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The beginning of a rewarding series
Book Review
By Derryll White
Camilleri, Andrea (2002). The Shape of Water.
“Since in recent years reality has seemed bent on surpassing the imagination, if not entirely abolishing it, there may be a few unpleasant coincidences of name and situation.” – Andrea Camilleri
This is the first of Andrea Camilleri’s novels to be translated into English – and well done by Stephen Sartarelli. The title gives the reader some immediate insight into the nature of Camilleri’s work – off the wall, somewhat abstract and magical, unusual in combining a desire for good food with a Sicilian perspective on life.
This novel introduces to the English-speaking world Inspector Salvo Montalbano of Vigata, Sicily. He is a character already very well-known in Italy and Germany. Camilleri savages the Italian political scene and the bureaucratic structure of national and local police forces. Fumy and cynical Inspector Montalbano shows little respect for the rich and the powerful.
‘The Shape of Water’ is, among other things, a cutting analysis of Italian politics. Camilleri is cunning in exposing the Machiavellian nature of power manipulation that goes on in Italy – thus the title of the novel. His character, Montalbano, is clever and discerning, humble but not fooled by the face of things. He is solitary, cultural and a thinker, much like the author.
This is the beginning of a rewarding series for the discerning reader. And do not miss the end notes, so informative on Sicilian life and Italian politics.
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Excerpts from the novel:
SICILY – When he arrived in Rabáto, the oldest quarter of Montelusa, destroyed thirty years earlier by a landslide and now consisting mostly of ruins refurbished higgledy-piggledy and damaged, ramshackle hovels inhabited by illegal aliens from Tunisia and Morocco, he headed through narrow, torturous alleyways toward Piazza Santa Croce. The church stood whole amid the ruins.
HARD DAY – Montalbano was well-respected at the San Calogero trattoria; not so much because he was police inspector as because he was a good customer, with discerning tastes. Today they fed him some very fresh striped mullet, fried to a delicate crisp and drained on absorbent paper. After coffee and a long stroll on the eastern jetty, he went back to the office.
FOOD – As they ate, they spoke of eating, as always happens in Italy. Zito, after reminiscing about the heavenly shrimp he had enjoyed ten years earlier at Fiacca, criticized these for being a little overdone and regretted that they lacked a hint of parsley.
THE QUESTION – “What are you doing?” I asked him. And he answered me with a question in turn.
“What shape is water?”
“Water doesn’t have any shape!” I said, laughing. “It takes the shape you give it,”
SICILY – They talked about the disastrous political situation, the unknown dangers the growing unemployed held in store for the country, the shaky, crumbling state of law and order.
– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.
