Andrea Camilleri (Porto Empedocle, Sicily, 1925) has eighty-five years and smokes like a chimney. During the time of our discussion, it aired about ten cigarettes. By smell that I took office, as a tailored suit, leaving his house Roman snuff should be black, very black, like the novels of his series on the Commissioner Montalbano, who has become famous in all world and deserving, at eighty-five, a fan club that if they wanted the teen idols, not to mention other writers of literary stem brainy up Camilleri himself when he gets serious and turns in the other author who in hand, a cult favorite among the culteranismo Italian or Sicilian. Seek website (
www.vigata.org ) Or typed his name on Twitter and start reading comments like this: "Yesterday, sniff, I read the last thing I had to Montalbano. I hope you do not hesitate to publish something new, and I feel it is like saying goodbye to an old friend. I enjoyed his books, which are certainly not the best of the genre, but the truth is that you engage your stories and characters "or" For committed, like me, Montalbano, March goes on sale the latest novel translated , the potter's field. I'm looking forward to Buy it ", or close to despair," A friend who works at a bookstore told me yesterday that there is no news of the last of Camilleri, he understood that coming out in June not I can / want to wait !!!». Do not expect more, it is already here. Camilleri and crime as
Montalbano, his alter ego in police matters.
The police thriller or enjoying the congratulations of the public, living an eternal 'boom', but their protagonists are removed, to the chagrin of his thousands of followers. The Swede Henning Mankell has retired from disease at super famous Wallander. Does your Montalbano you will also bid farewell? I do not think there is a desire to proclaim an end. There is rather a weariness of the character. Fatigue that he attributes to age, although it is not really consistent. Born in 1950, which today would be 61 years. If we were in the nineteenth century would be a very old man, but in our time remains an intelligent man, valid. Tired of your job, the stupidity of the crime, stupidity dominant.
"In the end, an inevitable tendency toward skepticism, the only and last refuge? I've tried to make a character who does not remain unchanged over time, to mature over the years. But Montalbano have certain characteristics. For example, bad weather puts a bad mood. It's misogynistic (Note: Do not be a misanthrope?: /). No company likes others. If he collects all these elements and adds asocial having to deal daily with a material that essentially repugnant, homicide, it is clear that the only thing you can do is defend with some cynicism false pretense or irony. But then suffers, does not remain indifferent to the horror, the killing, lack of piety.
Speaking of classic European detective novels, is seems Montalbano other commissioners and inspectors say the example of Maigret? Yes that is indebted to
Maigret, Simenon . In Italy, a private detective would not have freedom of maneuver that has a police commissioner and that, I decided to write the first detective story, I immediately in a commissioner, not a detective. The commissioners of police in Italy are very ordinary people, good bourgeois, and then makes a comparison with Maigret, but we must try to differentiate. Maigret is married, and Montalbano, no. Maigret is eternal, everything happens around the Germans conquered France and then France is liberated. A Maigret does not care what happens in the world around you instead of my character cares about the world around him. In common with a taste for good food: a Maigret, brasserie or what prepares you Mrs. Maigret; say Montalbano's girlfriend did not even know how to cook. With respect to research method Simenon, nothing owed. The research method is to put Maigret from the dead, to study the environment, the method is much more rational Montalbano.
What Camilleri Montalbano's personality? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Is an imaginary character. Well, actually, is not imaginary, but of course, nothing is mine. After the fourth novel Montalbano wife said: "You realize that you're doing a long Montalbano portrait of your father?". I reflected and I finally agree with him, so all of mine who is in Montalbano is that I am not the father of Montalbano, if anything, I've given Montalbano traits of my father.
The mob is the source of the crimes that occur in his novels. But, like Montalbano has changed over the years, the Mafia of today is not the same as before, or at least that seems to make him understand. "Any time spent, even for the crime, was better? the Mafia's past has never been good, but there is a difference between the old and the new mafia mafia. Indeed, Montalbano, when you have relations with the mafia, the mafia has to very old, their partners were the chiefs and elders, of course, no young heads Today's mafia. The former bosses had a code, as we may seem crazy, but that was respected by them. However, the Mafia is the Mafia came after the massacres, of Totò Riina, Bernardo Provenzano, Leoluca Pagliarella. A mob killings, it does not look to the face. The new mafia knows no rules and no codes. This is the fundamental difference. In both cases they are murderers, but to me an old mafioso said: "Every time we were forced to kill someone, we did it by necessity, and we considered a defeat, because we had not managed to persuade him otherwise '. The old Mafia was an enormous respect for lawmen were intact. I am inclined to think that almost real mafia, the former one, had not killed Falcone and Borsellino, or, if he did, the mob boss in person would have pulled the trigger, man to man, not committed to a killers.
