From one of modern Italy's greatest writers come four flawless novellas that combine history and fiction while mapping the treacherous relations between individuals and the state. Whether set amid the paranoia of the fascist past or the criminal and political labyrinths of present-day Italy, these Kafkaesque novellas are thrillers of moral gravity, beautifully written and relentlessly engrossing.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Readers unfamiliar with the great Italian writer Sciascia (1921-1989) have a rare pleasure in store in making his acquaintance with this volume of four novellas. A Sicilian who built his literary reputation with tales of crime that are rich in political significance, Sciascia is known for his lean but brooding prose and supple philosophical investigations: in his terrain, mystery centers not around crime but around justice. The works here, written in the two years before his death, are representative in terms of style as well as subject matter. The title piece examines a judge's refusal to impose the death penalty during a 1937 murder trial despite pressures from the Fascist authorities, who take pride in the fact that under their stern rule "you can sleep with open doors." More memorable still is the darkly revelatory "A Straightforward Tale," in which a police deputy suspects that what his superior rules a clear-cut suicide has a more sinister explanation--its conclusion seems inevitable only in its perfection. In a welcome bit of lagniappe, Farrellno id given supplies a graceful afterword to situate Sciascia within a critical and historical context.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Kirkus Reviews
Sciascia, the elegantly learned and quite politically fearless Sicilian writer who died in 1989, wrote most of his fiction in the Sixties and early Seventies; but late in his life he wrote these novellas, in which his patented interests--the law, fascism, classic French and Italian literature, metaphysics--all recombine. Best here is the title novella--a magistrate's sorrowful insistence on conscience during the Fascist period, refusing to sentence a man to death: a meditation on capital punishment, moral traduction, and cultural imprecision (``to see European history in the guise of the Russians who would like to be Germans, Germans who'd like to be French, French who would like to be half-German and half-Italian while still remaining French, Spaniards who would settle for being English if they can't be Romans, and Italians who would like to be anything and everything except Italian''). Equally interesting, and somewhat fleshier, is ``Death and the Knight''--a terminally ill police investigator's world-weary slog through lies and much more obvious (though denied) truths. Sciascia (Sicilian Uncles, etc.) here is a compiler of Stendhalian asides and ruminations rather than a narrative-maker. But these are fine literary artifacts for all that: hung upon the police-procedural framework, the cloth is rich and dark if none to form-fitting. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Four Novellas,
By picaraza (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Open Doors and Three Novellas (Paperback)
I am an avid reader of Sciascia and have been trying to track down every thing I can in English. (My Italian is not so good.)
The product description for this book does not list the novellas included in this collection. They are: * Open Doors * Death and the Knight * A Straight Forward Tale * 1912 + 1 A mixed bag. If you are new to Sciascia, I'd start with The Day of the Owl or Equal Danger. Both five stars. As far as I can tell his novella One Way or Another (Todo Modo) is currently only available in the UK. I mention this because that book packages One Way or Another with Death and the Knight. The New York Review has re-released much of his work recently. All are worth giving a look. Most of his other books are available in British editions-- try ordering from amazon.uk. However, I can tell you that the British translation of Night of the Owl is inferior to the American translation and the the British paperbacks are cheaply thrown together. The New York Review editions are attractive and feature good introductory essays.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Melancholic Sciascia,
By
This review is from: Open Doors and Three Novellas (Paperback)
I have grown to love and respect Sciascia above all the other modern writers of political and social issues in modern Italy. His writing is absolutely mesmerizing (in Italian) and this translation makes a good job in transposing what is clearly a very difficult prose to transpose intact.
As always with Sciascia, the themes are universal: death penalty, corruption, terrorism of state, decadent society. These are not among Sciascia's must-read works (look at "The Day of the Owl" and "To Each his Own" for that), but they express values and a vision of the tragedy in human nature that are typical Sciascia, albeit maybe a little more bitter, written, as they are, so close to his death. In particular I found "Open Doors" a beautifully written reflection on the meaning of justice and a harsh comdenation of the practice of capital punishment. I wish the almost universal love of everything Italian would extend to these lesser known gems of our contribution to the progress of the world.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Italian Writer,
By
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This review is from: Open Doors and Three Novellas (Paperback)
Sciascia is perfect proof how the particular can become general, Sicily to Italy to the world. These stories etch vividly the emotional and ethical problems facing those involved in crime, justice, and families in Sicily. Well translated, they are engrossing. He deserves to be in the 20th Century pantheon
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