SEEING THE WORLD THROUGH BOOKS

“I hear a train’s wheels clicking as it passes through the little station where, a year back, they herded us from the trucks and we began the long straggle up to the camp.  I can remember no lonelier sound, nor one that so painfully proclaims the absoluteness of our banishment from a world that each day slips further from us…our bitter Eden, the only solid anchorage under the sun.” – the speaker, contemplating his life in a POW camp.

Moments of tenderness alternate with dramatic moments of violence in this semi-autobiographical novel of World War II by Tatamkhulu Afrika, a name assumed by the author late in life and meaning “Grandfather Africa.”  Born in 1920 in Egypt, “Tata,” as he calls himself, lost his Egyptian name when his family died shortly after moving to South Africa in the early 1920s.  He was adopted by Christian foster parents, friends of his family, and lived with them until the outbreak of World War II, when he left to fight against the Axis powers in the African campaign in Libya.  During the Battle of Tobruk, he was captured by the Germans, shipped to a prison camp in Italy, and after the fall of Italy, to Germany’s northeast border.  It is the four years of his captivity which become the setting for Bitter Eden, his third book.  His first novel, written when he was seventeen and published by a “venerable” publishing house in London, did not survive the Blitz –  all but two copies were destroyed when the building was bombed.   Much later, he wrote short stories and poetry, but it was not until 2002, sixty-five years after his first novel, that he published his Bitter Eden, which received widespread critical acclaim.  He died just two weeks after his book was chosen by critic Mark Simpson of The Independent as one of the best two books of that year.

As the novel begins, an elderly man is opening two letters which accompany a package.  Telling the story from his own point of view, the old man learns in the first letter, from a law firm, that someone the speaker refers to only as “he,” someone he knew more than fifty years ago, has died after a long illness and that the speaker has received a legacy.  The second letter is from “him,” a man who has been lost to the speaker for virtually all of his post-war life.  The legacy and the letter clearly upset the speaker as he wonders “Am I permitting a phantom a power that belongs to me alone?  What relevance do they still have – a war that time has tamed into the damp squib of every other war, [and] a love whose strangeness is best left buried where it lies?”  Though he knows he should leave the past buried, he is unable to resist: “I listen for the nightingale that will never sing again, hear only the screaming of an ambulance or a patrol car…and lower my face into the emptiness of my hands.”  Even his wife cannot help him with his emotions this time.

South African uniforms during World War II

What follows is the story of the four years the speaker survived when, during the long siege of Tobruk, he suddenly found himself a prisoner of war.  Transported from the battlefield by the Germans, he discovers many other Allied prisoners in the truck to the prison camp.  The first person he meets is Douglas Summerfield, who, like the speaker, is from Division Headquarters, a fact that Douglas believes implies some special relationship between them.  The speaker, who identifies himself as Tom Smith, is “put off” by Douglas’s movements, “the little almost dancing steps he takes even when, supposedly, he is standing still, the delicate, frenetic gestures of his hands, the almost womanliness of him that threatens to touch – and touch – and touch.” Douglas is also extremely religious, constantly running the rosary through his fingers and muttering prayers under his breath – and constantly looking through the crowd for the friendly face of Tom Smith, like, as Tom sees it, “a drowning clown or a tart desperate for trade.”

South African forces celebrate the capture of a flag from Italian-held Libya in 1941. Note the uniforms.

Though captured by the Germans, the prisoners are turned over to the Italians, who claim to rule Libya.  The horrors of war, the hunger, the forced marches, the crowding, and the refusal of their captors to allow “bathroom breaks” demoralize and frighten the Allied prisoners. One man is trampled to death by others who are propelled forward.  Others are shot if they stop walking, as the “Ites” (the Italians) take delight in tormenting their prisoners, stopping along a pool in the hot sun, then shooting anyone who goes into the water.  In the Italian-held town through which the prisoners march on their way to the sea, for transport to Italy, residents stone them.  Later, jammed into the hull of the ship, all suffering from dysentery, they learn to rely on each other in dealing with the on-going crises.  Tom Smith even comes to respect Douglas Summerfield, “a solid and honourable man,” and he eventually sets up a black market business with him, using cigarettes as currency.

