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La trilogie Fabio Montale #1
Total Khéops
"Total Cheops" opowiada historię Fabio Montalego, inspektora policji w Marsylii, i jego dwóch przyjaciół z młodości - Ugo i Manu. Łączyła ich namiętność do jednej dziewczyny i zamiłowanie do ryzyka. Wybrali jednak różne drogi życia. Kiedy Manu zostaje zamordowany, Ugo - poszukiwany przestępca - powraca do Marsylii, by odnaleźć jego zabójcę. Wkrótce zostaje zastrzelony przez policję. Czy coś łączy te dwa przypadki? Co ma z nimi wspólnego zabójstwo Leili, córki algierskiego emigranta?Montale, pragmatyczny twardziel o romantycznej duszy, wprowadza nas w brutalne realia świata przestępczego i policji. Poznajemy marsylczyków i ich niepokorne miasto, począwszy od ponurych, na poły arabskich blokowisk do opanowanej przez mafię włoską zabytkowej dzielnicy Le Pannier. I tak jak u klasyków czarnego kryminału, Chandlera i Hammetta, intryga ujawnia zło i przemoc, których nie zmienią wynik śledztwa i ukaranie winnychNa podstawie "Total Cheops" (tytuł zapożyczony z utworu grupy rapowej IAM) w 2002 powstał film w reżyserii Alaina Beveriniego, z Richardem Bohringerem i Marie Trintignant oraz serial telewizyjny z Alainem Delonem w roli głównej.
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First published January 1, 1995
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About the author
Jean-Claude Izzo
33 books171 followersJean-Claude Izzo was a French poet, playwright, screenwriter, and novelist who achieved sudden fame in the mid-1990s with the publication of his three noir novels, Total Chaos (Total Khéops), Chourmo, and Solea: widely known as the Marseilles Trilogy. They feature, as protagonist, ex-cop Fabio Montale, and are set in the author's native city of Marseille. All have been translated into English by Howard Curtis.
Jean-Claude Izzo's father was an Italian immigrant and his maternal grandfather was a Spanish immigrant. He excelled in school and spent much of his time at his desk writing stories and poems. But because of his “immigrant” status, he was forced into a technical school where he was taught how to operate a lathe.
In 1963, he began work in a bookstore. He also actively campaigned on behalf of Pax Christi, a Catholic peace movement. Then, in 1964, he was called up for military duty in Toulon and Djibouti. He then worked for the military newspaper as a photograph and journalist.
Jean-Claude Izzo's father was an Italian immigrant and his maternal grandfather was a Spanish immigrant. He excelled in school and spent much of his time at his desk writing stories and poems. But because of his “immigrant” status, he was forced into a technical school where he was taught how to operate a lathe.
In 1963, he began work in a bookstore. He also actively campaigned on behalf of Pax Christi, a Catholic peace movement. Then, in 1964, he was called up for military duty in Toulon and Djibouti. He then worked for the military newspaper as a photograph and journalist.
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July 15, 2024
TENTARE DI CAPIRE COS’ERA LA VITA
Richard Bohringer è Fabio Montale e Marie Trintignan è Lole in “Total Kheops” di Alain Bévérini, 2002.
La storia che leggerete è totalmente immaginaria. La formula è nota. Ma non è inutile ripeterla. A parte gli eventi pubblici, riportati dalla stampa, i fatti narrati e i personaggi non sono mai esistiti. Neppure il narratore. Solo la città è veramente reale. Marsiglia. E tutti coloro che ci abitano. Con quella passione che è solo loro. Questa storia è la loro storia. Echi e reminiscenze.
Così recita la nota dell’Autore che anticipa il romanzo.
Romanzo che inizia la trilogia di Marsiglia, nel suo insieme il capolavoro di Jean-Claude Izzo.
È vero, come dice il suo editore italiano che lo ha pubblicato non solo nel nostro paese ma anche in lingua inglese, che:
In origine c’è la Bibbia, il primo libro nato sulle rive del Mar Mediterraneo, la prima grande raccolta di storie di crimini e violenze. Fin dal suo inizio, con l’omicidio di Abele da parte di Caino, il Libro dei libri dice che la storia di questo mare, di questo spazio, si sviluppa sotto il segno della violenza. Violenza fratricida, sopraffazione, saccheggio. Il crimine esiste, i suoi motivi sono tanti e risiedono nell’animo dell’uomo. S’inizia subito con un omicidio, ne seguiranno tanti, la storia del Mediterraneo è nera, come l’anima di Caino.
Seguono l’Iliade e l’Odissea, due altre straordinarie antologie noir, repertori dei crimini più vari e atroci.
Ma è anche vero che senza Izzo quello che è stato chiamato Noir Mediterraneo non esisterebbe perché lui ne è il vero iniziatore e ne rimane tuttora il cuore (anche se ormai è difficile parlare di questo genere nel genere, il Noir Mediterraneo: l’emigrazione, i respingimenti, le morti in mare, hanno scompaginato tutto).
La tettoia specchiante di Norman Foster al porto di Marsiglia.
Mi ero detto che la soluzione a tutte le contraddizioni dell’esistenza era lì, in quel mare. Il mio Mediterraneo. E mi ero visto fondermi a lui. Sciogliermi e risolvere, finalmente, tutto ciò che non avevo risolto nella vita e che non avrei mai risolto.
Questa è una citazione da Solea, il capitolo finale della trilogia.
È il mare che fa vivere Marsiglia, le regala la luce, ne arricchisce la tavolozza di colori e la impregna di odori.
È dal mare che arrivano le genti che arricchiscono Marsiglia di suoni, lingue, altri colori, sentimenti, passioni. Il mare è un’identità comune, a cominciare dagli emarginati e dai reietti.
Il mare unisce la terra, la città, il mare è mistero fascino sensualità, si carezza l’acqua del mare come si sfiora la spalla di una donna…
La linea dell’orizzonte mediterraneo rimanda a Conrad, che parlava d’altri mari ma con la stessa intensità, rimanda all’errabondo Ulisse, rimanda all’irrequieto poeta Rimbaud (che andò a Gibuti proprio dove Izzo ha fatto il militare).
Fabio Montale può forse fare a meno di Marsiglia, ma non del mare, della sua riva: il mare è rifugio, riparo, accoglienza, antro materno.
Nel Panier
Ci si accontenta sempre più facilmente. Un giorno, ci si accontenta di tutto. E si crede di aver trovato la felicità.
Izzo mette molto di sé nel suo personaggio (eroe senza se e senza ma): la stessa umanità, la stessa passione, la stessa sensibilità, lo stesso impegno nella difesa di quei valori umani che tanto gli stanno a cuore, l’altruismo, la generosità, la tolleranza.
E il fatto che Fabio Montale parli in prima persona rende l’identificazione col suo autore ancora più acuta.
Qui, bisogna schierarsi. Appassionarsi. Essere per, essere contro. Essere, violentemente.
Poi, volendo, mi viene da dire che il padre di Jean-Claude emigrò dalla Campania (Castel San Giorgio, dove ogni anno si tiene un festival dedicato a Izzo, Città Noir) a Marsiglia negli anni Trenta e fece per tutta la vita il barista in un caffè di place de Lenche, e ricorda Fonfon.
Poi, anche, che la mamma di Jean-Claude era spagnola nata a Marsiglia nel Panier, si chiamava Isabelle Navarro detta Babette, e con questo nome si torna alla trilogia.
Il titolo, insolito, è ripreso da un brano della band marsigliese di hip hop IAM (citati nel romanzo).
Siamo belli soltanto attraverso lo sguardo dell’altro. Di chi ti ama.
PS
Tentare di capire cos’era la vita si legge qui.
Un insolito ritratto di Izzo opera del suo amico fotografo argentino Daniel Mordzinski.
Richard Bohringer è Fabio Montale e Marie Trintignan è Lole in “Total Kheops” di Alain Bévérini, 2002.
La storia che leggerete è totalmente immaginaria. La formula è nota. Ma non è inutile ripeterla. A parte gli eventi pubblici, riportati dalla stampa, i fatti narrati e i personaggi non sono mai esistiti. Neppure il narratore. Solo la città è veramente reale. Marsiglia. E tutti coloro che ci abitano. Con quella passione che è solo loro. Questa storia è la loro storia. Echi e reminiscenze.
Così recita la nota dell’Autore che anticipa il romanzo.
Romanzo che inizia la trilogia di Marsiglia, nel suo insieme il capolavoro di Jean-Claude Izzo.
È vero, come dice il suo editore italiano che lo ha pubblicato non solo nel nostro paese ma anche in lingua inglese, che:
In origine c’è la Bibbia, il primo libro nato sulle rive del Mar Mediterraneo, la prima grande raccolta di storie di crimini e violenze. Fin dal suo inizio, con l’omicidio di Abele da parte di Caino, il Libro dei libri dice che la storia di questo mare, di questo spazio, si sviluppa sotto il segno della violenza. Violenza fratricida, sopraffazione, saccheggio. Il crimine esiste, i suoi motivi sono tanti e risiedono nell’animo dell’uomo. S’inizia subito con un omicidio, ne seguiranno tanti, la storia del Mediterraneo è nera, come l’anima di Caino.
Seguono l’Iliade e l’Odissea, due altre straordinarie antologie noir, repertori dei crimini più vari e atroci.
Ma è anche vero che senza Izzo quello che è stato chiamato Noir Mediterraneo non esisterebbe perché lui ne è il vero iniziatore e ne rimane tuttora il cuore (anche se ormai è difficile parlare di questo genere nel genere, il Noir Mediterraneo: l’emigrazione, i respingimenti, le morti in mare, hanno scompaginato tutto).
La tettoia specchiante di Norman Foster al porto di Marsiglia.
Mi ero detto che la soluzione a tutte le contraddizioni dell’esistenza era lì, in quel mare. Il mio Mediterraneo. E mi ero visto fondermi a lui. Sciogliermi e risolvere, finalmente, tutto ciò che non avevo risolto nella vita e che non avrei mai risolto.
Questa è una citazione da Solea, il capitolo finale della trilogia.
È il mare che fa vivere Marsiglia, le regala la luce, ne arricchisce la tavolozza di colori e la impregna di odori.
È dal mare che arrivano le genti che arricchiscono Marsiglia di suoni, lingue, altri colori, sentimenti, passioni. Il mare è un’identità comune, a cominciare dagli emarginati e dai reietti.
Il mare unisce la terra, la città, il mare è mistero fascino sensualità, si carezza l’acqua del mare come si sfiora la spalla di una donna…
La linea dell’orizzonte mediterraneo rimanda a Conrad, che parlava d’altri mari ma con la stessa intensità, rimanda all’errabondo Ulisse, rimanda all’irrequieto poeta Rimbaud (che andò a Gibuti proprio dove Izzo ha fatto il militare).
Fabio Montale può forse fare a meno di Marsiglia, ma non del mare, della sua riva: il mare è rifugio, riparo, accoglienza, antro materno.
Nel Panier
Ci si accontenta sempre più facilmente. Un giorno, ci si accontenta di tutto. E si crede di aver trovato la felicità.
