Finished reading on: December 24, 2008
To each his own
Title of the original version reviewed: «A ciascuno il suo»
AI Translation Notice: This review was translated from the original Italian using artificial intelligence. Book quotes and excerpts are translated interpretations and will not match the author's original English phrasing or official published translations.
The book, set in a small Sicilian town, recounts a murder and the investigation undertaken by a provincial teacher, "out of curiosity and boredom," who discovers the true killer and is murdered as a result.
Beyond the setting—characteristic of a society dominated by omertà, hypocrisy, and deceit in human relations—the most compelling aspect lies in the figure of the protagonist, Professor Laurana: simultaneously curious and naive, he inhabits a world of his own, outside the conventions of the small community.
In reality, he harbors no intention of denouncing the killer; rather, what drives him, and ultimately seals his doom, is an "Enlightenment" faith in knowledge and the pursuit of new emotions.
Essentially alienated from the society in which he lives, he fails to grasp its rules, making entirely fitting the book's closing words: "he was a fool."
The spare, vigorous style, which leaves no room for rhetoric or baroque redundancies, makes the work an exemplar for all of Italian literature.