Ho cominciato a leggere questo libro un po’ contro voglia, poi il libro mi ha preso. Diciamo che l’inizio riflette un tipo di disorientamento dell’animo del protagonista, sia per i contenuti che per il dialogo frammentato. Confusione come dopo una sbornia,confusione come dopo essere stato pestato.
Ma un libro non può andare avanti a lungo con questo approccio e deve cambiare.
E cosi è , ed il libro si sviluppa mostrando una struttura assai ben definita ed originale :uno sviluppo parallelo tra la ricerca dell’assassino e la propria storia che l’ha ridotto in quello stato. Cosi che alla fine si trova il colpevole ed anche il bandolo della matassa della psiche del protagonista.
Un doppio successo quindi . Un trionfo di bontà?
Non lo so.
La prima impressione è quello di un libro liberamente violento. Sesso e violenza o meglio erotismo e machismo. Uomini duri: minatori, rugbisti, contadini. Poliziotti. Donne che sembrano spregiudicate. Liberamente perché senza cercare l’episodio racconta con stile diretto e senza enfasi episodi o situazioni. Dal poliziotto donnaiolo con la moglie a casa, il poliziotto che ama scazzottare o provocare con linguaggio scurrile, o la moglie del minatore provocante.
Questa caratteristica mi ha posto il problema di cercare di capire il sudafrica. Perché questo non è il solito libro. La differenza di scrivere un giallo a Capetown o a San Francisco è che non puoi scrivere allo stesso modo. La storia del sudafrica, come Wilbur Smith ha dimostrato molto bene, è pieno di problemi da capire. Anche in tempi relativamente antichi.
Capetown, ai suoi tempi era la zona dove i bianchi erano i più numerosi. Allora non c’è meraviglia che in questo giallo ci siano pochi neri. Quasi tutti in seconda linea. Bisogna anche dire che l'autore in un altro romanzo ha scelto come protagonista proprio un nero che compare, in questo romanzo come una figura secondaria. Tornando al machismo sudafricano, l’impressione è che questo dipenda per i bianchi dal fatto che era un paese sotto assedio, e questo ha formato una mentalità nel bianco sudafricano. Ma attenzione, non è un caso che si parli nel romanzo del 1976. Angola e Mozambico , Zimbabwe (all’epoca Rhodesia) , paesi dove si combatteva una guerra sporca. Sporca , al di là dell’efferatezza dei combattimenti e delle alleanze vergognose, anche perché a lasciato cicatrici profonde, anche sulla mentalità . Forse oggi se ne può parlare, è uno dei punti di questo romanzo. Una delle tracce che si porta dietro questa mentalità è la violenza sulle donne, in termini di stupri e violenze domestiche.
Da questo machismo ne nasce anche questo accoppiamento con l’ erotismo violento. Il protagonista incontra una donna, anche in questo caso figura marginale, ma che penso potrà essere ripresa in un futuro, che ha il solo compito di convincere il protagonista che non è cosi cattivo come crede. Mi pare questo che sia il senso del personaggio. Il protagonista rifiuta di scendere tutti i gradini della scala della depravazione, del sesso come dominio e violenza. Dove invece questa donna lo invita a scendere, perché lei è già là .
Ora naturalmente,la donna è ricca e viziata. E bellissima. E qui mi viene un’immagine del sudafrica,come di un paese bellissimo, dove la minoranza bianca, ha ancora livelli di ricchezza altissimi. Un paese di gioielli, fuoristrada, di case bianche nel loro stile afrikaans (non so se questa parola oggi possa essere usata in senso neutro ) e donne bellissime. Stili di vita che in europa occidentale noi neppure immaginiamo.
Un paese che si sta meticciando forse ben più lentamente di quanto si aspettava. E quasi la peggior vendetta della storia. I razzisti bianchi, forse si aspettavano la rivolta o la guerra. Una pace era peggio, la sconfitta dell’idea del nero cattivo e violento. Ma di peggio per un razzista è la creolizzazione, il meticciato, il fondersi dei colori e delle culture. Forse questo per il sudafrica è ancora presto .
