Silva Diego De

An unsuccessful, penniless lawyer takes part, almost as an onlooker and without realizing it, in a series of events—both romantic and professional—that deeply embroil him. He continues his relationship with his ex-wife; becomes the object of love for a brilliant and beautiful female lawyer; learns, without reacting, that his son falls into «bad company» and is inclined toward homosexuality; becomes the defense counsel for a notorious Camorra criminal; secures a series of courtroom victories, unexpected for him, as a point of contact for the Camorra; and ultimately discovers that he had failed to understand he was merely an instrument in the hands of the judiciary to ensnare his client. The narrator is the lawyer himself, whose surname, Malinconico, aptly encapsulates his personality: an underlying sadness, accompanied nonetheless by a keen self-irony and a philosophy of life that allows him to accept the world as it is. In a conversation with his mistress, the latter reproaches him for not knowing why he does things: > which is absolutely true, even if I don’t find anything strange about it. Since I lack the courage to say so, however, and at the same time have no original ideas at the moment, I fish among the most recent information. No, it’s that I don’t see myself while I’m doing them. How’s that? That I only understand things once I’ve done them . For the author, life is a tumbling sequence of events upon which one cannot intervene, and everyone moves as though being captured by a camera, behaving in a false, inauthentic manner. The Camorra itself is a reality to be accepted for what it is, and of which certain aspects of its code of conduct can even be appreciated: what would be desirable is «a sustainable Camorra». The novel is best appreciated for the author’s digressions—often felicitous and incisive—on contemporary life. As the author himself puts it: > the fact is that I am an incoherent narrator. I am far too interested in the incidental chatter that takes you somewhere else. When I tell a story, I’m like someone searching for a bill in the receipt drawer. First I grope around a bit, just to get a feel for the organic material, then I fish at random, hoping to hit the mark . Yet the plot is flimsy, devoid of any genuine narrative momentum, reliant as it is more on sketches—invariably incomplete—than on any minimally cohesive storytelling structure. The pervasive fragmentation, the narcissistic vacuity of the situations, and the implausibility of both behaviors and settings (for instance, the premises where the lawyer maintains his office, or the curious benevolence shown toward him by the Camorra) are not sufficiently redeemed by the style, undeniably elegant and nimble, nor by the ironic lightness of the prose. In the end, the novel proves tedious, insubstantial, and grating in its excessively superficial and resigned treatment of the Camorra. It is a novel that mirrors our Italy: resigned, withdrawn into the private sphere of friendships and family, ready to seize opportunities just as they come along.