Montalbano is a commissioner who uses books and reading to solve cases. An educated man. In the last title published in Spain, "The potter's field", uses one of his works, Camilleri itself, towards the end of the frame. Did you need to become a self-homage? Do not you just all that you want the public? [
With irony :] From an author who is called Camilleri ... It is a self-homage, yes. As many readers write to me: "I had never read a book, but I began to read Montalbano and fascinated me. Now that I'm done with Montalbano, what books I read? ". Then I would write: "Read the books you read Montalbano, because reading gives good advice."
I think her novels, rather than police, are customs. Exactly. It is an attempt to smuggle a picture of today's Italian society through crime novels. The importance of the detective novel is precisely the Mediterranean. The authors of today, Lucarelli and I in Italy, others in France or Spain, we intend to have the society of today catching the hook readers of the novel.
Camilleri Montalbano not only a long series of novels featuring him is also a writer of worship and cultic. How do you reconcile the two sides?, Are looking face to face or sideways? be reconciled in me from the time I write one and the other. If given to readers if not reconciled, I recognize more in the works that are no Montalbano. For example, the language of a novel as Il re di Girgenti or other historical works, is more complicated, more difficult to deal with for someone who is not Sicilian. In I prefer detective novels greatly simplify my language.
In a conversation with the deceased Vazquez Montalban, whose name comes Montalbano, says: "Sometimes I feel like I've become a buzzword of idiots." Do you still think the same? No, as if they were idiots, no. I do not get that far, but I like that one of my children, one of my novels so successful around the world, not only in Italy. Although sometimes they do not understand. For example, I have received eight contracts to publish Korean Montalbano there. However, forgive me: but do you see the Koreans? Then there is the fact that Montalbano fans are also his harshest critics. A reader has come to write: "You can not pay your political ideas Montalbano, because Montalbano and not yours. Montalbano now is ours. "
Ultimately, we deny the words and opinions. However, at present in Italian society, what role can the intellectuals and writers? There is no standard, each one does what you think. I believe that the role of intellectual interest as well, and above all, by the society in which he lives, and historical moments in their lives intersect. I do not think that the role of intellectuals and writers are staying absent or distant. If anyone wants to stay in his room looking at his navel and offers us a masterpiece of literature, it does not matter. There is no obligation depends on the consciousness of everyone.
I suppose you are tired of being asked by Berlusconi, but as is the courtyard in Italy, I have no choice. I'm not bored, because it is good that everyone knows who is Berlusconi. There is freedom to express it. The writers and intellectuals are not under a dictatorship, we are under a distortion of democracy. I can speak ill of Berlusconi without ending up in jail, which would not happen if instead of Berlusconi was Mussolini or Franco in Spain. So we are not at that level, we are in the most insidious corruption of democracy, and while we talk, talk. Then explain to me
surrealism in which is immersed Italy. Berlusconi has been elected with a majority, helped by an electoral law that allowed hard to explain that if you had one more vote, I corresponded over 50 members. And this is a degeneration of democracy. Gradually, it has been revealed the true face of Berlusconi, but was revealed when the Italians were disillusioned him. For a couple of years, Italians have begun to understand that the Government has only made laws in their favor, to avoid dealing with trial courts. Now Italy has produced a strong reaction against it: there have been spontaneous demonstrations, with millions of people. But there is a real split between the House, ie members elected for two years and the country's current reality. The current situation does not reflect that of the deputies elected in the House. Parliament continues to function as if nothing had changed since two years ago, but much has changed. If elections were held today, Berlusconi would be at great risk of not being chosen. We have reached the absurd. The question I pose to the Italians is this: "To a man accused four times of being a pederast and awaiting trial, would offer the possibility of a new reform of the law on child abuse?
Spain is not to teach many lessons, but the image offered his country's sometimes a comedy slash style Dino Risi. The Italian reality is difficult to understand, I understand perfectly that you can make a comedy, a tragicomedy that is only because the public debt rises to terrifying levels, and joblessness as well, three out of four young people are unemployed; the low-income families every day, two of every three families do not make ends meet. Berlusconi says it is the fault of the global crisis. Since then, the global crisis has influenced, but the total inaction of our government has done that today we are a country on the brink of an abyss, from the standpoint of employment, labor force, quality of production, exports, from the point of view of quality of life we \u200b\u200blose. This man continually promises hope and any future was stolen from the Italians. The problem is not Berlusconi, but how to recover Italy from the tsunami represented by Berlusconi when they discover the state it is in Italy, and how it can provide a standard when it has lost any sense of morality. Let
page. Still writing every day? Yes, I am writing another book. I write every day. I get up at six o'clock and wonderful work for four hours before starting the calls. I am an employee of writing.
The potter's field, Andrea Camilleri, Salamandra 221 pages, 14 euros Laura Revuelta
ABC
April 1, 2011 ***