A margine, mi è venuto da pensare ad un’altra nazione che vive in guerra da sempre .e che come il sudafrica teme il sommergersi. Solo che la situazione è ben più complessa: Israele.
Chissà se esiste un giallista che scrive storie israeliane? Chissa se un giorno si riuscirà a portare un po’ di pace e riconciliazione , oltre che con gli arabi, anche nelle famiglie in israele, chissà se poi si potrà mai parlare di meticciato arabo-israeliano?
Alla fine sono rimasto favorevolmente impressionato da tale libro. Un buon libro che regge il ritmo, originale, anche nell’incipit di un testamento da ritrovare per dare una vecchiaia tranquilla ad una donna, compagna di un uomo dal passato solo apparentemente banale .
Sicuramente, ad un occhio esperto appariranno molti difetti, semplificazioni o altro , ma un libro del genere merita tutto sommato di essere letto.
I started to read this book a little 'against his will, then the book got to me. We say that the beginning reflects a kind of disorientation that show the soul of the hero, both for content and for the fragmented dialogue. Confusion as after an hangover, as confusion after being beaten.
But a book cannot go on with this approach and must change. And so happened, and the book is developed showing a structure very well defined and original: a parallel development between the search of the murderer and the protagonist story, about he has been reduced to that. So that eventually you find the culprit and also the key to the problem of the psyche of the hero. A double success then. A triumph of goodness?
I do not know. The first impression is what a book freely violent. Sex and violence, erotism and machismo it can be said better . Hard men: miners, rugby players, farmers. Cops. Women who seem open-minded about sex. Freely because without seeking the episode, told with style and without emphasis directed situations. From philandering cop and his wife at home, the cop who loves fights or dirty with language, or the wife of a miner provocative.
This feature I have posed the problem of trying to understand South Africa. Because this is no ordinary book. The difference in writing detective in cape town or san francisco is that you cannot write the same way. The history of South Africa, as Wilbur Smith has shown very well, is full of problems to understand. Even in the relatively old times .
Capetown, in his time was the area where whites were the most numerous, at least I read sometimes so . Then there is no wonder that in this book there are few blacks . Almost every black is in the second line of the story . We should also say in another novel, the protagonist has chosen as hero, a black man who appears in this novel, as a secondary protagonist . Back to in South African machismo, the impression is that this is due to the fact that whites had a country under siege, and this formed a mentality in the white South African. But beware, it is no coincidence that we speak in the novel of 1976. Angola and Mozambique, Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), where countries are fighting a dirty war. Dirty, beyond brutal of fighting and shameful alliances, also left deep scars even the attitude . Perhaps today we can talk, and one of the points of this novel. One of the tracks that carries this mentality is violence against women, in terms of rapes and domestic violence. This coming not directly but under the line of the plot .
From machismo is born with the violent erotism. The protagonist meets a woman, even in side of main plot , but I think she could be reconsidered in the future as protagonist of a further book, , which serves only to convince the hero that is not as bad as he think himself . I think this may be the meaning of the marginal character in the plot . The protagonist refuses to go down the rungs of the ladder of depravity, as the domain of sex and violence. But where this woman invites him to come down, because she is already there .
Of course, the woman is rich and spoiled. And beautiful. And here is my picture of South Africa as a beautiful country, where the white minority, have high levels of wealth. A land of jewels, SUV, well-off people , in white houses in their style Afrikaans (not sure if that word can now be used in a neutral sense) and beautiful women. Lifestyles that in Western Europe we even imagine.
A country that is getting melted in a mestizio perhaps much more slowly than expected. And almost the worst revenge of history. The white racists, might have expected the revolt or war. A peace was worse for them , the defeat of the idea they grown about of black people poor and violent. But worse for a racist is creolization, intermarriage, the blending of colors and cultures. Perhaps this is too early for South Africa.
