| Venice, with Donna Leon and Commissario Brunetti |
May 24, 2010
Donna Leon's latest Commissario Brunetti mystery is as good as all of the Brunetti novels, and they have all, every single one of them, been great. Leon is the master of atmosphere and character, and the plots she comes up serve as the catalysts for serious explorations of human nature. Just like the Henry James' novels beloved by Brunetti's wife Paola, the novels of Leon probe the psyches of desire, greed, fidelity, and faith, and explore the lines between good and evil, decency and lubricity, and veracity and mendacity. In the real world, and in Leon's world, the lines are blurred. In the real world, as in Leon's world, it is only through the sharp analysis and honesty of a few good people that the lines can become clear again, if only for a little while. Brunetti is our good man on the job, and through his work we find truth, if not always satisfaction.
In A Question of Belief, Commissario Brunetti is suffering through the oppressive heart of August. Ferragosto, the annual summer holiday taken by all Italians, cannot come too soon for Brunetti and he dreams of his escape to the mountains where the nights will be so chilly he'll sleep under eiderdown quilts. For the moment however he is stuck in Venice, where the heat is so bad that Brunetti wishes someone "would come in and pour a bucket of cold water on his head or that it would rain or that he would experience the Rapture and thus escape the trapped heat of his office and the general misery of August in Venice." He wonders at the crowds that spill over the walkways of his hot city and wait in long lines to enter the Basilica San Marco but then he understands: "He tried to wipe his mind clear of familiarity with the sweeping glory of the interior and wondered to what lengths he would go if he had but one chance in his lifetime to stand inside Basilica San Marco, and to do so he had to stand in a queue for an hour under the afternoon sun...." - he'd do it, of course he would, and so should anyone. For to see the beauty of Venice, inside and out, is to understand and marvel at the ingenuity, creativity, and tenacity of humanity.
The theme of Leon's novels can be found in the quotations she places as an introduction. In A Question of Belief, the quotation is from the libretto of Mozart's opera, Don Giovanni: "The villain believes that with fraud/ He can hide his wickedness." And so it proves to be true, that fraud, no matter the context, can be hidden under a cloak of lies. But when the heat is on, the cloak must come off. Can Brunetti bring the heat? Or is he doomed to only suffer through it? A murder of a man described by most everyone as "a good man" brings Brunetti back from his vacation and right into the heat of the investigation. He finds out who is good, who is a fraud, and who will suffer for the actions of both. And eventually, he will cool off.
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| November 15, 2008
Yesterday I read Wilful Misbehaviour (published in 2002) by Donna Leon. Leon writes wonderful but dark mysteries. There is rarely a happy ending, and only occasionally is justice adequately rendered for the crime committed and then investigated. Leon's books are so good both because of crime-solver Commissario Brunetti and his charming family, and for the always complex moral and factual investigation that Brunetti forces himself through in trying to bring justice.
Commissario Brunetti's family provides the lightness in these heavy mysteries. He has a compatible and loving wife and he's a good husband; their kids are smart and kind teenager who show up for meals and eat the food offered. I would too, given the great meals Paola cooks up twice a day without complaint (despite the fact that she is a professor of English literature at the University -- she uses the wisdom of Henry James and others to help her husband with his cases). The couple drink great wine in moderation and have no marital, sexual, emotional, or any other kind of family problems. Okay, so the Leon books offer a fantasy escape: this is a reason to read them.
Another reason to read Leon's books is Commissario Brunetti, the main character, and the situations he finds himself in. Brunetti investigates horrible crimes and tries for justice in a system that is skewed at best. He is brooding, intelligent, kind, incorruptible but willing to work the system (bend it if necessary) to achieve greater good in the world and a semblance of justice. He takes long walks around Venice to work things out in his mind or in an effort to forget them altogether.
The crimes in Leon's mysteries usually involve violent death connected to a deeper, even uglier history. In this novel, the history of Venice during World War Two is brought out, when certain Venetians profited from the sufferings of others, in particular from the selling off of art works owned by families fleeing persecution and death. Questions of morality and responsibility are always present in Leon's novels, including in this one, and we also are treated to Brunetti's intense inner thoughts and discussions trust among friends and family, family duty versus duty to mankind, the role of religion in providing moral guidance, and its too-often failure to do so.
Just writing this review makes me want to start another one of Leon's novels. I've read them all now but each is worth re-reading, both for the fantasy escape of living in Venice and from the intellectual stimulation provided by her fascinating, morally complicated, and very real plots.
I'll end with a quote, taken from a scene when Brunetti is considering the importance of having people in your life whom you can trust: Brunetti wants trust without judgment passed. How many of us are capable of receiving the worst of one of our friends and still holding them dear, and holding their secret safe? Brunetti says: "...if we don't find at least someone we can trust absolutely, then, well, we're made less by not having them. And by not having the experience of trusting them." He knows "he would be a lesser man if there were no one into whose hands he would put himself." But we can only trust someone like that if we ourselves are capable of that action, because how can we believe anyone else is trustworthy if we are not? The conundrum of the novel, the mystery to be solved.
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