As the Italians face defeat, one of the speaker's friends manages to capture and hide two Italian (Beretta) pistols.

Once in their camp in northern Italy, some men, tormented, hungry, lonely, and scared, become attracted to each other and some begin to “share a blanket,” though the author does not go into descriptive detail that would suggest that all these events are necessarily sexual encounters.  To keep from going mad, some of the men also create theatricals, and Tom’s social circle broadens beyond that of Douglas to include a former boxer, an artist, and a director/writer.  As Red Cross food deliveries become scarcer, however, the men’s emotions become more fragile.  The move of the remaining men to Germany, after the fall of Italy, is actually an improvement, at first – they get some food.  Eventually, liberation comes, bringing with it thoughts of home, wives, children, and families.  For some soldiers, it means leaving their closest, most trusted friends behind – as they return to the UK or Australia, and some like Tom Smith, to South Africa.  For many, it means forever hiding the truth about their feelings for their wartime best friends.

German transport truck, like the one that probably transported the speaker and his friends to northeast Germany after Italy's defeat.

With all the physical deprivations regarding food, shelter, and physical warmth, the men create a kind of “Eden,” a place where some basic needs, such as love and comfort, are met, but it is a “bitter Eden,” where misunderstandings and conflict also reign.  Seductive behavior among the men is common – and by singling out one person for affection, a love-struck prisoner overtly challenges the group mentality which is necessary for unified action by an army.  Simple activities shared with people you like and admire are part of the Eden we see here, but the sharing is fraught with tensions – even violence –  and is often accompanied by guilt.  As the novel ends, the speaker known as Tom Smith, now elderly, prepares to open the package containing his legacy, one which brings the novel full circle.  This is an honest and controlled novel which focuses brilliantly on some of the well-known but less public aspects of prison camp life.

Pbotos, in order: The author’s photo is from  http://www.devon.gov.uk/

The South African uniforms may be found here:   http://stukasoverstalingrad.blogspot.com

South African forces (note uniforms) celebrate having captured an Italian flag in Libya, where the speaker and his friends are fighting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/, 1941.

The Beretta pistol used by Italian troops (and captured by one of the speaker’s friends, appears here:  http://en.wikipedia.org

The German transport truck which probably brought the speaker and his friends to northeast German, after Italy fell, is featured here:   http://ww2db.com/image.php?image_id=8228

Note: Carlos Labbe, born in Chile in 1977, has been declared one of Granta’s “Best Young Spanish Novelists.”  He is the author of six novels.

“I must admit that I abhor articles that begin this way: Life imitates art.  I deplore equally both pretentious and self-referential journalism and above all, journalism that lacks documentation.  Art…doesn’t imitate life or vice versa, for the same reason that people normally hang mirrors in the bathroom or behind the door and not on the bedroom wall facing the bed.” – comment by Domingo.

A great deal of fun mixes with nightmare in this surprising and complex novella about writing in general, and about all the permutations of truth vs. fiction, and reality vs. the imagination. The speaker, named Domingo, is participating in a writing experiment/game with six other journalists, named Lunes, Martes, Miercoles, Jueves, Viernes, and Sabado, representing the days of the week, and they are living in a laboratory with limited access.  “It’s not even top secret…Rather, to the world, it doesn’t exist.  So if for some reason I were to forget my name…I’d die empirically: the possibility of anyone remembering me would die as well.”  The seven participants, all among the top students in the Biology Department at the Universidad de Chile, have expressed an interest in discovering “what is beyond science,” and they have volunteered for this writing project.  Each participant writes part of a story for others to complete.  If the project fails, or if an individual student fails, the organization eliminates that person.  At least four, possibly five, of Domingo’s fellow players, have disappeared.   “There is only one way to stay alive: make it to the end.”

