To Each His Own (Black and White Series) [Paperback]

Leonardo Sciascia (Author)

Book Description

Series: Black and White Series | Publication Date: December 31, 1992

This is a short, powerful novel dealing with the complicities and accomodations of power within Italian politics.

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

"This graceful piece of storytelling is in fact a savagely expressed cry of despair...At once moving and horrifying." --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Review

"What is the mafia? What is Sicily? When it comes to the exploration of this particular hell...Sciascia is the perfect vigil." -- Gore Vidal

"[Sciascia] develops a particular kind of detective fiction...where intrigues and corruption pervade society." -- The New York Times --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 146 pages
• Publisher: Carcanet Press (December 31, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0856359912
• ISBN-13: 978-0856359910
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,891,795 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterpiece of the genre, August 20, 2002

By 

stackofbooks "stackofbooks" (Walpole, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: To Each His Own (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

Set in a small town in Sicily, the novel "To Each His Own," starts with a death threat: "..." But the town pharmacist who receives the threat, Manno, is convinced he has done no wrong and dismisses the threat as a joke. The next day, he and his hunting companion, Dr. Roscio, are found dead. There are no obvious suspects and no obvious motives. After a perfunctory investigation by the town marshal, the local Professor Laurana takes up the case only to have it all end badly.

The author, Leonardo Sciascia, is widely considered a prominent Sicilian author, a master who pretty much invented the form of the "metaphysical mystery". This dazzling page-turner is ample evidence of the master's craft. The book (as are all of Sciascia's works) is also a social commentary on Sicily with its culture of secrets and violence. When the pharmacist and doctor are done in, there is hardly much of a stir in the local populace. The marshal comes down from the county seat to briefly investigate the "big headache", speculations are tossed around and life goes on. The silence and nonchalance are chilling.

The New York Review of Books recently reprinted "To Each His Own" under its "classics" issues (and what a great service that is!). I am eager to read the rest of the talented Sciascia's works. A word of caution--the edition published by the New York Review of Books has a wonderful introduction to the novel in the beginning. Save this for after you have read the book. While the introduction is good, it gives too much of the plot away!

The final word must belong to the absolutely haunting painting on the book cover. Called "Night in Velate" and rendered by the Italian painter, Renato Guttuso, the picture is the perfect choice for the dark, wonderful book.

If you look closely enough, you can almost see the evil lurking and doing its thing under the cover of a deceptively beautiful Sicilian night.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Justice is a steady and enduring will to render unto every one his right, August 6, 2007

By 

Leonard Fleisig "Len" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: To Each His Own (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

The basic principles of right are: to live honorably, not to harm any other person, to render to each his own." Digest of the Emperor Justinian.

The Latin phrase "suum cuique tribuere" or "to each his own" is one of the three fundamental maxims of the law laid down by the Emperor Justinian. The peculiar interpretation of that phrase in Sciascia's native Sicily forms the emotional core of his brilliant "To Each His Own."

"To Each His Own" begins with a double-murder. A local pharmacist, Manno, receives a death threat in the mail, compiled with words and letters cut and pasted from a newspaper. The pharmacist laughs it off. He considers the letter to be a joke and although these threats are usually taken seriously in his town, Manno leads a blameless life and simply cannot believe anyone intends him harm. So he goes off hunting the next day with his friend Dr. Roscio and, without further ado, both Manno and Roscio are shot dead in the woods.

A police investigation follows but it is doomed to go nowhere. Sciascia paints a very explicit portrait of a society in which everyone knows (or suspects) everything but says nothing, certainly not to the local police. The general consensus (on the surface) seems to be that Manno was killed by a jealous husband and Roscio was an innocent bystander. The matter would have ended there but for the curious intercession of Professor Laurana. Laurana is a history and Italian teacher at the local liceo (high school). He walks into the pharmacy where the police are reading the anonymous letter and quickly spots a clue. The police dismiss his information out of hand. Laurana, however, driven by what appears to be no more than a desire to solve a puzzle, decides to follow up on the clue. In short order he seems to have solved the mystery. Laurana is oblivious to the fact that his musings on the crime pose more of a threat to the murderers than a typical local police investigation. Events play out to their natural conclusion, and in Sciascia's Sicily natural conclusions are not quite so neat and tidy as say in Agatha Christie's parlor room England.

The enjoyment to be found in reading "To Each His Own" is not the mystery itself. The fact of the matter is that, for Sciascia, solving a mystery doesn't require great insight. Rather, it simply requires a willingness to actually see that which is self-evident. As blind as Laurana may be to the danger he puts himself in, he can see well enough to understand why Manno and Roscio were murdered and who murdered them. Laurana's problem is not that he knows more than anyone else in town, Sciascia makes it clear that the actual events do not seem a surprise to anyone. No, Laurana's problem is that unlike everyone else in town, he doesn't bother to hide his knowledge.

Sciascia's writing is both precise and enjoyable. He seems to have a keen eye and affection for his native place, but that affection does not diminish, but likely enhances, the despair he feels for a culture in which silence is golden and in which "to each his own" does not bring to mind Roman traditions of equity but, rather, the critical importance of minding ones own business. "To Each His Own" is a cynical, but highly-entertaining piece or work.

Highly recommended. L. Fleisig

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sciascia's Mystery Still Engaging, January 31, 2001

By 

miriam dow (chevy chase, MD United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: To Each His Own (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

Leonardo Sciascia's To Each His Own (1968) is a complex and absorbing mystery with a political and social agenda. Admirers of Arturo Perez Reverte will find much to enjoy in this book and its combination of mystery and social/political criticism, which is not hammered home but is muted and emerges from the narrative. Most importantly, it's a very good read. Not a police procedural or conventional mystery in any way, To Each His Own focuses on character, principally on the character of Professor Laurana, and his growing interest in the murder mystery he slowly begins to unravel. A sexually repressed young man still living with his mother, he finds himself extremely vulnerable to the beautiful and shapely widow of one of the murdered men, a widow whom her too-short mourning clothes fit strangely. As usual in his work, Sciascia explores the heartless cynicism of a brutalized, corrupt society--one which he sees as a metaphor for the world.