Suicidi dovuti

by Aldo Busi

Antes de suicidarse Pino hace un recuento de los últimos acontecimientos de Pieve di Lombardía. El autor nos ofrece una imagen muy sombría de los habitantes de esta ciudad, así como una explicación más turbia que la que generalmente ha aceptado la comunidad acerca de algunas muertes misteriosas (traición, chantaje, cobardía, mentira...).
Al hilo de los pensamientos del protagonista, el autor nos ofrece un amplio fresco del panorama humano de una ciudad de provincias que en realidad actúa como ejemplo de cualquier ciudad del mismo tipo.Aldo Busi ha llamado poderosamente la atención de la crítica italiana, y se ha convertido en uno de los autores más leídos y debatidos en su país.

Genres: Fiction

433 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Aldo Busi is an Italian writer. In his dense and material language, full of influences of various origins, Busi captures, almost through a sympathetic action, the various pulsations of reality. A sensitive, scathing intellectual, he reveals the nature of a moralist beneath the surface of his sophisticated amusement. After his famous debut with Seminar on Youth (1984), he published the novels Standard Life of a Temporary Pantyhose Seller (1985) and The Byzantine Dolphin (1985), followed by the controversial miscellaneous Sodomies in Elevenpoint (1988).

Reviews

[Kevan Houser · Rating 3 out of 5]

(My edition isn't listed here: ISBN 88-04-49057-8 paperback printed by Oscar Mondadori in 2001 with a cover price of 15,000 lire / €7.75. The cover features a Livio Scarpella painting "Il copridivano nudo".)

Aldo Busi is a contemporary (born 1948) postmodernist writer and translator (from English and German). He's published seven novels as far as I can determine: "Suicidi dovuti" was his fifth (1996).

Despite his relative fame and reputation, this novel has garnered little interest on this site. As I write this, there are only 4 mini "reviews" (2 in Spanish, 2 in Italian): all are short (a couple of sentences) and none really discusses the story. Which is disappointing. I'd love to read more opinions and insights to help me settle my own thoughts about this novel.

It appears "Suicidi dovuti" hasn't been translated into English, so that narrows the pool of readers and reviewers (the only translation I can find evidence of is in Spanish). But the book doesn't seem terribly popular among Italian readers either.

After reading it, I think I may know why, at least in part. It's long (387 pages) and with a rather reader-hostile format. By that I mean that the entire book is all one long, unbroken text. There are no parts, no chapters, no sections, no divisions, no blank lines between paragraphs. Let me repeat for emphasis: there's not a single blank line in the whole book.

The paragraphs are also generally quite long. It's possible to open the book and find not a single paragraph break anywhere on the two pages you're looking at, meaning the paragraph started on the page before and ends on the page after the two in front of you.

Even the sentences tend to be quite long; a third of a page isn't uncommon.

There's almost no traditional dialogue (which generally gives short paragraphs and some welcome white space). Instead, dialogue with quotes (even from multiple speakers at times) is generally included in the same long paragraph along with other narration.

This dense formatting means that there are far more words packed in these 387 pages than there would be in a more typically structured and formatted book of 400 or even 450 pages.

Formatting aside, this is a tough book to get through, and that must discourage a lot of potential readers. (Busi seems to aiming for a very narrow, highly literate audience.) Reading this felt like a struggle at times. In fact, I spent months and months with this book, often reading only 2 to 4 pages in a day before I had to put it down. (I read other books in the meantime. I think I finished 4 others while slogging through this one.)

I wish I could write a sensible review that really explains the book, but alas, that's beyond my abilities. Non sono all'altezza, purtroppo.

I'll try to avoid spoilers, but no guarantees. Read at your own risk:

The story is told in the first person, in an almost stream-of-consciousness fashion, and the narrator isn't entirely reliable. There's something wrong with him. He's got a screw loose somewhere. I won't get into what he does with chickens, but I'll give you a word he uses a lot as a clue: "sezzo". He's never traveled beyond his little town (at one point he mentions never having seeing the ocean/sea). He's never been with a woman (although he's completely heterosexual). He's a sort of failed priest who (sort of) works for the local church, ringing bells and helping out at Mass and such. He's a frustrated, repressed, and disillusioned man with a lot of hangups. He certainly falls on the autism spectrum.

Anyway, it's the early 1990s and the 60-something Pino Pigliacielo is in his car in a garage with the engine running in order to commit suicide, and the whole book is his mental ruminations about the small town of Pieve di Lombardia and the adulterous, hypocritical, money-grubbing (i.e., basically typical) everyday people who reside there. Including a female pharmacist who happens to be a dwarf.

There were points in which I was intrigued and read 8 or 10 pages in a sitting. There were other times when I'd let a few days go by with no interest in opening the book. Some anecdotes were inspired and intriguing, other sections were simply frustrating and confusing. One example of an interesting interlude is Pino's turn as a classroom teacher of English, a language he barely knows and doesn't seem to particularly like. Another was his visit to a porno theater/shop.

It's ultimately an incredible character study rich with psychological reflections; whether you like them or not, they're valid and intriguing. There are definitely also relevant and insightful societal observations and reflections to be found (particularly regarding Italians and Italy, but universal as well), and a really powerful story there somewhere, but it's all locked up behind this hostile facade of endless pages of unbroken text and overly literary (for me that is) prose.

Speaking of the writing style, it's interesting that one Italian review here refers to "scrittura barocca" while a Spanish reviewer says "La prosa es super barroca..." ("Barocco" might be translated into English as "ornate, elaborate, extravagant.")

The ending was intriguing but enigmatic. Did I mention that the narrator isn't entirely reliable?

Perhaps if I were to reread this book, more would become clear, and some hidden magic would emerge? I don't know.

I'm convinced Busi is a "great" writer, probably too smart for the room as we say. By that I mean he writes more for himself (not a bad thing) and, as i mentioned above, for a select public of well-educated, well-read people, and so it's not surprising that this book seems to not have appealed to a broader general public.

Se hai letto questo romanzo, mi piacerrebe leggere i tuoi pensieri in merito!

[Ángela C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Memorias eclesiásticas de un pederasta aficionado a las gallinas.

[Francesca R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gradevole, scorre bene, scrittura barocca ma affascinante.
Tematica importante ma gestita con sensibilità.

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una de las cosas más perturbadoras que leí en mucho tiempo. La prosa es super barroca, el desarrollo y caracterización de la psiquis de Pino y los demás personajes es excelente. Una crítica despiadada a la hipocresía chupacirios.

[incipit mania]

Incipit

… l’amor.
Giro la chiavetta dell’accessione.
Suicidi dovuti incipitmania.com