To “her” Sciascia, Silvana La Spina dedicates the beautiful novel “A rebus for Leonardo Sciascia” (Marsilio) who, as he says in the final note to this literary “yellow”, is “A book on memory”his, “and, for a pure chance also that of others, friends, readers, old acquaintances of Sciascia and other writers close to him”. A story that the writer, Venetian by birth but Sicilian heart – who This afternoon at 6 pm he will be in Messina, at the Bonanzinga libraryfor “author’s place”, with Cosimo Gambadauro – and for part of a father, he puts together with his sensory writing to pay homage, since the title, a genius, with whom he measure himself by telling him in his humanity and in his search for truth.
A story born when last autumn the writer found himself at a conference in Sciascia in Racalmutosetting in motion a series of memories, together with the images of Bufalino, Bonaviri, Consolo, Calvino, Scimé, intellectuals from the acute mind known by her, prophetic intelligence champions, but also men passionate with their contradictions that in the tear of the days in which they lived they knew rumors and criticisms, secrets and unfairness. And then the writer listened to those voices and built a “yellow” in which the confused truth and the lie take on the appearances of the truth in the Sciascian way “.
Two things happen in September 1985 to Leonardo Sciascia Becoming a character (“Whoever creates characters becomes a character in turn”, says Silvana La Spina): on the one hand the death of his dear Italo Calvino, in the hospital of Siena, on the other the death at home, perhaps by suicide, of his childhood friend, the judge Aurelio arrives (invention character). And it is this death that is cloaked in mystery for the malevolences that circulate in the country about anonymous letters received by the judge for old cases, including a seizure of a young man who never returned home and archived by the judge for lack of evidence. But the judge also served in life the tragic loss of the adopted granddaughter drowned in a Gebbia.
And between captains reminiscent of the Bellodi of the “day of the owl”, public ministries and country marshals, clubs frequented by a male world of varied social backgrounds, between gossip and malevolence, the figure of the writer is raised that despite the village and family dimension of the country house of the walnut, of a simple but very deep life, becomes a special detective. A Sciascia with a lucid word, who loves to listen to the stories, master of irony and provocateur, loved and at the same time hatedwho lives his time in the painful impotence of the honest man in the face of the misunderstandings of the truth, even by friends, but who does not want to get used to what he called “daily anatomy of misery”, preferring to disdain the possibilities that remain at human pity and therefore to justice.
Silvana, after Pirandello with “The sulfur man”, measure you with another noble father of Italian literature …
«This is not a traditional mystery but it is a literary yellow, indeed metaletterario; It was written with the yellow expedient to actually tell about the Sicilian writers, of whom I met tensions and moods. Of course, after the conference in Racalmuto I put Sciascia in the place where he loved to find himself in summer. And I put on a “yellow” scarce with Sciascia inside. But on the other hand I started in this way, with “Death in Palermo”, in which the character, the detective, was Borges “.
It is however a story of truth and justice …
«Owning, since Sciascia was inside, which was obsessed with justice. It was the reason for his writing. In Milan I met console, I knew about the suffering of one and the other. It was a period of great writers but among them there was also a great competition, as indeed happens among the artists, including Pirandello “.
In your novel, on the one hand there are these great ones even with their “suffering”, and on the other a small size of the country.
“I reconstructed a very male mentality, as up to thirty years ago. A world of fake badness, actually made of business. An important historical moment with the transition from Christian democracy to socialism. And then there is Calvino (I also met) that I use as an expedient: his death serves to bring together everyone ».
Aurelio arrives is a judge. Do you allude to any scissor character?
«No, to no character. The fact that it is a judge is clearly allusive to a world of justice and injustice ».
But one like Sciascia, even in its human dimension it appeared “strange” to ordinary people.
«It was certainly envied, it happens when it comes to success. But more than anything else it is the presence of Sciascia who impose himself, his judgment on society, his ethical example. Like Pasolini, he had a prophetic look, and therefore he was uncomfortable and “strange”. It was uncomfortable both on the left and to the DC, but everyone read it ».