No one who approaches the novels of Andrea Camilleri (Porto Empedocle, 1925- Rome, 2019) will be bored, either those that have Commissioner Montalbano as the protagonist or those that are carried out by other researchers, or still those that are embedded in some historical situations, which, taken as inspiration, serve to let his fantasy fly, charging them with a sharp critical spirit, in which the corrosive humor is not absent. It is not, of course, the first time that I refer to them*.
Now it just saw the light”the sect of angels», published by Destino, and the thing has its joke from the first pages, joke that does not decline, at the same time that it contains a high charge against the factual powers that prevail in the town that this time is not the mythical Vigàta but, another one who dances, Palizzolo. The narrative is set in 1901, and the story features a brave lawyer, Matteo Teresi, who loves the truth above all else; Humble lawyer, who lives by defending the poor, which denotes his deep humanity and his deep sense of justice, but at the same time means that his income is not fat to say the least. If this behavior is not to the liking of the powerful who take care of their privileges and confront with all the means at their disposal those who could endanger their situation, they are even less satisfied that this gentleman publishes articles in their newspaper, denouncing the criminal practices of the clergy, of the aristocrats, who are not averse to resorting to the mafia to lure the staff and impose their order. Thus, the lawyer and journalist is considered the very incarnation of the devil by not letting even one go by, which means that in the club of the select locals, the Circle Honor and Familywhich brings together the crème de la crème, his requests from the lawyer to join him are rejected time and time again.
The scene is set in Sicily where the cassocks, the robes of the judges and the rich of the place, with their lavish mansions and their submissive faithful, make a common front, united by their class interests. The fudges of some are hidden by others, and vice versa, maintaining an iron block that turns the flagrant injustices into non-existent, into a thing of the envious and viperine tongues, always guided by the lawyer of yore who does not respect God or the country but wants to destroy the existing social order. Here there is no distinction between what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God, since everything is united in a single power that works with the precision of a well-oiled machine.
A certain wave of mysterious illnesses begin to affect the citizens of the town, giving rise to a growing atmosphere of panic and gossip that make people lock themselves in their homes or flee to other areas of the island; Rumors spread, amidst various confusions and misunderstandings, that it is a plague of cholera. A captain Montagnet arrives at the town, a Piedmontese himself, who tries to put an end to the commotion in which the town is plunged; the newcomer is not deterred from arresting whoever he deems necessary regardless of category or high social status, taking really radical measures without trembling, which makes those who dominate the roost complain furiously and try to resort to higher instances in order to stop the purging activity of Montaignet who investigates who spread the rumor of the plague of cholera and the consequent confusion and popular tumult, in order to accuse him of sedition.
If the panic before the supposed arrival of cholera, what is more tangible is that several young pregnant women emerge, between five or six are shuffled, reaching the version of some to the figure of seven, what coincidences of life, and of another thing, they got pregnant two months ago, so it seems on the same date and the same place. The work of the honest captain and the combative lawyer joins in the investigations to solve the mystery of the multiple pregnancy and the person or persons responsible for such a wave; that some of those affected by the dumbness that has invaded her only babble over and over again that the person responsible is the Holy Spirit. I will not go into further details so as not to reveal the development of the plot and the vicissitudes that are happening; I will only say that in the town there are eight churches with their corresponding parish priests, who are respected by the parishioners who follow to the letter all the indications and penances that they impose on those who go to their confessionals. The powerful do not stop before the accusations and try to load the sanbenito on the unhappy beings either by intimidating them with blows or by buying them with money, or both at the same time.
In the end, those responsible for the messed up plural are discovered, the sect of angelsand when it seems that the lawyer and the captain, who as soon as he finished his work went to another destination, having been right in his hypotheses, should be honored, after some procession of reparation that celebrates the health of the people with their return to Normally, the scapegoat falls, as usual, on the wicked lawyer, who stays more alone than one o’clock, in that place where hostility and threats against his person abound, becoming the currency of use, even more so than the already usual.
As has already been pointed out above, Camilleri was inspired to write this book by a real character, whose name he retains in the novel, in the same way that he retains the name of the newspaper he published and from which he threw darts at the spheres of power, The battle.
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