Writing his own story in code so that some trace of him may remain when the experiment ends, Domingo admits that he is not really Domingo, and that he “will probably insert pieces of pure, hard reality into the story I’m going to tell you.”  He quickly shifts to a memory from 1999, a time in which writers were forbidden to write about the “disappeared” who had vanished during the rule of Augusto Pinochet, former President of Chile and leader of the Army from 1973 – 1998, a situation which obvious parallels the speaker’s lab situation with its “non-existent game.”  During the Pinochet years, journalists often investigated disappearances on their own, and Domingo has been particularly haunted by the disappearance of a brother and sister, Bruno and Alicia Vivar, ages 19 and 14, who disappeared from Navidad, a small town regarded as the “gateway” to the central Chilean coast, near its “twin village” of Matanza.  Many people claim to have seen Bruno over the ensuing years, always in the company of Boris Real, a shady character whose last name makes his allegorical role clear.  Only two people claim to have seen Alicia.

Hand of the Desert by Mario Irrazabal, in the Atacama Desert. The body of someone known to the speaker was found here, in the north of Chile.

As author Carlos Labbe writes this metafictional novel, the reader comes to know characters in several different incarnations, with one character having at least five different names and roles in the novel, his real (sixth) identity becoming clear only through the ending.  The author refuses to draw a line between fantasy and reality, shifting between what he says is real and what he later denies as real, since “reality” is variable according to circumstances.  The journalist’s original information about the missing children has changed over time, and as the children are shown at different ages, their mysterious disappearance becomes more bizarre, and the reader’s perceptions of these children change with the narrators.  At the lab where the journalist participates in the writing experiment, even one’s own reflection can become that of someone else.  At one point, a “new” speaker, Labbe himself, whose own name means “priest,” inserts himself into the action, confessing that “I entertained myself by planning the disappearance of the journalist, whom I’d succeeded in establishing as the protagonist-narrator confronting the truth of the Vivar case: [but] there was no truth.  It was all a farce.”

Porsche 550 Spyder, the kind of car that actor James Dean was driving when he crashed and died.

The game of the journalist and his friends, and the overall objectives of Labbe himself, are far from benign, and as the novel progresses, it becomes much more than a philosophical study of reality vs. imagination.  It also shows the horrors which can inhabit the human mind.  Much of that horror is revealed in the later sections of this book when grotesque flights of imagination and nightmare dominate.  In one episode, actor James Dean dies in his Porsche 550 Spyder in 1955, a nightmare developed to monstrous fictional conclusions which no reader will ever forget.  That rare Porsche 550 Spyder reappears elsewhere in the novel to remind us of the nightmare.

James Dean, subject of a nightmare in this novel.

Trust does not and cannot exist here, especially in the reader’s relationship with the author, whose goal is not to befriend or to entertain him, but to use, even trick, him, to advance the story.  The action becomes more grotesque (and more allegorical), as the author includes symbolism to show the contrast between good and evil, beginning with the setting:  “Navidad,” one of the “twin” towns on the Chilean coast where the action occurs, refers to the birth of Christ, a sublime event symbolizing perfect goodness.  “Matanza,” its twin village, by contrast, means “killing, or massacre.”  By conjoining these two villages, the author shows how, in reality and in the writer’s imagination, both sublime goodness and horrific evil can exist simultaneously.  Truth and the reader’s trust of the author are strained even further by the discovery that the father of the missing children is a game company executive, and that the mother is a distinguished journalist.

The drug “hadon” (meaning “heathen” in German) appears both in the laboratory in which the journalist is working and in the novel itself, a drug which, we are told, creates “the ecstasy of hate.”  Hadon-fueled riots and chaos at the “Transensorial Beyond Seasons Celebration,” held at an all-night festival on the Matanza beach, are associated with the “theremin,” a musical instrument played on the beach by Patrice Dounn (whose name means “dark” or “muddy.”)  The theremin, an extraordinary and little known musical instrument, also defies reality.  The player never touches it in any way, its sound resembling that of “a female robot, singing with her mouth shut in the shower.”

Beach at Matanzas at dusk.

A novel so full of fascinating, and sometimes bizarre, images and ideas that I read it twice (and could easily go back and read it again!), Navidad and Matanza will completely occupy the most demanding of readers.  As a “literary descendant of Roberto Bolano,” author Carlos Labbe creates a memorable and utterly absorbing story which defies genre, bringing to life his themes of reality, imagination, and their connections to good and evil in unique and unforgettable ways.

