Is it just me…

by Rick Blechta

Lately I’ve been puzzling over why I enjoy reading some authors and not others. We all have our likes and dislikes, of course, but this goes beyond that.

If you’ve been reading my posts, you know I recently discovered the celebrated Italian crime fiction author Andrea Camilleri and how much I’m enjoying the series he writes featuring Inspector Montalbano. Being in the writing business, of course I’m analyzing what it is that I find so enjoyable about the novels. Steal from the best, I always say!

Montalbano is exceptionally bad-tempered at times, and normally that would bother me, possibly to the point of bailing out on the story, but I coast right on past that. I enjoy the setting as well but in thinking back, there’s hardly any description in these novels, certainly not enough to give me a good “mental snapshot” of where the action is happening, and normally that would bother me too. I've never been to Sicily and there are certainly a lot of other readers who haven’t been, either, so it really isn’t fair to us to leave this out. But I coast right on past that problem too.

So what is it?

Well, Camilleri does have description of a sort. In place of the usual things used to set a scene, Camilleri presents us with the detailed inner thoughts of his main character. In building suspense in the stories, the author can’t make us privy to everything Montalbano’s thinking plot solution-wise, but he reveals to readers what this intriguing police inspector thinks about those around him, the politics of Sicily, food, whatever. It made me realize that if we were also given more detailed description of each story’s physical surroundings, the novels would become totally bogged down.

But that still didn’t answer my question: What is it about these stories?

Last night as I turned off the light after an hour spent in Sicily, it dawned on me. Camilleri’s plots are engrossing, but they unfold at a very leisurely pace for the most part. In thinking back to one or two North American police procedural novels I’ve read recently — and didn’t enjoy all that much — I realized that the action in them was too relentless. They raced from one physical altercation to another. The authors’ also employed the “jump-cut” technique of current TV shows and movies. While that can make a plot really cook along, it also becomes tiring — at least to me.

In North America it seems it has to be all action, action, action. I’m finding that wearing. When I think back to the Maigret novels as an example, I realize that action at the pace Simenon writes is more enjoyable for me. Camilleri’s novels have a very similar pace (which I don’t think is accidental) but it just works so well in Sicily. North American-style action sequences would just not work as well.

How do you feel about pace in a crime fiction novel?

It’s a wonderful thing finding a new author

by Rick Blechta

I play in a big band and the guy who plays next to me in the trumpet section is a huge crime fiction reader. He’s always telling me about the books he’s reading (never mine for some reason) and asking questions about writers he enjoys, some of whom I know.

A few weeks ago during a rehearsal, he passed over a book and indicated a passage and asked what I thought of it.

I quickly read it (because we were about to start playing) and while the sax section worked something over, I had to reread it. Why? Because it was so darn good. I took down the information on the book, intending to look into them.

During another playing gap, I asked some questions. It was the third book he’d read by this author, Andrea Camillerihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Camilleri. The series is set in Sicily and it’s your basic police procedural in form. The main character is Inspector Montalbano. The novel’s title was The Scent of the Night. I took down the information on the book, intending to look into them. The following rehearsal, my colleague presented me with the first book in the series (borrowed from his library) and gave it to me to read since it wasn’t due for another 10 days. I went home and read it basically in one long sitting.

What caught my attention immediately was the quality of the writing. Now understand, these novels are written in Italian (including some Sicilian dialect), so everything I read was filtered through a translator, and as we all know, there are good and bad translations of books. In this case, the translator Stephen Sartarelli seemed to do an excellent job. I checked it out with my wife’s Italian teacher (who is Italian). She’s read Camilleri in Italian. Skimming my translated copy she felt it was done very well.

So basically what I’m saying here is that if you haven’t yet discovered this author, go out and get one of his books. I’m sure you could start anywhere in the series because the set-up is very much like the manner in which the Nero Wolfe series began: it just jumps in with everything “up and running.” All you have to do is get to know the various continuing characters.

The first novel in the series is The Shape of Water. Very important: This novel has nothing to do with the recent movie by Guillermo del Toro.

You will be transported to Sicily at the time of the writing (early ’90s) and it is fascinating. The plot is well set up and works well but is nothing astounding. It is the quality of the writing and the skill of the author that makes the novel really quite special. Camilleri makes you feel as if you’re there with very minimal description. I read the novel for a second time and was rather amazed at how little there is. The way he pulls it off is almost like a magic trick. I’ve finished the next two novels and they are the same high quality. Now I know why Aline has such a fondness for this author.

So during my down time (what little of it there is) this holiday season, you know where can find me: vicariously in Sicily!