Izzo mette molto di sé nel suo personaggio (eroe senza se e senza ma): la stessa umanità, la stessa passione, la stessa sensibilità, lo stesso impegno nella difesa di quei valori umani che tanto gli stanno a cuore, l’altruismo, la generosità, la tolleranza.
E il fatto che Fabio Montale parli in prima persona rende l’identificazione col suo autore ancora più acuta.
Qui, bisogna schierarsi. Appassionarsi. Essere per, essere contro. Essere, violentemente.
Poi, volendo, mi viene da dire che il padre di Jean-Claude emigrò dalla Campania (Castel San Giorgio, dove ogni anno si tiene un festival dedicato a Izzo, Città Noir) a Marsiglia negli anni Trenta e fece per tutta la vita il barista in un caffè di place de Lenche, e ricorda Fonfon.
Poi, anche, che la mamma di Jean-Claude era spagnola nata a Marsiglia nel Panier, si chiamava Isabelle Navarro detta Babette, e con questo nome si torna alla trilogia.
Il titolo, insolito, è ripreso da un brano della band marsigliese di hip hop IAM (citati nel romanzo).
Siamo belli soltanto attraverso lo sguardo dell’altro. Di chi ti ama.
PS
Tentare di capire cos’era la vita si legge qui.
Un insolito ritratto di Izzo opera del suo amico fotografo argentino Daniel Mordzinski.
March 5, 2021
“I felt suffocated. And alone. More alone than ever. Every year, I ostentatiously crossed out of my address book any friend who'd made a racist remark, neglected those whose only ambition was a new car and a Club Med vacation, and forgot all those who played the Lottery. I loved fishing and silence. Walking the hills. Drinking cold Cassis, Lagavulin, or Oban late into the night. I didn't talk much. Had opinions about everything. Life and death. Good and evil. I was a film buff. Loved music. I'd stopped reading contemporary novels. More than anything, I loathed half-hearted, spineless people.”
Fabio Montale grew up one of three, a trio of boys who chased girls together, committed crimes together, listened to the same music, and drank with passion. “We fought over a girl's smile, not because of the color of our skins. It created friendships, not hatreds.”
They grew up in a polyglot city where the languages merged and formed new words, new expressions, new possibilities, but then a recession hit.
”There were already quite a fair number of Arabs around in these days. Blacks, too. Vietnamese. Armenians, Greeks, Portuguese. But it didn’t cause any problems. It had started to be a problem with the downturn in the economy and the rise in unemployment. The more unemployment there was, the more some aware people became of the immigrants. And the number of Arabs seemed to be increasing along with the unemployment! In the Sixties the French had lived off the fat of the land. Now they had nothing, they wanted it for themselves! Nobody else was allowed to come and steal a crumb. And that’s what the Arabs were doing, stealing our own poverty off our plates!”
If you read enough history you see this scenario repeated over and over again. A place booms and people don’t have time or inclination to do some of the more menial jobs, so they encourage people from other cultures to move to their city to do the work they don’t want to do. The economy tanks as it invariably will do. Everybody starts to feel the squeeze. They start to notice the people of different tints and shades, and they resent them for having ANYTHING. Eventually they start to blame them for the pressure they are feeling. When we look at ourselves collectively as a species we are always so boringly predictable.
Ugo and Manu stay in the old life. Fabio becomes a cop, shocking everyone including himself. He isn’t sure if he likes the job, but he hates having to shake down Arab kids and throw them in jail to meet a quota. Manu is dead at the beginning of this novel and Ugo has come back to Marseille to avenge his friends death. Soon Ugo is dead as well, and Fabio finds himself following two rocky paths. He is sure those paths will twine together into one path as he starts to unravel the nest of lies, the perplexing stoic resistance of all those involved, and his own guilt which clouds his own objectivity.
And then there is Lole.
The girl of their dreams. The girl they each wanted to possess, but all three managed to lose her.
"Her hands deep in the pockets of a straw-coloured bathrobe. The colour made her skin look browner than usual and emphasized the blackness of her hair, which she was wearing short now. Her hips may have grown thicker, he wasn't sure. She'd become a woman, but she hadn't changed. Lole, the gypsy. She'd always been beautiful."
Fabio has screwed up every relationship he has ever had because he has already been imprinted by the perfect woman.
”You couldn’t get over loving Lole. It wasn’t a question of beauty…. Everything about her, the slightest gesture, was sensual. Lole was thinner, more willowy. Ethereal, even in the way she walked. She resembled Gradiva in the Pompeii frescoes. She seemed hardly to touch the ground. Making love to her was like letting yourself be carried away on a journey. She transported you. And, when you came, you didn’t feel as if you’d lost something, but as if you’d found something.”
So after the last woman leaves joining a growing list of women, wonderful women, who could have all been the love of his life, Fabio decides he needs to accept that it is Lole or no one.
He isn’t celibate though.
”Marie-Lou felt increasingly light in my arms. Her sweat released her body’s spices. Musk, cinnamon, pepper. Basil, too, like Lole. I loved bodies that smelled of spice. The bigger my hard-on, the more I felt her firm belly rubbing against me. We knew we’d end up in bed, and we wanted to delay it as long as possible. Until the desire become unbearable. Because afterwards, reality would catch up with us. I’d be a cop again and she’d be a hooker.”
I found myself pulling for Marie-Lou as she struggles to free herself from the life that she fell into so easily, and yet, is finding so difficult to escape. She wants Fabio to be the man on the white stallion who carries her away to a new life. He isn’t that man. He’s drinking too much, and as he turns over more and more stagnant rocks he is starting to rattle the nerves of the mafia. As he gets closer to the truth things become more dangerous for Fabio and the people he cares about.
”A blow landed on my jaw. I opened my mouth, and another blow followed in my stomach. I was going to suffocate. I was sweating gallons. I wanted to bend double, to protect my stomach. the guy with steel arms must have felt it. For a fraction of a second, he let me slide down. Then he pulled me up again, still pinned to him. I could feel his cock against my buttocks. The bastard was getting a hard on! Two more blows. Left, right. In the stomach again.”
Now Philip Marlowe might have set the record for getting knocked in the head, beat up, punched, and thrown down, but he never had to contend with some guy with a WOODY. It pissed Fabio off for days. He wasn’t too happy about getting beat up either.
”Better to be alive in hell than dead in paradise.”
Jean-Claude Izzo is considered the premiere writer of Mediterranean Noir. On a recent trip to Oxford, Mississippi I was browsing in Square Books and happened to notice this grouping of Europa Books. I pulled out the one with the red cover and noticed it had an introduction by Massimo Carlotto. Many years ago a British publisher, Orion, decided to print his Alligator books in English. My British Bookseller, there have been times when it felt like he was MINE and MINE alone, contacted me and told me I needed to check out Carlotto. He didn’t have to twist my arm too hard. He sent me two books by Carlotto, and one was even signed. I thought they were intriguingly good which has led me to several other great Mediterranean authors. I won’t bore you with the details. Like with many writers, Izzo was on my radar and then fell off my radar as my fickle book sluttiness took me in other directions. My point is a cosmic reconnection happened when I pulled this book from the shelf. It just took ten years to reach the BIG BANG.
Luckily for me this is only the first of a trilogy. Unluckily for all of us and him, Jean-Claude Izzo passed away at the age of 54 in 2000 from lung cancer. He was born in Marseille and he died in Marseille. This book might be a part of the mystery genre, but it is much more than that. It is an ode to a city.
What made this book a five star book for me was that I reached a point where the mystery, a very good one by the way, became the least interesting part of the book. I was so caught up in Fabio’s struggles with guilt, with women, and with his confusion and pain. Fabio, the self-appointed protector of the city, finds himself unable to continue to be a cop. Izzo tells us about the booze he drinks, the food he eats, the tang of the harbor air, the scent of the sweat on a woman’s neck, the music that defines him (mostly blues), and explains the politics of a city that is in the process of forgetting the very spices and vices that made it such a great city. You can label this book whatever you want, but for me it was just a fine piece of literature.
You can read my most recent book and movie reviews at http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
Check out my Facebook bloggers page at: https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
Fabio Montale grew up one of three, a trio of boys who chased girls together, committed crimes together, listened to the same music, and drank with passion. “We fought over a girl's smile, not because of the color of our skins. It created friendships, not hatreds.”
They grew up in a polyglot city where the languages merged and formed new words, new expressions, new possibilities, but then a recession hit.
”There were already quite a fair number of Arabs around in these days. Blacks, too. Vietnamese. Armenians, Greeks, Portuguese. But it didn’t cause any problems. It had started to be a problem with the downturn in the economy and the rise in unemployment. The more unemployment there was, the more some aware people became of the immigrants. And the number of Arabs seemed to be increasing along with the unemployment! In the Sixties the French had lived off the fat of the land. Now they had nothing, they wanted it for themselves! Nobody else was allowed to come and steal a crumb. And that’s what the Arabs were doing, stealing our own poverty off our plates!”
If you read enough history you see this scenario repeated over and over again. A place booms and people don’t have time or inclination to do some of the more menial jobs, so they encourage people from other cultures to move to their city to do the work they don’t want to do. The economy tanks as it invariably will do. Everybody starts to feel the squeeze. They start to notice the people of different tints and shades, and they resent them for having ANYTHING. Eventually they start to blame them for the pressure they are feeling. When we look at ourselves collectively as a species we are always so boringly predictable.
Ugo and Manu stay in the old life. Fabio becomes a cop, shocking everyone including himself. He isn’t sure if he likes the job, but he hates having to shake down Arab kids and throw them in jail to meet a quota. Manu is dead at the beginning of this novel and Ugo has come back to Marseille to avenge his friends death. Soon Ugo is dead as well, and Fabio finds himself following two rocky paths. He is sure those paths will twine together into one path as he starts to unravel the nest of lies, the perplexing stoic resistance of all those involved, and his own guilt which clouds his own objectivity.
And then there is Lole.
The girl of their dreams. The girl they each wanted to possess, but all three managed to lose her.
"Her hands deep in the pockets of a straw-coloured bathrobe. The colour made her skin look browner than usual and emphasized the blackness of her hair, which she was wearing short now. Her hips may have grown thicker, he wasn't sure. She'd become a woman, but she hadn't changed. Lole, the gypsy. She'd always been beautiful."
Fabio has screwed up every relationship he has ever had because he has already been imprinted by the perfect woman.
”You couldn’t get over loving Lole. It wasn’t a question of beauty…. Everything about her, the slightest gesture, was sensual. Lole was thinner, more willowy. Ethereal, even in the way she walked. She resembled Gradiva in the Pompeii frescoes. She seemed hardly to touch the ground. Making love to her was like letting yourself be carried away on a journey. She transported you. And, when you came, you didn’t feel as if you’d lost something, but as if you’d found something.”
So after the last woman leaves joining a growing list of women, wonderful women, who could have all been the love of his life, Fabio decides he needs to accept that it is Lole or no one.
He isn’t celibate though.