NOTE: The theremin and its player occupy an important role in this novel.  It is an early  electronic instrument invented by Leon Theremin in Russia in 1928. According to Wikipedia:  The instrument’s controlling section usually consists of two metal antennas which sense the relative position of the thereminist’s hands and control oscillators for frequency with one hand, and amplitude (volume) with the other. The electric signals from the theremin are amplified and sent to a loudspeaker.  See video below:

Photos, in order: The author’s photo appears on http://quarterlyconversation.com

“Hand of the Desert,” by Mario Irarrazabal is in the Atacama Desert, where the body of someone known to the speaker was found.  http://coolthingsinrandomplaces.com

The Porsche 550 Spyder, the same model as that driven by James Dean when he died, may be seen here:  http://www.automotoportal.com/photos/strange-cars-you-dont-see-every-day/7

James Dean’s portrait is from http://terrigoldphoto.blogspot.com

The beach at Matanzas at dusk may be found on http://en.wikipedia.org

ARC: Open Letter Books

“How alike are the voices of [carnal] pleasure and death!  When one is summoned, all work at once becomes unimportant.  As on a ghost ship abandoned by its crew, be it the entries in the log, the uneaten food, the half-polished shoes, the comb left before the mirror, or even the partially knotted ropes – everything breathes of the mysteriously departed men, everything is left as it was in the haste of departure.”—Shigekuni Honda, 1952.

Shigekuni Honda, the main character in this third novel of the Sea of Fertility tetralogy by Yukio Mishima, is forty-six years old in 1940, as the novel opens.  He has matured into a successful lawyer and judge in the years since 1912 – 1914, when he was first introduced as the schoolboy friend of Kiyoake Matsugae, the son of a samurai family.  Kiyoake, however, died at a young age in Spring Snow, and his death has haunted Honda for the rest of his life.  Runaway Horses, the second novel of the tetralogy, takes place during the economic crisis in Japan of 1932 – 1933. In this novel, Honda sees Isao Iinuma, the nineteen-year-old son of Kiyoaki’s former tutor, as the physical reincarnation of Kiyoaki. Through his total dedication to the traditional, conservative goals of the samurai, a goal which author Yukio Mishima also shared, Isao hoped to eliminate all traces of foreign influence from Japan.  His horrifying death, however, added to the trauma of loss for Honda.  He was convinced that Kiyoaki “perished on the battlefield of romantic emotions” but that Isao was the first of many young men who faced death on real battlefields. “Kiyoaki and his reincarnation, Isao, had died contrasting deaths on contrasting battlefields,” the author concludes.

Yukio Mishima rallies the crowd in a failed coup attempt just prior to committing seppuku (November 25, 1970)

The Temple of Dawn takes place in the years immediately preceding World War II, just after the “China Incident” of 1936, and Honda, having abandoned his formerly altruistic ideals, is still trying to develop his own beliefs about life, death, love, the transmigration of souls, and reincarnation.  War is imminent now, as Japan, Germany, and Italy have signed a treaty against the Americans.  Having given up his judgeship, Honda lives in partial retirement, but he takes a business trip to Bangkok, where he also hopes to meet Prince Pattanadid and Prince Krisada, former school friends from his youth. The Thai royal family has gone to Switzerland, however, and the palace is empty.  The only person there is a “mad princess,” age seven, who lives as a virtual prisoner, claiming publicly that “I’m not really a Siamese princess.  I’m the reincarnation of a Japanese, and my real home is in Japan.”  Having been exposed to the idea of samsara, Honda eventually becomes certain that this little princess, “Princess Moonlight,” is the reincarnation of Kiyoake/Isao.

