Leonardo Sciascia, the late Sicilian
crime author, who wrote mystery stories where the mystery wasn’t so much the “what”
of it all, but the “why” of it, the brutal, dehumanizing “why” that turned
Sicily into a mecca of organized crime, whose influence over every aspect of
life was almost mystical. While not one of his better books, at least to me,
The Day of the Owl really exhibits his style perfectly, presenting a simple
story in the swift format of no more than 200 pages that unfolds layers upon
layers of corruption and violence, so much so that it is impossible to get past
any of it in order to gain any semblance of justice of sanctity of life. The novel
begins with the shooting of a seemingly innocent man, as he is about to board a
crowded bus. When the police get to the crime scene, no one on the bus wants to
admit that they saw who shot the man, even though someone had to have seen the
murderer. They are obviously afraid of what may come if they identify him, and
as one lone detective is assigned to the case, he begins to see that it wasn’t
just a simple murder, but a killing that leads directly to the heart of the
mafia, which people of influence claim doesn’t exist. Sciascia sometimes gets
bogged down in police procedural information that detracts from the stories
power, which I didn’t find in any of his work before, but he still accurately describes
the feelings of fear, isolation, loneliness and worthlessness that must have
been felt by the citizens of Sicily when their lives were negotiable. His stories
are never happy ones, always ending cynically, maybe too much so, but even when
he is not in top form, like this novel, his stories are still powerful and
should be checked out.
Rating: 3/5
No comments:
Post a Comment