”Marie-Lou felt increasingly light in my arms. Her sweat released her body’s spices. Musk, cinnamon, pepper. Basil, too, like Lole. I loved bodies that smelled of spice. The bigger my hard-on, the more I felt her firm belly rubbing against me. We knew we’d end up in bed, and we wanted to delay it as long as possible. Until the desire become unbearable. Because afterwards, reality would catch up with us. I’d be a cop again and she’d be a hooker.”
I found myself pulling for Marie-Lou as she struggles to free herself from the life that she fell into so easily, and yet, is finding so difficult to escape. She wants Fabio to be the man on the white stallion who carries her away to a new life. He isn’t that man. He’s drinking too much, and as he turns over more and more stagnant rocks he is starting to rattle the nerves of the mafia. As he gets closer to the truth things become more dangerous for Fabio and the people he cares about.
”A blow landed on my jaw. I opened my mouth, and another blow followed in my stomach. I was going to suffocate. I was sweating gallons. I wanted to bend double, to protect my stomach. the guy with steel arms must have felt it. For a fraction of a second, he let me slide down. Then he pulled me up again, still pinned to him. I could feel his cock against my buttocks. The bastard was getting a hard on! Two more blows. Left, right. In the stomach again.”
Now Philip Marlowe might have set the record for getting knocked in the head, beat up, punched, and thrown down, but he never had to contend with some guy with a WOODY. It pissed Fabio off for days. He wasn’t too happy about getting beat up either.
”Better to be alive in hell than dead in paradise.”
Jean-Claude Izzo is considered the premiere writer of Mediterranean Noir. On a recent trip to Oxford, Mississippi I was browsing in Square Books and happened to notice this grouping of Europa Books. I pulled out the one with the red cover and noticed it had an introduction by Massimo Carlotto. Many years ago a British publisher, Orion, decided to print his Alligator books in English. My British Bookseller, there have been times when it felt like he was MINE and MINE alone, contacted me and told me I needed to check out Carlotto. He didn’t have to twist my arm too hard. He sent me two books by Carlotto, and one was even signed. I thought they were intriguingly good which has led me to several other great Mediterranean authors. I won’t bore you with the details. Like with many writers, Izzo was on my radar and then fell off my radar as my fickle book sluttiness took me in other directions. My point is a cosmic reconnection happened when I pulled this book from the shelf. It just took ten years to reach the BIG BANG.
Luckily for me this is only the first of a trilogy. Unluckily for all of us and him, Jean-Claude Izzo passed away at the age of 54 in 2000 from lung cancer. He was born in Marseille and he died in Marseille. This book might be a part of the mystery genre, but it is much more than that. It is an ode to a city.
What made this book a five star book for me was that I reached a point where the mystery, a very good one by the way, became the least interesting part of the book. I was so caught up in Fabio’s struggles with guilt, with women, and with his confusion and pain. Fabio, the self-appointed protector of the city, finds himself unable to continue to be a cop. Izzo tells us about the booze he drinks, the food he eats, the tang of the harbor air, the scent of the sweat on a woman’s neck, the music that defines him (mostly blues), and explains the politics of a city that is in the process of forgetting the very spices and vices that made it such a great city. You can label this book whatever you want, but for me it was just a fine piece of literature.
You can read my most recent book and movie reviews at http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
Check out my Facebook bloggers page at: https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
October 9, 2022
Το πρώτο μέρος της τριλογίας του Jean – Claude Izzo είναι πολύ περισσότερα από τη νουάρ ιστορία που διηγείται (υπέροχα) ο συγγραφέας της ή την ιδιότυπη ερωτική σχέση του Φαμπιό Μοντάλ (υπάρχουν τελικά και μπάτσοι που μπορείς ν’ αγαπήσεις;) με τις γυναίκες της ζωής του. Είναι ένας ύμνος στην Μασσαλία, που θα μπορούσε να είναι η πρωτεύουσα του Νότου, αν δεν ήταν η πύλη της Ανατολής "για το αλλού, την περιπέτεια και το όνειρο". Ένα τραγούδι, έστω μαύρο, γι’ αυτό το παραδοσιακό σταυροδρόμι ανθρώπων και πολιτισμών, για την πόλη "που δεν μπορείς να φωτογραφίσεις την ομορφιά της κι απλά την μοιράζεσαι", για το λιμάνι αυτό της Μεσογείου που δεν αξίζει αλλιώς να το ζει κανείς, παρά με πάθος κι ασίγαστο έρωτα.
Τόσο ωραία ιστορία για τη Massillia/Marseille και τους ανθρώπους της, είχα να διαβάσω από τον Maurice Attia∙ αλλά τότε, το χρώμα που της ταίριαζε περισσότερο ήταν το κόκκινο.
Ερωτισμός, τρυφερότητα, ποιητική διάθεση και αισιοδοξία. Ναι, ο Izzo είναι ο επόμενος αγαπημένος μου συγγραφέας.
«Αυτή είναι η ιστορία της Μασσαλίας. Η παντοτινή. Μια ουτοπία. Η μοναδική ουτοπία στη γη. Ένας τόπος όπου ο καθένας, όποιο κι αν ήταν το χρώμα του, μπορούσε να έρθει μ’ ένα καράβι ή μ’ ένα τρένο, με μια βαλίτσα στο χέρι, χωρίς δεκάρα στην τσέπη, και να γίνει ένα μ’ όλους τους άλλους. Μια πόλη όπου μόλις πάταγε το πόδι του στο έδαφος, ο κάθε άνθρωπος μπορούσε να πει: «Εδώ είναι. Στον τόπο μου βρίσκομαι.»
Τόσο ωραία ιστορία για τη Massillia/Marseille και τους ανθρώπους της, είχα να διαβάσω από τον Maurice Attia∙ αλλά τότε, το χρώμα που της ταίριαζε περισσότερο ήταν το κόκκινο.
Ερωτισμός, τρυφερότητα, ποιητική διάθεση και αισιοδοξία. Ναι, ο Izzo είναι ο επόμενος αγαπημένος μου συγγραφέας.
«Αργότερα, στην παραλία, με ρώτησε πολλά για τη ζωή μου, για τις γυναίκες της ζωής μου. Ποτέ μου δεν κατάφερα να μιλήσω για τις γυναίκες που αγάπησα. Ήθελα να κρατάω για μένα τις αγάπες που είχα εντός μου, να τις προστατεύω. Όταν τις αφηγείσαι, νάσου ξανά στην επιφάνεια οι τσακωμοί, τα δάκρυα, οι πόρτες που κλείνουν απότομα, δυνατά. Και, φυσικά, οι νύχτες που ακολουθούν μέσα σε σεντόνια τσαλακωμένα όπως η καρδιά σου. Δεν το ‘θελα αυτό. Ήθελα οι αγάπες μου πάντα να ζουν με την ομορφιά της πρώτης ματιάς, το πάθος της πρώτης νύχτας. Την τρυφερότητα του πρώτου ξυπνήματος.»
July 26, 2022
4.5/5 Estrellas
Me ha impresionado la imagen que nos transmite el autor, hijo de italiano y española, de la bomba de relojería que constituye Marsella. Mezcla de culturas, meca de inmigrantes y desheredados y paraíso de todas la mafias inimaginables. Una sociedad en si misma, que sólo el que ha nacido allí es capaz de entender.
Izzo nos transmite con pasión y con un tinte autobiográfico, se nota que ha vivido ahí, este panorama y nos introduce en una trama de asesinatos, en que la amistad, el amor y el sexo se entremezclan con el racismo y las tramas mafiosas, mostrándonos con claridad el caldo de cultivo sobre el que se aupó el Frente Nacional para consolidar su crecimiento en Francia.
Quizá la historia es demasiado confusa y ha querido tocar demasiados palos, pero la fuerza que transmite el libro lo compensa con creces. Nadie puede quedar indemne tras sumergirse en las "cities" marsellesas acompañado por poesías y ritmos españoles, italianos, franceses y árabes y vislumbrando los retazos de la vida de aquellos que llegan allí a buscase un futuro, sean exiliados, inmigrantes o franceses, o los hijos de todos estos, cuyo incierto futuro en muchos casos acaba inclinándose hacia las garras de las mafias, bien como víctimas o como ejecutores.
Nuestro protagonista (vuelvo a indicar que parece el alter ego del autor), es Fabio Montale, policía surgido de esta sociedad marsellesa, con amigos de la infancia que optaron por el lado oscuro. Intenta controlar la delincuencia en los barrios marginales de Marsella o "cities", mediante métodos opuestos a los que propugna la ultraderecha: "Francia para los franceses" Ya sabemos de que va esto ¿No?. Cuando dos amigos de la infancia mueren en extrañas circunstancias, el endeble equilibrio en el que vive, salta por los aires.....
Gratamente sorprendido. Recomendable.
Me ha impresionado la imagen que nos transmite el autor, hijo de italiano y española, de la bomba de relojería que constituye Marsella. Mezcla de culturas, meca de inmigrantes y desheredados y paraíso de todas la mafias inimaginables. Una sociedad en si misma, que sólo el que ha nacido allí es capaz de entender.
Izzo nos transmite con pasión y con un tinte autobiográfico, se nota que ha vivido ahí, este panorama y nos introduce en una trama de asesinatos, en que la amistad, el amor y el sexo se entremezclan con el racismo y las tramas mafiosas, mostrándonos con claridad el caldo de cultivo sobre el que se aupó el Frente Nacional para consolidar su crecimiento en Francia.
Quizá la historia es demasiado confusa y ha querido tocar demasiados palos, pero la fuerza que transmite el libro lo compensa con creces. Nadie puede quedar indemne tras sumergirse en las "cities" marsellesas acompañado por poesías y ritmos españoles, italianos, franceses y árabes y vislumbrando los retazos de la vida de aquellos que llegan allí a buscase un futuro, sean exiliados, inmigrantes o franceses, o los hijos de todos estos, cuyo incierto futuro en muchos casos acaba inclinándose hacia las garras de las mafias, bien como víctimas o como ejecutores.
Nuestro protagonista (vuelvo a indicar que parece el alter ego del autor), es Fabio Montale, policía surgido de esta sociedad marsellesa, con amigos de la infancia que optaron por el lado oscuro. Intenta controlar la delincuencia en los barrios marginales de Marsella o "cities", mediante métodos opuestos a los que propugna la ultraderecha: "Francia para los franceses" Ya sabemos de que va esto ¿No?. Cuando dos amigos de la infancia mueren en extrañas circunstancias, el endeble equilibrio en el que vive, salta por los aires.....
Gratamente sorprendido. Recomendable.
July 30, 2019
Ένα μεγάλο ευχαριστώ και μια συγγνώμη σε όσους φίλους με παρακαλούσαν να ξεκινήσω την Τριλογία και εγώ τους το έπαιζα δύσκολη. Τι βιβλιάρα είναι αυτή!
July 5, 2018
Perdersi a Marsiglia.
Adesso che sono arrivata quasi alla fine di Chourmo, il secondo capitolo della Trilogia, ho capito.
Ho capito che forse l'intenzione di Izzo era proprio questa, che durante la lettura di questo primo capitolo il lettore si perdesse.