Ajanta cave, #19, photo by Marcin Białek

Serious discussions of Buddhism pervade the beginning of the novel, with Mishima giving great detail about Thai Theravada Buddhism and its practices as he departs Thailand for a trip to Calcutta, Benares, and the Ajanta caves in India. In Calcutta, he studies Kali worship and visits the Kalighat, observing the sacrifice of goats and the display of their heads around a fireplace burning in the rain.  In Benares he is impressed by the “extreme filth as well as the extreme holiness,” especially along the Ganges, and he notices the sexual paintings that exist in juxtaposition with the House of Widows awaiting their own deaths.  A multitude of ghats, all cremating remains in the open air in a “purification of the human body, returning its parts to its four elemental constituents.”  Honda notes that there is “no sadness.  What seemed heartlessness was actually pure joy.”  After exploring the land of the Hindus, Honda then decides to seek out “the ruins of Buddhism,” now extinct in India, by traveling to the Ajanta caves, northeast of Mumbai. The differences between Mahayana Buddhism and Theravada Buddhism, and Buddhism’s other permutations, occupy many pages in this section of the book, leading Honda to think more seriously about what is reality, what is death, what is love, and what happens after death?  Does the world even exist?  He begins to refine his ideas about reincarnation, samsara.

The red torii, which the author mentions, seen against the snowy backdrop of Mount Fuji, 1932. By Kawase Hasui (1883 – 1957)

Part II, taking place twelve years later, in 1952, opens on Honda’s fifty-seventh birthday.  Honda has just won a huge case, one begun generations ago in the late nineteenth century, but which continued up to the present, involving the redistribution of land.  As a result, he now has a large lot and house facing the magnificence of Mount Fuji.  Totally retired, and living more or less companionably with his wife Rie, Honda is still pursuing his philosophical inquiries.  The relationships between love, sex, and death now receive a longer analysis as Honda becomes infatuated with a seventeen-year-old female whom he now believes is the next incarnation of Kiyoaki and Isao. Princess Chantrapa II, known as Ying Chan or Princess Moonlight, the formerly mad princess he met in Bangkok when she was seven, is now seventeen, and she is studying in Japan.

Fuji sunset, from Hokkusai’s Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji

He plans to invite her to the birthday party at his house, where he will give her an important present.  Years ago, he had located a large emerald ring at the shop of a Thai prince, and he recognized it immediately as the ring which another Thai Prince, Chao Pattanadid, his schoolmate, had intended to give to the woman he loved, Princess Chantrapa.  The ring had been stolen from their school, and Honda, after finding it, years later, in a shop belonging to another prince, had bought it but had not yet had a way to return it.  This section of the novel brings the philosophical ideas here to a head, and concludes the narrative in dramatic fashion.

Imperial Hotel, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, destroyed in 1967. The facade has been preserved in the Meiji Mura Museum.

Set as it is in the period before and after World War II, but completely skipping over the war itself, the novel has more philosophical analysis and detail than it does narrative action, and some readers who have enjoyed Spring Snow and Runaway Horses may weary of the deep discussion of the varieties of Buddhism, and the ideas of death and reincarnation which Honda traces through numerous religions and Asian cultures.  Mishima himself is clearly using the novel to try to work out his own ideals and provide a forum for discussion in the aftermath of Japan’s war-time defeat.  A total believer in the old samurai traditions, he despaired of the western influence he saw appearing in post-war Japan, and he never forgave the emperor for denying his divinity in the capitulation which ended the war.  Just after author Yukio Mishima finished the final novel in this “Sea of Fertility” tetralogy, the Decay of the Angel on November 25, 1970, he disemboweled himself in a ritual suicide—seppuku—committed in the presence of four members of his private army.  He was then beheaded, in accordance with ritual.

ALSO by Mishima:   THE FROLIC OF THE BEASTS,     SPRING SNOW(#1),      RUNAWAY HORSES(#2),     STAR,     LIFE FOR SALE

Ajanta Caves, India – 460 – 480 AD

Photos, in order: The author photo of Yukio Mishima delivering his speech in a failed coup attempt, just prior to committing seppuku (November 25, 1970), is from http://www.jack-donovan.com/mishima/

Cave #19, from Ajanta, ca. 460 – 480, is by Marcin Bialek:  http://commons.wikimedia.org

The red torii, mentioned in the novel, are shown here in a 1932 print by Kawase Hasui (1883 – 1957),http://www.fujiarts.com/japanese-prints

The Fuji Sunset, from the 36 Views of Mount Fuji,  by Hokkusai, appear on http://wellfrog.exblog.jp/

