Vendetta by Michael Dibdin – author of Ratking https://realini.blogspot.com/2020/07/ratking-by-michael-dibdin-10-out-of-10.html - in all, he has five books on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list… 9 out of 10

 

Vendetta by Michael Dibdin – author of Ratking https://realini.blogspot.com/2020/07/ratking-by-michael-dibdin-10-out-of-10.html - in all, he has five books on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list…

 

9 out of 10

 

I have first met Inspector Aurelio Zen in Ratking, which Inspector Zen number one, then we have Vendetta as Inspector Zen 2, from which we will move to the Dead Lagoon, number three in the series, which is on the list of to-read, albeit I am not really a fun of detective stories, unless they are damn good, like this one

 

Our professor of literature in high school, the magnificent Anton Chevorchian, used to say that all chefs d’ oeuvre have a mystery, a plot, being a ‘detective story’ after all, and we could think of Crime and Punishment https://realini.blogspot.com/2020/06/crime-and-punishment-by-fyodor.html as the ultimate inspiration

Aurelio Zen is not just a detective, or inspector, also called dottore in the narrative, but also a charming fellow, with dry humor, perhaps a bit cynical for the Panglossians https://realini.blogspot.com/2014/12/candide-or-optimist-by-voltaire.html that say ‘we live in the best of possible worlds’ like I try

 

On the other hand, we know from research that the optimists, positive humans have a lot of benefits, including a better ‘big picture view’, only they do not distinguish the details as well as the negative people, hence, some domains need the latter, traffic controllers, analysts, accountants and…detectives need to be negative

We find this from the wonderful book The Upside of Your Dark Side https://realini.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-upside-of-your-dark-side-by-biswas.html by Biswas Diener, son of another great psychologist, Ed Diener – Aurelio Zen is not altogether a tragic figure, lamenting all the time

 

Aristotle has written about tragedy, what we need in a good play, among other things a hero that we admire, who has some flaws, makes a mistake, otherwise the fall described in the play would be just an absurd act, that the audience would resent, he has to have values, seem to be just like us, that is similar to what the public thinks of itself

The murder that the inspector has to solve is one wherein Oscar Burolo dies, inexplicably, because this happens in his opulent villa, where he has four security systems, an electrified fence, sensors, and cameras, one would record part of what happened, without showing the killer, that would have ended the book on page two

However – spoiler alert, if you are still here, on page two of the note, for some reason, I will disclose some details, maybe all of them, I am not sure yet – we get some interesting aspects, such as the fact that the victims look down on the attacker, and that could be, will be of use later, when the protagonist thinks about it

 

Renato Favelloni is accused of the murder and arrested, but he has connections with the politicians – we are in fact given a panoramic view of life in Italy, some decades back (we could wonder how much things have changed or haven’t) when a few parties had to form a coalition, the main purpose after WWII was to keep the communists out

However, corruption seems to have touched all spheres of life, police, the government, even the church, and we have an event that has had an impact on Aurelio Zen, when he was connected with the case of a communist leader – we are given some good lessons of Italian history, including those vile individuals

 

Indeed, though they had fought against the fascists, as partisans, after the war ended, a group of leaders refused the ‘revolution’ – in a way, thank God for that, even if Italy was in the Western camp, and thus on the lucky side of the Iron Curtain, unlike us, in this part of Europe – and chose instead a life of illegal endeavors…

Only they did not really work to ‘undermine capitalists, the fat cats or what have you’, they just robbed banks and got into lucrative activities and got into competition with other mobsters, gangsters, and at one point, a murder is committed, an informer of the police says he was present, and it was the ex-communist leader who did it

 

It was a lie nonetheless, and unfortunate Zen was connected with the affair, without his knowledge, the powers that be got him to be the fool, believing the informer, mainly because they had known that the commie had done so many abhorrent things, when this was just one of the many set-ups, and he is called to organize one

This political party that protects Favelloni, wants him out, and they send him to Sardinia, to get a scape goat, some other suspect to be jailed, our hero travels there, but with the intention of finding the truth, not to play the games of the politicians, and he pretends to be a Swiss business man, looking to inspect the murder scene

 

That under the cover of real estate business, not saying he is really keen to see how the killer got in, avoiding all the systems, and the first target is the guy who was guarding and feeding the lion – the dead man was rich and extravagant, reprehensible too – taped as he had intense, perverse sex with the wife victim, herself shot dead in the assault

Nevertheless, things are complicated, because Vendetta is the main theme, and there is the commie who comes to kill Aurelio Zen, as revenge for his wrongful conviction, and during the chase, the inspector understands that it was someone else responsible, a very unlikely murderer…

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

 

‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

 

“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”