Si perdesse per Marsiglia, in un dedalo di vicoli e stradine, restasse stordito da questa Babele multietnica di razze e incarnati di tutte le sfumature di colore possibili, si lasciasse rapire da questa città in cui popoli, religioni e abitudini si attraggono e si respingono come richiamate da una forza misteriosa, una forza che sembra provenire dal mare, in una infinita varietà di profumi, miasmi, colori, suoni, rumori assordanti, dove beurs nabos e babis evadono dalle Cités in cui l'emigrazione li ha a lungo confinati per confondersi nella città di cui ormai sono parte indissolubile.
Ed io mi sono persa quasi subito, nella storia di Leila, giovane e bella studentessa araba scomparsa subito dopo aver discusso la sua tesi di Laurea, e in quella di Fabio Montale, poliziotto solitario amareggiato e nostalgico, anche lui perso in una vicenda della quale non riesce a comprendere il senso, con un passato alle spalle da ricomporre come un bicchiere di vetro esploso in mille pezzi; mi sono lasciata inebriare da aromi conosciuti e familiari come il basilico e la cannella e sedurre da spezie pastis e rosé provenzali e dalla promessa di orate fragolini e gallinelle appena pescate, dall'aioli di Céleste, catturare dal fascino delle luci del Vieux Port e delle isole al tramonto, fino ad arrivare a Les Goudes «il penultimo porticciolo prima delle calanche», dove abita Fabio Montale, in una casa «costruita sulle rocce, sopra il mare. Due stanze. Una cameretta e una grande sala da pranzo e cucina, arredata con semplicità, alla bell'e meglio» con una barca «ormeggiata otto gradini più giù. Una barca da pescatori, con poppa a canoa» con la quale, quando il presente sembra non dargli tregua, esce a pescare e a pensare alla vita che è passata e a quella che verrà.
Mi sono lasciata trascinare, perdendo subito l'orientamento, anche per le pericolose viuzze del Panier, a ridosso dei docks, proprio là dove tutti mi sconsigliavano di andare, nei milieu in mezzo a puttane e marinai, avanti e indietro nel tempo, così come si passeggia su e giù per la Canabiere all'ora dell'aperitivo, in una storia nella storia in cui si incrociano tutti i traffici e gli intrallazzi della malavita marsigliese, traffici e radici che arrivano e vanno ovunque, lontano, anche a casa nostra, tanto da farmi sentire ogni tanto a Napoli o a Genova più che a Marsiglia, in Italia più che in Francia. Traffici in cui arabi, francesi, italiani, spagnoli, diventano tutti una stessa razza e parlano tutti una stessa lingua o cantano tutti lo stesso rap.
Ma io, confusa, spiazzata, disorientata, avevo un autista d'eccezione, e non ho avuto paura: sono salita a bordo della R5, ho acceso la radio e mi sono lasciata portare.
E tutto è diventato Total Khéops http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=...
Stelline sospese, perché Chourmo è più bello, e Solea chissà.
«Erano di Marsiglia. Più marsigliesi che arabi. Con la stessa convinzione dei nostri genitori.
Come lo eravamo noi, Ugo, Manu e io a quindici anni. Un giorno, Ugo aveva chiesto: 'A casa mia e da Fabio, si parla napoletano. Da te, si parla spagnolo. A scuola, impariamo il francese. Ma, in fondo, cosa siamo?'.
'Arabi' aveva risposto Manu.
Eravamo scoppiati a ridere.»
Adesso che sono arrivata quasi alla fine di Chourmo, il secondo capitolo della Trilogia, ho capito.
Ho capito che forse l'intenzione di Izzo era proprio questa, che durante la lettura di questo primo capitolo il lettore si perdesse.
Si perdesse per Marsiglia, in un dedalo di vicoli e stradine, restasse stordito da questa Babele multietnica di razze e incarnati di tutte le sfumature di colore possibili, si lasciasse rapire da questa città in cui popoli, religioni e abitudini si attraggono e si respingono come richiamate da una forza misteriosa, una forza che sembra provenire dal mare, in una infinita varietà di profumi, miasmi, colori, suoni, rumori assordanti, dove beurs nabos e babis evadono dalle Cités in cui l'emigrazione li ha a lungo confinati per confondersi nella città di cui ormai sono parte indissolubile.
Ed io mi sono persa quasi subito, nella storia di Leila, giovane e bella studentessa araba scomparsa subito dopo aver discusso la sua tesi di Laurea, e in quella di Fabio Montale, poliziotto solitario amareggiato e nostalgico, anche lui perso in una vicenda della quale non riesce a comprendere il senso, con un passato alle spalle da ricomporre come un bicchiere di vetro esploso in mille pezzi; mi sono lasciata inebriare da aromi conosciuti e familiari come il basilico e la cannella e sedurre da spezie pastis e rosé provenzali e dalla promessa di orate fragolini e gallinelle appena pescate, dall'aioli di Céleste, catturare dal fascino delle luci del Vieux Port e delle isole al tramonto, fino ad arrivare a Les Goudes «il penultimo porticciolo prima delle calanche», dove abita Fabio Montale, in una casa «costruita sulle rocce, sopra il mare. Due stanze. Una cameretta e una grande sala da pranzo e cucina, arredata con semplicità, alla bell'e meglio» con una barca «ormeggiata otto gradini più giù. Una barca da pescatori, con poppa a canoa» con la quale, quando il presente sembra non dargli tregua, esce a pescare e a pensare alla vita che è passata e a quella che verrà.
Mi sono lasciata trascinare, perdendo subito l'orientamento, anche per le pericolose viuzze del Panier, a ridosso dei docks, proprio là dove tutti mi sconsigliavano di andare, nei milieu in mezzo a puttane e marinai, avanti e indietro nel tempo, così come si passeggia su e giù per la Canabiere all'ora dell'aperitivo, in una storia nella storia in cui si incrociano tutti i traffici e gli intrallazzi della malavita marsigliese, traffici e radici che arrivano e vanno ovunque, lontano, anche a casa nostra, tanto da farmi sentire ogni tanto a Napoli o a Genova più che a Marsiglia, in Italia più che in Francia. Traffici in cui arabi, francesi, italiani, spagnoli, diventano tutti una stessa razza e parlano tutti una stessa lingua o cantano tutti lo stesso rap.
Ma io, confusa, spiazzata, disorientata, avevo un autista d'eccezione, e non ho avuto paura: sono salita a bordo della R5, ho acceso la radio e mi sono lasciata portare.
E tutto è diventato Total Khéops http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=...
Stelline sospese, perché Chourmo è più bello, e Solea chissà.
«Erano di Marsiglia. Più marsigliesi che arabi. Con la stessa convinzione dei nostri genitori.
Come lo eravamo noi, Ugo, Manu e io a quindici anni. Un giorno, Ugo aveva chiesto: 'A casa mia e da Fabio, si parla napoletano. Da te, si parla spagnolo. A scuola, impariamo il francese. Ma, in fondo, cosa siamo?'.
'Arabi' aveva risposto Manu.
Eravamo scoppiati a ridere.»
February 23, 2016
Χτες βράδυ τελείωσα το πρώτο βιβλίο της νουάρ τριλογίας του Ζαν-Κλωντ Ιζζό για τη Μασσαλία, «Το μαύρο τραγούδι της Μασσαλίας», σε μετάφραση Ριχάρδου Σωμερίτη (εκδόσεις Πόλις, 1999). Στο τέλος του βιβλίου υπάρχει ένα επίμετρο του μεταφραστή που κλείνει με τα εξής εντυπωσιακά προφητικά λόγια που συνοψίζουν 16 χρόνια πριν τις προκλήσεις της σημερινής εξάπλωσης της ξενοφοβίας και του φασισμού:
Διαβάζοντας τα βιβλία του Ιζζό, κυρίως τα τρία πρώτα, της σειράς «νουάρ», σκεφτόμουνα πόσο επίκαιρα είναι και για μας, παρά τις διαφορετικές ως ένα σημείο καταστάσεις που ζούμε. Πώς μπορούμε να να οργανωθούμε, ηθικά και πρακτικά, για να παραμείνουμε άνθρωποι, για να μην μας οδηγήσουν στο μίσος, στη βία, στο να χειροκροτούμε τα βάρβαρα ανθρωπομαζώματα μεταναστών και τους υποψήφιους (και όχι μόνο) δολοφόνους που «παίρνουν το νόμο στα χέρια τους»;
Τα όσα περιγράφει ο Ιζζό, με απελπισία αλλά και με κάποια πίστη στον άνθρωπο, είναι αυτά που δεν έχουμε ζήσει αλλά που είναι πολύ πιθανό ότι θα ζήσουμε. Τα όσα λένε οι εγκληματίες-φασίστες που μας παρουσιάζει, τα διαβάζουμε ήδη σε επώνυμες στήλες εφημερίδων και τα ακούμε σε τηλεοράσεις και ραδιόφωνα. Και το περιθώριο που μας ιστορεί, νάτο, κάτω από τα μάτια μας δημιουργείται κι εδώ, συχνά με τη συμπαράσταση (ανώνυμη) κυκλωμάτων μαύρου χρήματος και μαύρης πολιτικής.
https://gazakas.wordpress.com/2016/02...
Διαβάζοντας τα βιβλία του Ιζζό, κυρίως τα τρία πρώτα, της σειράς «νουάρ», σκεφτόμουνα πόσο επίκαιρα είναι και για μας, παρά τις διαφορετικές ως ένα σημείο καταστάσεις που ζούμε. Πώς μπορούμε να να οργανωθούμε, ηθικά και πρακτικά, για να παραμείνουμε άνθρωποι, για να μην μας οδηγήσουν στο μίσος, στη βία, στο να χειροκροτούμε τα βάρβαρα ανθρωπομαζώματα μεταναστών και τους υποψήφιους (και όχι μόνο) δολοφόνους που «παίρνουν το νόμο στα χέρια τους»;
Τα όσα περιγράφει ο Ιζζό, με απελπισία αλλά και με κάποια πίστη στον άνθρωπο, είναι αυτά που δεν έχουμε ζήσει αλλά που είναι πολύ πιθανό ότι θα ζήσουμε. Τα όσα λένε οι εγκληματίες-φασίστες που μας παρουσιάζει, τα διαβάζουμε ήδη σε επώνυμες στήλες εφημερίδων και τα ακούμε σε τηλεοράσεις και ραδιόφωνα. Και το περιθώριο που μας ιστορεί, νάτο, κάτω από τα μάτια μας δημιουργείται κι εδώ, συχνά με τη συμπαράσταση (ανώνυμη) κυκλωμάτων μαύρου χρήματος και μαύρης πολιτικής.
https://gazakas.wordpress.com/2016/02...
