and to simultaneously illustrate the complexities of Sicilian culture and relationships.
At the end of each journey, the final resolution of the crime can appear as an almost incidental detail – the last link in a chain of inevitabilities, or the final piece in the centre of the jigsaw. By the time you get to that stage, you’ve generally assembled a fairly comprehensive picture of the landscape anyway. This entertaining journey Camilleri takes the reader on through the Sicilian cultural scenery thus becomes an essential component of the story – possibly the most important.
Like all good fictional heroes, Montalbano possesses the implied moral superiority that, when required to, transcends laws enacted by lesser ‘mortals’. In fact, at one point, Livia Burlando – Montalbano’s ongoing, long-distance love interest – renders this explicit with the sardonic observation that he’s given himself a promotion to ‘second-rate god’.
Livia herself would qualify as one of the above ‘outsiders’, being the only regular, non-Sicilian character in the series – in this case, residing in the northern city of Genoa. She, for example, fails to understand how someone with her lover’s housekeeper’s undoubted criminal allegiances could possibly be invited into his house on a regular basis. In more familiar jurisdictions this would be viewed at best with suspicion – at worst with an outright presumption of ‘consorting’. The missing clue here becomes obvious in retrospect when one considers the Italian national obsession with quality food. The housekeeper, Adelina, is simply a marvellous cook, and this fact alone will usually trump any accusation of ‘guilt by association’ – especially in Sicily.
Livia’s viewpoint itself will be reassuring to the many non-Italians who fail to comprehend the paradoxical aspects of southern Italian lifestyle and culture – if northern Italians can be perplexed by Sicilian behaviour, then surely foreigners can be excused for being somewhat puzzled.
‘The Shape of Water’ – the first book (and telemovie) in the series is suggestive of the island’s enigmatic nature: a child’s innocent enquiry concerning the ‘shape of water’ – and the reply (‘it depends’) – turns out to be a particularly apt motif for the story. And in fact, it would not be surprising if Camilleri intended it as a metaphor for Sicilian culture in general.