The facade of Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel, by Frank Lloyd Wright, demolished in 1967, has been preserved in the Meiji Mura Museum.  http://www.incredibleart.org

The panorama of the Ajanta Caves is from http://en.wikipedia.org/

“Cryptography involves one genius trying to work out what another genius has done – it results in the most appalling carnage.  To succeed in this mysterious and dangerous process, you call together the finest minds at your disposal…to read the secrets hidden in a string of Arabic numerals.  That sounds kind of fun, like a game; but this particular game has ruined the lives of many men and women of truly remarkable intelligence …cryptogaphy [is] the most heartbreaking profession in the world.”—transcript of interview with Director Zheng.

Mai Jia, a popular novelist and winner of the Mao Dun Literature Prize, China’s highest literary honor, writes here under a pen name after serving for seventeen years as a member of the People’s Liberation Army and its intelligence services.  Mai’s novel Decoded, originally written and published for a Chinese audience in 2002, and newly translated and published in English, provides a fascinating study of cryptography and its dedicated cryptographers, many of whom give their lives (and even their sanity) to their work.  It is also a somewhat difficult book for a western reader, in that many of the traditions of western literature and its standards regarding literary style and structure are not applicable to this novel, which was never written for western readers.  Non-Chinese readers need to “go with the flow,” ignoring all preconceptions, both about China and about literature, and immerse themselves in the story, trusting in the lively translation by Olivia Milburn and Christopher Payne, which takes into consideration our unfamiliarity with modern Chinese life and culture.  This careful and sensitive translation becomes both revelatory and exciting, providing new insights into worlds that have been closed to most of us, not just the hidden world of the People’s Republic of China and the thinking of many of its people, but also the world of cryptography and the psychological toll it takes on those who dedicate their lives to it.

Astonishing in its focus on the travails and inner torments of one major character, Rong Jinzhen, the novel features a psychological, individualized approach, something I did not expect for characters living within the group culture of China, especially among characters from the army and its secret intelligence services.  Though the novel cannot be considered a “psychological novel,” as we know it, the author does depict his main character, Rong Jinzhen, empathetically, as an individual within the state, giving him a real personality with which we can identify as he develops from childhood through early adulthood.  An orphan who grows up within two adoptive homes, Rong Jinzhen, known in childhood as “Duckling,” is a mathematical genius, called “Idiot Savvy” in school, but he never stops feeling isolated and apart, however praised he might be for his brilliance and dedication to intellectual goals.  He counts ants, the days that his “Daddy” has lived on earth before his death at age eighty-eight, invents his own multiplication tables, and becomes a chess player at the highest level of competition.  No one else is close to him in his mathematical abilities, and when he goes to high school, he solves problems so quickly that, within days, the school wants to advance him by several grades.

Crouching Tiger, 18th century jade belt ornament, worn by Jinzhen’s adoptive mother.

The older and more dedicated he becomes to what he is learning, however, the more preoccupied – and pathologically withdrawn – he becomes.  With his lively mind focused totally on intellectual goals, he evokes our concern as he fails to make friends or find any happiness or inner peace. When he is eventually selected to work as a cryptographer for the state, he must leave behind everything he has ever known to participate at a remote and secret location on a project which will eventually consume him – the deciphering of PURPLE, the most difficult cipher ever created.  As he gets ready to leave “home,” his adoptive mother wants to give him a jade pendant of a crouching tiger from her belt for “good luck,” but his adoptive father takes it away, telling Jinzhen, “You are a genius, and you are going to make your own luck.”  For his own parting gift, he takes out an old Waterman pen that he himself has used for half a century, telling him “you can use it to make note of your ideas.  If you don’t let them run away from you, you will find that no one can even come close to you.”

Waterman fountain pen, about 1910, given to Jinzhen by his adoptive father.