August 2, 2020
Τέλος του 1ου μέρους της τριλογίας του Izzo και δηλώνω ενθουσιασμενη. Η Μασσαλία ζωντανεύει στα μάτια μας με ήρωες περιθωριακους κι έναν μπάτσο αρκούντως σκοτεινό και κατεστραμμενο. Άργησα να ανακαλύψω αυτή την τριλογία αλλά αυτό ειναι το υπέροχο με τα βιβλία :ο χρόνος είναι πάντα σχετικός
October 21, 2015
Izzo was a Marsailles poet and writer, who died at the age of 51 of lung cancer, and who is best known for this trilogy.
There is a lot to like in this book. Some of the writing really works; but some of it is ham-fisted and clichéd. The plot gets intense...too intense and doesn't really work as a result. The characters are sometimes flat...and there is too much action, the hero gets laid too much and too easily, and so forth. But still..., it sometimes starts to cruise..."super froid".
This was Izzo's first novel, and so there is some hope that the next two installments are more successful. But they're out of print and cost an arm and a leg....
There is a lot to like in this book. Some of the writing really works; but some of it is ham-fisted and clichéd. The plot gets intense...too intense and doesn't really work as a result. The characters are sometimes flat...and there is too much action, the hero gets laid too much and too easily, and so forth. But still..., it sometimes starts to cruise..."super froid".
This was Izzo's first novel, and so there is some hope that the next two installments are more successful. But they're out of print and cost an arm and a leg....
September 15, 2024
My heart had dried up. So much violence. If God existed, I’d have strangled him on the spot. Without batting an eyelid. And with all the fury of the damned.
Disillusioned cop Fabio Montale turns vigilante when his friends become victims of street violence. Sounds formulaic, but this first Marseilles novel by Jean-Claude Izzo hit all the right buttons of my slightly weary and over-indulged interest in the noir genre. Izzo may have constructed his story from the usual building blocks of the classic gumshoe walking down the mean streets of a city overrun by gangs and corrupt cops, but his love for his home city and its culture, his unique style that combines investigative journalism and social engagement with a poet’s sensibility, were much stronger pulls than the Byzantine twists of the actual investigation,
Marseilles isn’t a city for tourists. There’s nothing to see. Its beauty can’t be photographed. It can only be shared. It’s a place where you have to take sides, be passionately for or against. Only then can you see what there is to see. And you realize, too late, that you’re in the middle of a tragedy. An ancient tragedy in which the hero is death. In Marseilles, even to lose you have to know how to fight.
A man named Ugo, a wanted criminal, returns to Marseilles to avenge the death of his childhood friend Manu. He is pointed in the direction of one the city’s criminal bosses, and he gets the job done, only to be immediately gunned down by trigger-happy cops who somebody already tipped of.
My colleagues had been playing cowboys. Shoot to kill: that was their basic rule. They followed the General Custer principle that the only good Indian was a dead Indian. And in Marseilles, everyone – or almost everyone – was an Indian.
We learn next that Ugo, Manu and Fabio grew up together in an impoverished North Marseilles ghetto for immigrants and turned early to a life of petty crime out of sheer despair at the cards life has dealt them. When the minor hold-ups and black market deals turn deadly, Ugo leaves town, Manu shacks up with the beautiful gypsy girl all three boys are in love with [Lole] and Fabio becomes a cop, dreaming of helping other young immigrants with their problems before they are ground to a pulp by the system.
We had nothing. We hadn’t even learned a trade. No future. Nothing but life. But a life without a future is worse than no life at all.
Decades later, Fabio is a bitter middle-aged man, coasting through a thankless job of community outreach with a new unit named Neighborhood Surveillance Squad, despised by his colleagues and mistrusted by the local gangs. He has taken refuge in the simpler pleasures of life, pretending that his heart is armored against all the pain he had witnessed in his years on the force. But there is an unwritten code to the underworld life of Marseilles, and there is his own conscience to answer to.
I felt suffocated. And alone. More alone than ever. Every year, I ostentatiously crossed out of my address book any friend who’d made a racist remark, neglected those whose only ambition was a new car and a Club Med vacation, and forgot all those who played the Lottery. I loved fishing and silence. Walking in the hills. Drinking cold Cassis, Lagavulin or Oban late into the night. I didn’t talk much. Had opinions about everything. Life and death. Good and evil. I was a film buff. Loved music. I’d stopped reading contemporary novels. More than anything, I loathed half-hearted, spineless people.
Things were falling apart. I’d spent the last few years in a state of calm indifference, as if I’d said goodbye to the world. Nothing really touched me. The old friends who’d stopped calling. The women who’d left me. I’d put my dreams and my anger on hold. I was getting older and I’d lost all desire, all passion. I fucked hookers. Happiness was at the end of a fishing line.
I’d had more than I could take of human beings. All these stories were like a microcosm of the world’s corruption. On a grand scale, it gave rise to wars, massacres, genocide, fanaticism, dictatorship.
This world-weary bitterness was very effective for me when coupled with the stories Fabio Montale has to tell us about growing up in the slums of a Mediterranean port, when he is describing the current strife of poor immigrants that keep dreaming of making a new life for their families here only to be painted black by populist politicians, abusive cops and right wing militias who blame them for all the ills of society. That Custer early reference is amply illustrated here.
Honor was central to Marseilles life. “You have no honor,” was the worst insult you could say to someone. You could kill a man for the sake of honor. Your wife’s lover, the guy who’d insulted your mother, or wronged your sister.
Fabio Montale’s childhood friends had been set up for a fall. A pretty Arab girl who had tender feelings for him [Leila] is found raped and killed in a ditch. His contacts in the criminal underworld are warning him to lay off as a power struggle between Neapolitans, North Africans and white nationalists is unfolding. Should Fabio turn his back on the city and seek refuge in his single malt whiskies, his gourmet meals and his jazz and blues records?
Could a cop take the law into his own hands? Make sure justice was done? Did anyone even care about justice when it was just criminals killing criminals?
I know it isn’t just a question of revenge. It’s the feeling there are some things you can’t let pass. If you did, you wouldn’t be able to look at yourself in the mirror afterwards.
>>><<<>>><<<
Part of the reason I liked this story so much is probably the fact that Izzo speaks my own language. I’m not referring here to the Provencal dialect, but to the cultural and social references that are both important in my own life and extremely familiar. I’ve visited Provence a couple of times on vacation, although not as far south as Marseilles, and I am a big fan not only of single malts or Pastis, of classic jazz and blues recordings [Astor Piazzola, Gerry Mulligan, Buddy Guy and Jeff Beck are name dropped by Fabio], but also of Marcel Pagnol and of Ray Bradbury, whose novel Death is a Lonely Business plays a role in the plot. Heck, there’s even a reference to stuffed peppers Romanian style used to illustrate the multicultural millieu of this open port at the Mediterrana, the inner sea that has cross-pollinated so many European cultures.
This book is so much more than a by-the-numbers crime story. It is Izzo’s love song to his native city and its hardy inhabitants. He’s done for Marseilles what Carlos Ruiz Zafon has done for Barcelona or Ben Aaronovitch for London, just as his mentor Marcel Pagnol has done for Provence.
Maybe I was an idiot. I was more and more disconnected from reality. I moved through Marseilles, but I’d stopped seeing anything except the violence and racism simmering just under the surface. I was starting to forget that life was more than that. That this was a city where, despite everything, people liked to live, to have a good time. That happiness was a new idea every day, even if the night ended with some strong-arm guy checking your identity.
That was the history of Marseilles, and always had been. A utopia. The only utopia in the world. A place where anyone, of any color, could get off a boat or a train with his suitcase in his hand and not a cent in his pocket, and melt into the crowd. A city where, as soon as he’d set foot on its soil, this man could say, “This is it. I’m home.”
Marseilles belongs to the people who live in it.
I look forward to the next two books in the series.
Disillusioned cop Fabio Montale turns vigilante when his friends become victims of street violence. Sounds formulaic, but this first Marseilles novel by Jean-Claude Izzo hit all the right buttons of my slightly weary and over-indulged interest in the noir genre. Izzo may have constructed his story from the usual building blocks of the classic gumshoe walking down the mean streets of a city overrun by gangs and corrupt cops, but his love for his home city and its culture, his unique style that combines investigative journalism and social engagement with a poet’s sensibility, were much stronger pulls than the Byzantine twists of the actual investigation,
Marseilles isn’t a city for tourists. There’s nothing to see. Its beauty can’t be photographed. It can only be shared. It’s a place where you have to take sides, be passionately for or against. Only then can you see what there is to see. And you realize, too late, that you’re in the middle of a tragedy. An ancient tragedy in which the hero is death. In Marseilles, even to lose you have to know how to fight.
A man named Ugo, a wanted criminal, returns to Marseilles to avenge the death of his childhood friend Manu. He is pointed in the direction of one the city’s criminal bosses, and he gets the job done, only to be immediately gunned down by trigger-happy cops who somebody already tipped of.
My colleagues had been playing cowboys. Shoot to kill: that was their basic rule. They followed the General Custer principle that the only good Indian was a dead Indian. And in Marseilles, everyone – or almost everyone – was an Indian.
We learn next that Ugo, Manu and Fabio grew up together in an impoverished North Marseilles ghetto for immigrants and turned early to a life of petty crime out of sheer despair at the cards life has dealt them. When the minor hold-ups and black market deals turn deadly, Ugo leaves town, Manu shacks up with the beautiful gypsy girl all three boys are in love with [Lole] and Fabio becomes a cop, dreaming of helping other young immigrants with their problems before they are ground to a pulp by the system.
We had nothing. We hadn’t even learned a trade. No future. Nothing but life. But a life without a future is worse than no life at all.
Decades later, Fabio is a bitter middle-aged man, coasting through a thankless job of community outreach with a new unit named Neighborhood Surveillance Squad, despised by his colleagues and mistrusted by the local gangs. He has taken refuge in the simpler pleasures of life, pretending that his heart is armored against all the pain he had witnessed in his years on the force. But there is an unwritten code to the underworld life of Marseilles, and there is his own conscience to answer to.
I felt suffocated. And alone. More alone than ever. Every year, I ostentatiously crossed out of my address book any friend who’d made a racist remark, neglected those whose only ambition was a new car and a Club Med vacation, and forgot all those who played the Lottery. I loved fishing and silence. Walking in the hills. Drinking cold Cassis, Lagavulin or Oban late into the night. I didn’t talk much. Had opinions about everything. Life and death. Good and evil. I was a film buff. Loved music. I’d stopped reading contemporary novels. More than anything, I loathed half-hearted, spineless people.
Things were falling apart. I’d spent the last few years in a state of calm indifference, as if I’d said goodbye to the world. Nothing really touched me. The old friends who’d stopped calling. The women who’d left me. I’d put my dreams and my anger on hold. I was getting older and I’d lost all desire, all passion. I fucked hookers. Happiness was at the end of a fishing line.
I’d had more than I could take of human beings. All these stories were like a microcosm of the world’s corruption. On a grand scale, it gave rise to wars, massacres, genocide, fanaticism, dictatorship.
This world-weary bitterness was very effective for me when coupled with the stories Fabio Montale has to tell us about growing up in the slums of a Mediterranean port, when he is describing the current strife of poor immigrants that keep dreaming of making a new life for their families here only to be painted black by populist politicians, abusive cops and right wing militias who blame them for all the ills of society. That Custer early reference is amply illustrated here.