Incidentally, I came to think of another nation that lives at war for ever. And like South Africa fears the flood. Only that the situation is more complex. Israel. I wonder if there is an Israeli crime novelist who writes stories. I wonder if one day you will be able to bring some 'peace and reconciliation, as well as with the Arabs, even in families in Israel, then who knows if we will ever talk about the Arab-Israeli hybridization.
Eventually, I was favorably impressed by this book. A good book that holds the rhythm, the original, even in the incipit of a will to find a peaceful old age to give a woman companion a man from the past only apparently trivial.
Surely, to a trained eye will appear many defects, or other simplifications, but a book like this deserves to be read after all.
But a book cannot go on with this approach and must change. And so happened, and the book is developed showing a structure very well defined and original: a parallel development between the search of the murderer and the protagonist story, about he has been reduced to that. So that eventually you find the culprit and also the key to the problem of the psyche of the hero. A double success then. A triumph of goodness?
I do not know. The first impression is what a book freely violent. Sex and violence, erotism and machismo it can be said better . Hard men: miners, rugby players, farmers. Cops. Women who seem open-minded about sex. Freely because without seeking the episode, told with style and without emphasis directed situations. From philandering cop and his wife at home, the cop who loves fights or dirty with language, or the wife of a miner provocative.
This feature I have posed the problem of trying to understand South Africa. Because this is no ordinary book. The difference in writing detective in cape town or san francisco is that you cannot write the same way. The history of South Africa, as Wilbur Smith has shown very well, is full of problems to understand. Even in the relatively old times .
Capetown, in his time was the area where whites were the most numerous, at least I read sometimes so . Then there is no wonder that in this book there are few blacks . Almost every black is in the second line of the story . We should also say in another novel, the protagonist has chosen as hero, a black man who appears in this novel, as a secondary protagonist . Back to in South African machismo, the impression is that this is due to the fact that whites had a country under siege, and this formed a mentality in the white South African. But beware, it is no coincidence that we speak in the novel of 1976. Angola and Mozambique, Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), where countries are fighting a dirty war. Dirty, beyond brutal of fighting and shameful alliances, also left deep scars even the attitude . Perhaps today we can talk, and one of the points of this novel. One of the tracks that carries this mentality is violence against women, in terms of rapes and domestic violence. This coming not directly but under the line of the plot .
From machismo is born with the violent erotism. The protagonist meets a woman, even in side of main plot , but I think she could be reconsidered in the future as protagonist of a further book, , which serves only to convince the hero that is not as bad as he think himself . I think this may be the meaning of the marginal character in the plot . The protagonist refuses to go down the rungs of the ladder of depravity, as the domain of sex and violence. But where this woman invites him to come down, because she is already there .
Of course, the woman is rich and spoiled. And beautiful. And here is my picture of South Africa as a beautiful country, where the white minority, have high levels of wealth. A land of jewels, SUV, well-off people , in white houses in their style Afrikaans (not sure if that word can now be used in a neutral sense) and beautiful women. Lifestyles that in Western Europe we even imagine.
A country that is getting melted in a mestizio perhaps much more slowly than expected. And almost the worst revenge of history. The white racists, might have expected the revolt or war. A peace was worse for them , the defeat of the idea they grown about of black people poor and violent. But worse for a racist is creolization, intermarriage, the blending of colors and cultures. Perhaps this is too early for South Africa.
Incidentally, I came to think of another nation that lives at war for ever. And like South Africa fears the flood. Only that the situation is more complex. Israel. I wonder if there is an Israeli crime novelist who writes stories. I wonder if one day you will be able to bring some 'peace and reconciliation, as well as with the Arabs, even in families in Israel, then who knows if we will ever talk about the Arab-Israeli hybridization.
Eventually, I was favorably impressed by this book. A good book that holds the rhythm, the original, even in the incipit of a will to find a peaceful old age to give a woman companion a man from the past only apparently trivial.
Surely, to a trained eye will appear many defects, or other simplifications, but a book like this deserves to be read after all.
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