Once Rong Jinzhen (often called Zhendi by those who remember him) disappears into Unit 701, he is essentially lost to his family.  His only real acquaintance at the facility where he lives is a paranoid schizophrenic, a lunatic with whom he plays chess almost constantly, a man destroyed by his own work in cryptography.  In his “spare time,” Jinzhen reads novels and becomes interested in dreams and their interpretation, and some of those in power begin to believe that because he appears not to be working on cryptography, that he is unintelligent.  Then, suddenly, without warning, only a year after his arrival at Unit 701, Rong Jinzhen has a breakthrough which changes everything.

Original Chinese edition of this novel, 2002.

The remainder of the novel appears in the form of interviews with two people, Master Rong, a female member of his family whom he saved during the Cultural Revolution, and Director Zheng, the man who persuaded him to join the cryptography unit.  These interviews convey Jinzhen’s history and his story, but they feature much “telling about” the action, instead of creating lively stories told from “inside the moment.” The author’s use of dreams, often disorderly, reveal Jinzhen’s state of mind, and a shift in style from narrative to Jinzhen’s internal reveries to convey his inner turmoil in the middle section of the novel show his alarming changes.  Often tantalizing the reader by announcing at the end of a chapter what will happen in the next section, the author then proceeds to tell how these events came about, dampening the suspense for the reader but giving ideas of what to look for in the coming chapter. In the concluding section, the author provides some of his own thoughts about writing, his intentions with the book, and eventually the outcome for Jinzhen, creating a feeling that he wants us to be on his side and share the events with him.  A literary novel, unique in its focus, setting, and subject matter, Decoded lives up to its title, providing exciting new insights into many aspects of life in the People’s Republic of China – and if a reader also happens to be a mathematician or serious games player­, this novel will be utterly irresistible.

Photos, in order: The author’s photo appears on http://www.chinese-shortstories.com

The crouching tiger jade belt ornament, 18th – 19th century, worn by Jinzhen’s adoptive mother, becomes a symbol which reappears near the conclusion of the novel when Director Zheng says, “I daresay his spirit was that of a tiger. He tore apart problems as a tiger would relish gnawing meat of the bones of a recent kill…”  Photo from http://www.eliteauction.com/

The Waterman pen, about 1910, given to Jinzhen by his adoptive father, is from http://oldfountainpensjustforfun.blogspot.com

“When you start swaying on your legs, when you light another cigarette to kill five more minutes even though your throat is stinging and your mouth is so furred up you feel like you’ve eaten a tarpaulin, and then the others also light cigarettes and linger a while longer – when all that happens, then it really is time to go home to bed.” – from the Prologue, as three young men meet after four a.m. and then decide to go home.

Valuing the idea that “keeping it simple” is important to the success of mystery stories, author Marco Malvaldi draws deliberate parallels between the conclusion in Leonardo Sciascia’s, A Simple Story, in which the main character suddenly finds “where the light switch is,” the clue that allows him to solve the entire mystery, and the final resolution in Malvaldi’s own Game for Five,  as bartender Massimo Viviani suddenly solves the murder of a young woman. Simple deductions have been the key to his success.  This short, uncomplicated, and often very funny novel depends for its success on more than the mystery itself, however.  Quirky characters, three of them in their mid-seventies and one in his eighties, gather regularly at Massimo’s Bar Lume to pass the time playing heated games of briscola and gossiping about everyone and everything in their coastal community outside of Pisa.  Massimo, the thirty-ish bartender/owner of the Bar Lume, humors these characters, often joining in their card game as a fifth player when times are slow, and chatting and sharing their lives with them, valuing their commentary on all subjects and offering his own, sometimes contrary, observations to keep things lively.

Massimo, whose point of view drives this story, finds himself drawn unexpectedly into a murder mystery, which makes him the center of much interest among the patrons of his bar and in the community at large.  Late one long night, after four in the morning, as Massimo has been cleaning up his bar, three young men, so inebriated they can hardly walk,  are standing beside a green Nissan Micra across the street, with two of them trying to talk the drunkest youth, the owner of the car, out of driving home.  The young man insists on driving off, but half a mile from the bar where Massimo is working, the youth pulls off the road to relieve himself in a trash barrel.  When he discovers that the barrel is “occupied” by the dead body of a beautiful young woman, he also learns that his cell phone is dead.  Returning to Massimo’s bar to call the police, he is so drunk he is unable to make himself understood, and it is Massimo who accompanies him back to the woods and summons the police, thereby involving himself in this murder mystery.