Honor was central to Marseilles life. “You have no honor,” was the worst insult you could say to someone. You could kill a man for the sake of honor. Your wife’s lover, the guy who’d insulted your mother, or wronged your sister.
Fabio Montale’s childhood friends had been set up for a fall. A pretty Arab girl who had tender feelings for him [Leila] is found raped and killed in a ditch. His contacts in the criminal underworld are warning him to lay off as a power struggle between Neapolitans, North Africans and white nationalists is unfolding. Should Fabio turn his back on the city and seek refuge in his single malt whiskies, his gourmet meals and his jazz and blues records?
Could a cop take the law into his own hands? Make sure justice was done? Did anyone even care about justice when it was just criminals killing criminals?
I know it isn’t just a question of revenge. It’s the feeling there are some things you can’t let pass. If you did, you wouldn’t be able to look at yourself in the mirror afterwards.
>>><<<>>><<<
Part of the reason I liked this story so much is probably the fact that Izzo speaks my own language. I’m not referring here to the Provencal dialect, but to the cultural and social references that are both important in my own life and extremely familiar. I’ve visited Provence a couple of times on vacation, although not as far south as Marseilles, and I am a big fan not only of single malts or Pastis, of classic jazz and blues recordings [Astor Piazzola, Gerry Mulligan, Buddy Guy and Jeff Beck are name dropped by Fabio], but also of Marcel Pagnol and of Ray Bradbury, whose novel Death is a Lonely Business plays a role in the plot. Heck, there’s even a reference to stuffed peppers Romanian style used to illustrate the multicultural millieu of this open port at the Mediterrana, the inner sea that has cross-pollinated so many European cultures.
This book is so much more than a by-the-numbers crime story. It is Izzo’s love song to his native city and its hardy inhabitants. He’s done for Marseilles what Carlos Ruiz Zafon has done for Barcelona or Ben Aaronovitch for London, just as his mentor Marcel Pagnol has done for Provence.
Maybe I was an idiot. I was more and more disconnected from reality. I moved through Marseilles, but I’d stopped seeing anything except the violence and racism simmering just under the surface. I was starting to forget that life was more than that. That this was a city where, despite everything, people liked to live, to have a good time. That happiness was a new idea every day, even if the night ended with some strong-arm guy checking your identity.
That was the history of Marseilles, and always had been. A utopia. The only utopia in the world. A place where anyone, of any color, could get off a boat or a train with his suitcase in his hand and not a cent in his pocket, and melt into the crowd. A city where, as soon as he’d set foot on its soil, this man could say, “This is it. I’m home.”
Marseilles belongs to the people who live in it.
I look forward to the next two books in the series.
July 29, 2022
Total kheops
Novela negra ambientada en una Marsella convulsa por la delincuencia debida a diferentes grupos que dominan la ciudad.
El autor, una persona que conocía muy bien la mafia marsellesa nos presenta una historia de asesinatos y ajustes de cuentas entre diferentes grupos culturales que se odian entre si.
El protagonista es un policía emigrante que tiene que investigar las muertes de amigos suyos de la infancia.
La novela es muy negra, muy triste, mucha nostalgia de la infancia y los buenos momentos pasados en la juventud. Todo el mundo los tiene. Creo que el autor se refleja en el personaje principal. Parece como si se sintiera culpable de haber tomado el camino correcto y sus amigos no.
La novela tuvo mucho éxito en los años 90 recibió el premio de mejor novela francesa, luego aparecieron dos libros más. Se hizo una serie para TV con mucha polémica ya que el actor que la interpretó, Alain Delon, estaba en contra de las ideas políticas de Jean-Claude Izzo que era comunista.
Novela negra ambientada en una Marsella convulsa por la delincuencia debida a diferentes grupos que dominan la ciudad.
El autor, una persona que conocía muy bien la mafia marsellesa nos presenta una historia de asesinatos y ajustes de cuentas entre diferentes grupos culturales que se odian entre si.
El protagonista es un policía emigrante que tiene que investigar las muertes de amigos suyos de la infancia.
La novela es muy negra, muy triste, mucha nostalgia de la infancia y los buenos momentos pasados en la juventud. Todo el mundo los tiene. Creo que el autor se refleja en el personaje principal. Parece como si se sintiera culpable de haber tomado el camino correcto y sus amigos no.
La novela tuvo mucho éxito en los años 90 recibió el premio de mejor novela francesa, luego aparecieron dos libros más. Se hizo una serie para TV con mucha polémica ya que el actor que la interpretó, Alain Delon, estaba en contra de las ideas políticas de Jean-Claude Izzo que era comunista.
December 11, 2023
La parte poliziesca di questo noir mediterraneo lirico e duro è lo strato superficiale, sotto c'è il racconto splendido e brutale di una vita e di una città-mondo, Marsiglia, vera protagonista dell'opera.
September 1, 2017
Ho le idee piuttosto chiare su questo mio primo libro di Izzo.
Bellissime le atmosfere di Marsiglia, una città solare ma fosca, vivace ma degradata, divisa tra lo splendore del suo paesaggio e la violenza dei suoi bassifondi.
Bellissimo lo stile fluido con toni poetici e nostalgici, che aiuta ad assaporare la lettura provando, di volta in volta, emozioni forte indipendentemente dalla trama.
Bocciata invece la storia, un minestrone confuso di malavitosi, retate, sparatori e affini, priva di alcun filo logico: più che un noir mi è sembrato un hard boiled in versione europea nel quale tantissimi nomi e azioni si susseguono e si rincorrono senza che il lettore abbia modo di capire chi faccia cosa e cosa stia effettivamente succedendo. E purtroppo trame simili non fanno per me. Probabilmente lo scopo di Izzo non è tanto quello di congegnare una trama logica e comprensibile, quanto quello di creare, attraverso di essa, una particolare atmosfera da annusare e gustare. Il che è apprezzabile ma io, personalmente, per godere completamente di un libro, devo pur comprenderlo, e qui di comprensibile ho trovato ben poco. Un' altra cosa che ho trovato fastidiosa è la mania del protagonista, Fabio Montale, per le donne, presenti a vagonate (tra cugine, parenti, amiche, prostitute e amanti) e tutte caratterizzate allo stesso modo (tranne la prostituta, Marie-Lou), a contribuire alla confusione del lettore sulla storia narrata.
In conclusione sì a forma, no a contenuto. Splendido, però, il finale.
Bellissime le atmosfere di Marsiglia, una città solare ma fosca, vivace ma degradata, divisa tra lo splendore del suo paesaggio e la violenza dei suoi bassifondi.
Bellissimo lo stile fluido con toni poetici e nostalgici, che aiuta ad assaporare la lettura provando, di volta in volta, emozioni forte indipendentemente dalla trama.
Bocciata invece la storia, un minestrone confuso di malavitosi, retate, sparatori e affini, priva di alcun filo logico: più che un noir mi è sembrato un hard boiled in versione europea nel quale tantissimi nomi e azioni si susseguono e si rincorrono senza che il lettore abbia modo di capire chi faccia cosa e cosa stia effettivamente succedendo. E purtroppo trame simili non fanno per me. Probabilmente lo scopo di Izzo non è tanto quello di congegnare una trama logica e comprensibile, quanto quello di creare, attraverso di essa, una particolare atmosfera da annusare e gustare. Il che è apprezzabile ma io, personalmente, per godere completamente di un libro, devo pur comprenderlo, e qui di comprensibile ho trovato ben poco. Un' altra cosa che ho trovato fastidiosa è la mania del protagonista, Fabio Montale, per le donne, presenti a vagonate (tra cugine, parenti, amiche, prostitute e amanti) e tutte caratterizzate allo stesso modo (tranne la prostituta, Marie-Lou), a contribuire alla confusione del lettore sulla storia narrata.
In conclusione sì a forma, no a contenuto. Splendido, però, il finale.
July 28, 2021
“Bisognava aspettare. Non rassegnarsi. Puntare su Marsiglia. Credere che sarebbe sopravvissuta a questa nuova mescolanza. Sarebbe rinata. Marsiglia ne aveva viste tante.”
La prima storia di Fabio Montale, figlio di emigrati napoletani, adolescente povero e teppistello con gli inseparabili amici Ugo e Manu e ora sbirro a Marsiglia.
Uno sbirro anomalo, che preferisce la compagnia di arabi e delinquenti a quella dei tutori della legge.
Con Fabio Montale conosciamo i quartieri equivoci di Marsiglia, ascoltiamo musica, beviamo Lagavulin, ci immergiamo in storie torbide d’amore e di rabbia, ci ubriachiamo di tristezza e di Mediterraneo.
Con una scrittura tesa e asciutta, Izzo ci immerge nelle atmosfere cupe delle sue storie e nell’azzurro cenere della sua profonda malinconia.
La prima storia di Fabio Montale, figlio di emigrati napoletani, adolescente povero e teppistello con gli inseparabili amici Ugo e Manu e ora sbirro a Marsiglia.
Uno sbirro anomalo, che preferisce la compagnia di arabi e delinquenti a quella dei tutori della legge.
Con Fabio Montale conosciamo i quartieri equivoci di Marsiglia, ascoltiamo musica, beviamo Lagavulin, ci immergiamo in storie torbide d’amore e di rabbia, ci ubriachiamo di tristezza e di Mediterraneo.
Con una scrittura tesa e asciutta, Izzo ci immerge nelle atmosfere cupe delle sue storie e nell’azzurro cenere della sua profonda malinconia.
September 11, 2012
Everyone has now heard the story of the Chevy Nova and its inexplicably poor sales record in Spanish speaking countries. Today, walking past General Dufour's statue on my way home, I saw the French version: a truck with the name "KHEOPS CONSTRUCTION" on the side. I've just looked them on the web. They're apparently a successful company that's been doing business here in Geneva for a while.
Well, perhaps the slang in Izzo's book is very specific to Marseille - I'm sure I don't know. But in that part of the world, at any rate, "total khéops" apparently means something like "complete fuckup"...
February 13, 2020
Αν υπήρχε μεγαλύτερη βαθμολογία, αυτό θα ήταν ένα απο τα βιβλία στο οποίο θα την έβαζα.
April 3, 2010
It's chaos allright. So much so, that I had some trouble following what was going on in the last half of the book. But with noir, I often look for atmosphere and attitude rather than clear plots (see Chandler on this), and Izzo delivers both of those in spades. He's also very good when it comes to music and food. (Actually, he may overdo it with the food, since there are several times when he's on the case, and some mouth watering French dish gets in the way.) But for all the back stabbing and killing going on, it's the city of Marseilles that's the real star. Marseilles is one the great racial and cultural mixing bowls of Europe, and has been since, I suppose, Roman times. Toss into that mix, corruption and crime, Neo Nazi types, guns, and gangsters, and it's hard to miss. The hero in this, Fabio Montale, a cop, lurches from one crime to the next. His seeming disgust for humanity is balanced out by his decency and loyalty to friends and the city that is, for him, both Heaven and Hell. And he does love the ladies (these passages (along with the food) are among the best.
August 23, 2019
Nice to get back to some Mediterranean noir. The descriptions of Marseille were incredible and just captured the city as I remembered it in the mid 70s right down to the smells and the feel you got walking in certain areas of the city. I also loved having a hero who not only reflected on the city, but also on poetry, literature, and jazz. Having said that, those two points were the saving grace of a novel which was otherwise characterized by its fairly clichéd action and superficially drawn characters.
August 31, 2016
Fabio is walking through the streets of Marseilles with his cousin when two fourteen year-old lads pick a fight with him. They are pulled apart by a stranger. Fabio starts a new school in September, and on the first day the same two lads, Ugo and Manu, walk up to him and shake his hand. They become inseperable, until one day Fabio has a change of heart and leaves a life of crime behind to become a cop. Years later he finds himself standing over the body of Ugo, shot dead by police after gunning down the man who killed Manu. Fabio is the last one left. Fabio is a neighbourhood cop who finds himself spending more of his time trying to talk to angry youths, than actually chasing down criminals, but his quest for honour and revenge takes him into the deepest, darkest heart of Marseilles' criminal underworld. Far out of his depth.
There is something gorgeous about this book; the realistic characters, the exquisite setting, and even the chapter titles, all beginning "In which". But I was torn over whether to give this book three or four stars, and eventually decided on three because of a matter of personal taste. Most of the writing consists of lengthy, descriptive paragraphs. The descriptions of place and people, especially background information on Marseilles, I didn't mind; it was more the descriptions of Fabio's thoughts and emotions that I found a bit wearisome, but not enough to spoil the overall story. Overall, 'Total Chaos' was an engaging read, a mixture of familiar and new in the genre, setting, and plot.
"Manu's death had shaken all that. But I don't suppose it had registered that much on my personal Richter scale. Ugo's death, on the other hand, was like a slap in the face. It startled me out of an uneasy sleep, and when I woke up, I saw I was still alive, and how stupid I'd been."
There is something gorgeous about this book; the realistic characters, the exquisite setting, and even the chapter titles, all beginning "In which". But I was torn over whether to give this book three or four stars, and eventually decided on three because of a matter of personal taste. Most of the writing consists of lengthy, descriptive paragraphs. The descriptions of place and people, especially background information on Marseilles, I didn't mind; it was more the descriptions of Fabio's thoughts and emotions that I found a bit wearisome, but not enough to spoil the overall story. Overall, 'Total Chaos' was an engaging read, a mixture of familiar and new in the genre, setting, and plot.
"Manu's death had shaken all that. But I don't suppose it had registered that much on my personal Richter scale. Ugo's death, on the other hand, was like a slap in the face. It startled me out of an uneasy sleep, and when I woke up, I saw I was still alive, and how stupid I'd been."
August 3, 2024
“Marseilles isn't a city for tourists. There's nothing to see. Its beauty can't be photographed. It can only be shared. It's a place where you have to take sides, be passionately for or against. Only then can you see what there is to see. And you realize, too late, that you're in the middle of a tragedy. An ancient tragedy in which the hero is death. In Marseilles, even to lose you have to know how to fight.”
Although Total Chaos was not the first for French author Jean-Claude Izzo, it was this novel - the first of the Marseilles Trilogy - that launched Izzo into European stardom in 1995 as one of the rising figures in the so-called "Mediterranean Noir" subgenre. At first glance, a reader might wonder why this is: after all, the plot is kind of a generic mess with some bad guys, some action, a lot of stock characters who can easily be confused with one another (I mean, two characters whose names both start with "Z?" come on!), a complete lack of meaningful roles for females and some stylistic quirks in which you might not know when the plot suddenly shifts to a flashback. But in the end it's the two main characters who save the day; first the downtrodden world-weary Detective Fabio (definitely not to be confused with the Romance Novel Cover Model of the same name) and second but more importantly the melting pot port city of Marseilles itself, which is brought to loving life, warts and all, on these pages in a far grittier fashion than the local tourism board might appreciate.
“Days are only beautiful early in the morning. I should have remembered that. Dawn is merely an illusion that the world is beautiful. When the world opens its eyes, reality reasserts itself, and you're back with the same old shit.”
Although Total Chaos was not the first for French author Jean-Claude Izzo, it was this novel - the first of the Marseilles Trilogy - that launched Izzo into European stardom in 1995 as one of the rising figures in the so-called "Mediterranean Noir" subgenre. At first glance, a reader might wonder why this is: after all, the plot is kind of a generic mess with some bad guys, some action, a lot of stock characters who can easily be confused with one another (I mean, two characters whose names both start with "Z?" come on!), a complete lack of meaningful roles for females and some stylistic quirks in which you might not know when the plot suddenly shifts to a flashback. But in the end it's the two main characters who save the day; first the downtrodden world-weary Detective Fabio (definitely not to be confused with the Romance Novel Cover Model of the same name) and second but more importantly the melting pot port city of Marseilles itself, which is brought to loving life, warts and all, on these pages in a far grittier fashion than the local tourism board might appreciate.
“Days are only beautiful early in the morning. I should have remembered that. Dawn is merely an illusion that the world is beautiful. When the world opens its eyes, reality reasserts itself, and you're back with the same old shit.”
September 22, 2020
Toks pusė velnio noir detektyvas su stipriu pietietišku prieskoniu. Yra visi būtini elementai - niūri ir tamsi atmosmefera, banditų gaujos, korumpuoti policininkai, fatališkos moterys ir vienišas, nuolat kenčiatis pagrindinis veikėjas. Ir kas be ko, jis beveik niekad neišsiblaivo :) Pietietiškas prieskonis tai daug muzikos, virtuvės ir moterų. Nėra to šalčio būdingo skandinaviškiems detektyvams. Smarkiai užkabinama emigrantų ir rasizmo tema.
Siužetas puikiai atitinka knygos pavadinimą - totalus chaosas. Nors pabaigoje viskas maždaug susidėlioja į savo lentynas. Pagrindinis veikėjas yra policininkas bandantis išsiaiškinti dėl ko žuvo du jo vaikystės draugai. Bet toks jausmas, kad jis smarkiai neįtakoja įvykių (nor juose ir dalyvauja) ir galų viskas išsiriša savaime. Chaose susigaudyt nepadeda ir veikėjų gausa, kai kurie su panašiais vardais - Dzuka ir Dzampa, Perolis ir Pirelis, Lola ir Leila. Kadangi Marselyje buvęs nesu, nieko neslako ir gatvių, rajonų, kvartalų, salų (išskyrus gal Ifo pilies) pavadinimai - o jų daug.
Bet apskritai knyga paliko gana teigiamą įspūdį. Gaila į lietuvių kalbą nėra išverstos kitos triologijos dalys - būtinai perskaityčiau.
Siužetas puikiai atitinka knygos pavadinimą - totalus chaosas. Nors pabaigoje viskas maždaug susidėlioja į savo lentynas. Pagrindinis veikėjas yra policininkas bandantis išsiaiškinti dėl ko žuvo du jo vaikystės draugai. Bet toks jausmas, kad jis smarkiai neįtakoja įvykių (nor juose ir dalyvauja) ir galų viskas išsiriša savaime. Chaose susigaudyt nepadeda ir veikėjų gausa, kai kurie su panašiais vardais - Dzuka ir Dzampa, Perolis ir Pirelis, Lola ir Leila. Kadangi Marselyje buvęs nesu, nieko neslako ir gatvių, rajonų, kvartalų, salų (išskyrus gal Ifo pilies) pavadinimai - o jų daug.
Bet apskritai knyga paliko gana teigiamą įspūdį. Gaila į lietuvių kalbą nėra išverstos kitos triologijos dalys - būtinai perskaityčiau.
July 10, 2025
4.5 stelle..
un ottimo noir mediterraneo.. Marsiglia è resa in modo eccezionale, vivida, profumata, saporita.. un noir pregno di umanità, di sentimento e di fragilità.. Ugo, Manu, Fabio e Lole, intrecciati nell'amore, nella vita, nella morte.. e poi Leila, Babette, i poliziotti, i delinquenti, gli arabi, i mafiosi, gli innamorati, e tutti gli altri.. personaggi eccezionali, tratteggiati sapientemente, ognuno con le sue ferite..
non raggiunge le 5 stelle per me solo per qualche sbavatura: un po' troppi elenchi di posti e luoghi un filo noiosi, la risoluzione finale un po' meno eccitante di come sembrava, e il fatto che, Ok siamo in un noir, ma che tutti, proprio tutti devono morire, sembra un po' forzato..
resta un'ottima scoperta!!
un ottimo noir mediterraneo.. Marsiglia è resa in modo eccezionale, vivida, profumata, saporita.. un noir pregno di umanità, di sentimento e di fragilità.. Ugo, Manu, Fabio e Lole, intrecciati nell'amore, nella vita, nella morte.. e poi Leila, Babette, i poliziotti, i delinquenti, gli arabi, i mafiosi, gli innamorati, e tutti gli altri.. personaggi eccezionali, tratteggiati sapientemente, ognuno con le sue ferite..
non raggiunge le 5 stelle per me solo per qualche sbavatura: un po' troppi elenchi di posti e luoghi un filo noiosi, la risoluzione finale un po' meno eccitante di come sembrava, e il fatto che, Ok siamo in un noir, ma che tutti, proprio tutti devono morire, sembra un po' forzato..
resta un'ottima scoperta!!
January 5, 2011
Very well reviewed, lots of 'indescribable' 'nouveau-detective' ! buzz, but fails to support the hype.
Two major things going on here, and both subject to all of the issues that threaten any translated fiction.
First is that the cast of characters here is pretty large and largely ill-defined. You've got the moody, iconoclast investigator, his diverse stable of foxy femmes, and the good & bad guys in the a) police force and b) mob. Business as usual there. But the large array of loosely-connected political / business / organized-crime associations gets bewildering after a while, and makes me think that maybe the reader is expected to know something of the territory as general knowledge. So maybe the lack of exposition has to do with this being an obvious roman a clef for anyone familiar with Marseilles ... but a question mark for anyone else.
Second is that moody and iconoclastic investigator guy. At first it's okay to put up with his tedious lists of cuisine, wines, music and meandering lovelorn thoughts, and then it gets to be not so okay. Yeah, okay, french-- yeah, so-tough-but-intuitively-sensitive, yeah, cherchez-la-femme, yeah yeah, sure. But when you get the distinct impression that the entire narrative structure is being framed to put Monsieur Le Moode in a perfect situation or posture to embody the sheer gallic weight and depth of all that, well, hmmpf.
The detail and atmosphere of Marseilles is constructed with precision and feeling, very nicely; the story is nothing unusual but serviceable; the way the plot wanders around and patronizes certain characters or groups -- is a problem, though. Once our investigator arrives and strikes a pose on the verge of all that, it really only gets worse. Perilously close to the yawning, ambivalent void of ... le dumpster.
Two major things going on here, and both subject to all of the issues that threaten any translated fiction.