The young man who eventually discovers a woman's body in a trash can is standing beside his green Nissan Micra, like this one, at 4:00 a.m., across from Massimo's bar, before leaving for home in a drunken stupor.

Massimo’s Bar Lume has been used for years as the regular card-playing hangout of a group of elderly men, who also serve as Massimo’s sounding board when he becomes increasingly convinced that the police, acting too quickly, have detained the wrong man for the murder. Ampelio, age eighty-two, is a retired railroader and “uncontested winner of [a] cursing competition” held unofficially at a local festival each year.  Aldo is the owner of a relatively upscale restaurant; Gino is a retired postal worker; and Pilade, who “apart from being ill-mannered [and] a pain in the butt,” has been employed at the town hall.  Because of their former jobs and their naturally gregarious natures, they know just about everyone in town, and they become conduits for information, bringing rumor and gossip to Massimo as he works on freeing the young man he believes innocent, and, unfortunately, conveying every scrap of information they learn from Massimo to the rest of the town.  Scenes from their ferocious games of briscola are so lively and so full of natural dialogue, as conveyed through the ironic and sometimes hilarious point of view of Massimo, that the reader feels as if they are all people s/he knows and enjoys.

The unique deck for playing briscola contains these cards.

At times during the action of the novel, the static setting of the bar and the teasing back-and-forth of the characters, as they sort things out and convey their lives and attitudes through their conversations, make the novel feel like a play, with much of the action taking place off-stage and Massimo acting as the Stage Director.  Often farcical, the action that does occur features some typical, often stereotyped characters – arrogant but clumsy police; a sensitive local doctor;  a bouncer with muscles for brains; teenagers experimenting with sex, drugs, and alcohol; a society woman more interested in upward mobility than in her family; and the hard-working and honest, but single, Massimo, who has been disappointed in love.  As complications arise in the investigation of the murder and the focus shifts among a series of suspects, Massimo becomes convinced that he knows who the guilty party is, but, he says,  “I feel like the main character in…Sciascia’s A Simple Story, when his superior tells him where the light switch is…and he understands the whole thing, who the murderer is and how he did it.  And like him I don’t know who…to tell.”

Pineta, where the action takes place, is described as being a coastal village near Pisa, newly gentrified, perhaps similar to Viareggio, here. Note the outdoor bar/cafe.

The solution to the mystery, which is delayed till the very end, is almost unimportant to the fun of the book.  It is Massimo’s point of view which carries the novel – his comments about life in the town, about its people, and about Italy, reflect his good nature and his never-failing sense of humor, making this novel closer to comedy than to noir. The author’s descriptions and his dialogue are often unique:  At one point, Massimo asks that Tiziana, his busy assistant, come in to cover for him during her time off, giving her a set of instructions to which she answers: “Yes, Bwana.  Do you also have instructions about the cotton harvest?”   The character of another person is conveyed through this description:  “[As a child], many questions had come into his mind, such as ‘How long will it take this lizard to die after I’ve cut off its head?” and “Why don’t cats fall on their feet if you tie a weight to their tails?” And when Massimo eventually decides to ask the four old men if he can play cards with them, “he wondered if thinking that playing cards with four old geezers mightn’t be a symptom of something strange about him, but he immediately dismissed the thought.  Can I at least decide what I like? he thought, and focused his attention on the High Priest who was about to open the gates of the Temple to him.”  Short, snappy, filled with humor, and great fun, this is a light entertainment, perfect for a change of pace or for summer reading.

ALSO by Malvaldi:  THREE-CARD MONTE

Photos, in order: The author’s photo may be found on http://www.festivaletteratura.it

The green Nissan Micra, like the car owned by the young man who discovers the woman’s body in the trash can, appears on http://www.caradvice.com.au

The unique briscola cards are shown on http://www.seeyouinitaly.com/

Viareggio, perhaps similar to Pineta, the “coastal community near Pisa” which has recently become gentrified, may be seen here:  http://italyholidays.wordpress.com/

ARC:  Europa Editions