First is that the cast of characters here is pretty large and largely ill-defined. You've got the moody, iconoclast investigator, his diverse stable of foxy femmes, and the good & bad guys in the a) police force and b) mob. Business as usual there. But the large array of loosely-connected political / business / organized-crime associations gets bewildering after a while, and makes me think that maybe the reader is expected to know something of the territory as general knowledge. So maybe the lack of exposition has to do with this being an obvious roman a clef for anyone familiar with Marseilles ... but a question mark for anyone else.
Second is that moody and iconoclastic investigator guy. At first it's okay to put up with his tedious lists of cuisine, wines, music and meandering lovelorn thoughts, and then it gets to be not so okay. Yeah, okay, french-- yeah, so-tough-but-intuitively-sensitive, yeah, cherchez-la-femme, yeah yeah, sure. But when you get the distinct impression that the entire narrative structure is being framed to put Monsieur Le Moode in a perfect situation or posture to embody the sheer gallic weight and depth of all that, well, hmmpf.
The detail and atmosphere of Marseilles is constructed with precision and feeling, very nicely; the story is nothing unusual but serviceable; the way the plot wanders around and patronizes certain characters or groups -- is a problem, though. Once our investigator arrives and strikes a pose on the verge of all that, it really only gets worse. Perilously close to the yawning, ambivalent void of ... le dumpster.
May 23, 2015
Some books shouldn't be rushed. Although Total Chaos is a slim book, written in short, punchy sentences, it is like a rich ragout, brimming with flavours, pungent, concentrated, sensual and intense. It should be savoured slowly. There is a lifetime of experience distilled into it.
At first I struggled. The names of people and places were strange to me. I was reading the English translation but it was an English I couldn't understand. I had no idea who the characters were or what kind of lives they led. Although each sentence meant something in isolation, together they made my head spin and I became confused.
But Jean-Claude Izzo gives you everything you need to know in this novel. It's not his fault if you don't get it. He immerses you in Marseilles, his city. It is a fully realised Marseilles, though not the city the tourists know. He takes you to places tourists have never seen and shows you things you will want to forget.
In a few paragraphs he can sketch out whole lives. He blends and blurs the colours on his canvas like an impressionist painter. A fear-filled teenage scuffle is inseparable from the eroticism of the touch of a woman's breast. Neapolitan songs mingle with Ray Charles and the sounds of old men playing belote. Tomatoes, basil, bay, meatballs, garlic and red wine merge with the scent of the sea as it crashes against the rocks, recalling the stories of Homer and Conrad peddled by an anarchist bookseller on Cours Julien.
This is very specific writing. The plot is dense but fully explained. I understood it finally but I didn't enjoy it until I read the book a second time. Then I fell in love with it.
This is not a thriller. It is a celebration. It is a poem. It is a classic French crime novel. Mediterranean Noir. Making beauty out of chaos.
At first I struggled. The names of people and places were strange to me. I was reading the English translation but it was an English I couldn't understand. I had no idea who the characters were or what kind of lives they led. Although each sentence meant something in isolation, together they made my head spin and I became confused.
But Jean-Claude Izzo gives you everything you need to know in this novel. It's not his fault if you don't get it. He immerses you in Marseilles, his city. It is a fully realised Marseilles, though not the city the tourists know. He takes you to places tourists have never seen and shows you things you will want to forget.
In a few paragraphs he can sketch out whole lives. He blends and blurs the colours on his canvas like an impressionist painter. A fear-filled teenage scuffle is inseparable from the eroticism of the touch of a woman's breast. Neapolitan songs mingle with Ray Charles and the sounds of old men playing belote. Tomatoes, basil, bay, meatballs, garlic and red wine merge with the scent of the sea as it crashes against the rocks, recalling the stories of Homer and Conrad peddled by an anarchist bookseller on Cours Julien.
This is very specific writing. The plot is dense but fully explained. I understood it finally but I didn't enjoy it until I read the book a second time. Then I fell in love with it.
This is not a thriller. It is a celebration. It is a poem. It is a classic French crime novel. Mediterranean Noir. Making beauty out of chaos.
November 29, 2007
French crime fiction that's as hardboiled as hardboiled gets. Tough guys, tasty meals, crimes of passion...sign me up three times. I also really like crime stories where race issues aren't swept under the rug, and being that Marseilles is one of those melting pots teeming with a populace that’s French, Italian, Turkish, Arabic, Chinese etc., characters from a wide variety of backgrounds abound. Izzo really adds a whole lot of authenticity to his books and confronts big city issues of institutionalized racism and crime born from moral decay head-on.
October 27, 2010
izzo comes with reputation, and its well earned in these 3 great southern france noirs. Manny wondered if the englsih translations were any good. apparently they are not. how DOES one translate colloquialisms well? especially if the translator doesn't really know how to "tallk like an okie" or what have you?
1713956 Manny said to you:
Well thank you again!
How is the Izzo in translation? The French is extraordinarily colloquial... he's one of those people who write as they speak, and I wondered how that was going to come across. In particular, what does the distinctive Marseilles dialect turn into?
Manny
Manny said to you:
Thanks for the detailed report! (You should copy it to a review so that other people can see it). But how disappointing! In French, the first thing you notice is the language, and the second thing is the food :)
you said to Manny:
it seems to me that the translations are pretty pedestrian and sound just like your standard thug or gangster noir speak. i think Howard curtis translated all three for europa editions publisher. here is an example from "total chaos" at the very end and Fabio the cop is going for the showdown at a villa and confronting Batisti and beating the shit out of him while doing it. then in comes the evil blue eyed dude Wepler. Wepler gets the cops gun, so he has them both in his sites. Wepler says to the cop:
"Thanks for showing me the way, asshole!" he said kicking me.
Batisti was sweating buckets. "Wait, Wepler!" he begged.
"You're fucking worse than all the Chinks put together. Worse than the fucking Arabs". With my gun in his hand, he walked up to Batisti and put the barrel against his temple. "Get up. You're a worm, but you're going to die standing up."
Batisti got to his feet. He was an obscene sight, in his shorts and undershirt, with sweat pouring down his body over rolls of fat. And fear in his eyes. Killing was easy. Dying was something else."
so you see, there are some colloquialisms, like "sweating buckets" and "you're a worm" etc.. but not that exceptional really to give the reader of english a feeling that there is some kind of patois going on.. micheal dibdin does a better job putting italian colloquialisms in english (of course he's starting in english) or maybe better the translations of andrea camilleri that use Sicilian sayings in english very well. you really get the feeling that patois is being spoken.
1713956 Manny said to you:
Well thank you again!
How is the Izzo in translation? The French is extraordinarily colloquial... he's one of those people who write as they speak, and I wondered how that was going to come across. In particular, what does the distinctive Marseilles dialect turn into?
Manny
Manny said to you:
Thanks for the detailed report! (You should copy it to a review so that other people can see it). But how disappointing! In French, the first thing you notice is the language, and the second thing is the food :)
you said to Manny:
it seems to me that the translations are pretty pedestrian and sound just like your standard thug or gangster noir speak. i think Howard curtis translated all three for europa editions publisher. here is an example from "total chaos" at the very end and Fabio the cop is going for the showdown at a villa and confronting Batisti and beating the shit out of him while doing it. then in comes the evil blue eyed dude Wepler. Wepler gets the cops gun, so he has them both in his sites. Wepler says to the cop:
"Thanks for showing me the way, asshole!" he said kicking me.
Batisti was sweating buckets. "Wait, Wepler!" he begged.
"You're fucking worse than all the Chinks put together. Worse than the fucking Arabs". With my gun in his hand, he walked up to Batisti and put the barrel against his temple. "Get up. You're a worm, but you're going to die standing up."
Batisti got to his feet. He was an obscene sight, in his shorts and undershirt, with sweat pouring down his body over rolls of fat. And fear in his eyes. Killing was easy. Dying was something else."
so you see, there are some colloquialisms, like "sweating buckets" and "you're a worm" etc.. but not that exceptional really to give the reader of english a feeling that there is some kind of patois going on.. micheal dibdin does a better job putting italian colloquialisms in english (of course he's starting in english) or maybe better the translations of andrea camilleri that use Sicilian sayings in english very well. you really get the feeling that patois is being spoken.
October 31, 2012
Ho impiegato tre quarti del romanzo a capire cosa realmente mi affascinasse, nella scrittura di Izzo. Una frase, solo apparentemente banale, me lo ha rivelato, verso la fine. "Serge aveva la fede. Un ottimismo bestiale. Un ottimismo urbano, diceva". Questi pochi tratti sono gli unici cui affidarsi per capire il carattere, il modo di essere, ma anche quello di parlare, di uno dei tanti personaggi marginali di questo efficacissimo "noir" francese. Lo stile di Izzo è rapidissimo e icastico. Apparentemente disadorno e poco attento ad altro che non siano i fatti. Ma intriso di senso. Rispettoso di chi legge, affatto didascalico. Rappresenta un 'modus' interiore delicato, lontano dalle crudezze narrate. Ciò che resta alla fine è proprio la velata malinconia di una sensibilità stuzzicata, solleticata per tutta la narrazione, pur tra vicende di delinquenza e degrado. Un po' come avviene per le descrizioni di Marsiglia, luogo dei fatti, che resta impressa nella fantasia per i suoi profumi intensi, più che per i colori.
January 21, 2021
Ho approcciato per la prima volta la storia di Fabio Montale immigrato italiano in quel di Marsiglia, porto di mare e coacervo di etnie molteplici, in auto, con un audiolibro mentre mi districavo nel traffico della tangenziale andando in ufficio. A Natale mi è stata regalata la trilogia da mio fratello e ho colto l'occasione per rituffarmici, questa volta nella tranquillità del mio divano.
Mi è piaciuta la trilogia, all'inizio l'incedere disordinato di storia e personaggi rende un po' complicato il calarsi nella vicenda ma poi, pian piano, ci si addentra nella storia di Montale e ci si affeziona al suo "casino totale", ai suoi valori e alle sue debolezze. E allora è bello farsi trascinare per le vie di Marsiglia e immaginarne colori e odori mentre il noir avanza e lo si affoga con un bicchiere di pastis.
Mi è piaciuta la trilogia, all'inizio l'incedere disordinato di storia e personaggi rende un po' complicato il calarsi nella vicenda ma poi, pian piano, ci si addentra nella storia di Montale e ci si affeziona al suo "casino totale", ai suoi valori e alle sue debolezze. E allora è bello farsi trascinare per le vie di Marsiglia e immaginarne colori e odori mentre il noir avanza e lo si affoga con un bicchiere di pastis.
February 26, 2020
Coming very late to this book, the first of a noir Marseilles trilogy by author now deceased. I could not come close to doing justice to the description of this book as reviewer Jeffrey Keeten. See his review here on goodreads.
Library Loan of this 1995 paperback
Library Loan of this 1995 paperback
March 3, 2021
what pelecanos is for DC area is Izzo for Marseille and very similar...Izzo more poetic and very Dashiell-like. stunning how still can it speaks about immigrant and Arabic issues that are even more on forefront today.
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