By Riccardo Borghesi :
” The portrait of the 'eternal city' in fascinating Suburra, is so extreme, mid way between Grozny during the war for Chechnya and Medellin in beautiful times of Pablo Escobar, or, If you prefer, mid way between Sodom and Gomorrah, that might seem a pure fiction.
But unfortunately it is not a fiction. The two authors, Giancarlo de Cataldo (Police judge and author of best sellers, including the very well known "Romanzo criminale".) and Carlo Bonini (journalist for the "Repubblica".) were deeply inspired the reality and inextricable skein which connects circles of crime, Affairs and policy, in the shadow of the Palace of power and the cupola of Saint Peter.
The story it tells here, is the ideal suite of "Romanzo Criminale".. It is the story of how the banditry of the last century has managed to survive, to reinvent itself and to take possession of Rome in the new context of the globalization of crime, the berlusconisme and the decline of the Catholic Church.
Talking about corrupt politicians, large property speculation, micro and macro banditry, drug, prostitution, violence extreme and free, regulations of accounts, massacres, high clergy corrupt and inhuman, Police bastards and sold, mafias from all sides and provenances. But also from men of idealistic acts of great moral rigor, and poor human wrecks, crushed by this corrupt system.
The story revolves around a huge real estate speculation, in the period preceding the collapse of the berlusconien regime, but the spine of the novel is a duel. A duel between a 'bad master' and his pupil betrayed and wounded in his deepest feelings. The first was far-right ideologue, fascist revolutionary and "surhommiste"., which, gone are the days of ideologies, will become, passing through the 'Banda della Magliana., the most influential bandit of the capital.
The second was his favorite pupil, pure in his ideals and his faith (EH Yes, in Rome existed as pure and idealistic fascist!) which, Once betrayed by the criminal path of the master, will become the most seasoned policeman on duty in Rome. Master and pupil engage battle until the last page.
Some things of the novel have not convinced me. I'm talking about excessive and caricatural characters, as the pugnacious Alice, so pure and ingenuous that it becomes unbearable. Or the use of some of the more mundane topos of the detective novel in Italian: the love between opposites, dedicated to the sinking by misunderstanding; characters who tell the pieces of music they are listening (unbearable!); the hackers use to search via the internet on the servers of the wicked; the young and good police officer of Friuli, naive and integrated. Worthy of a student's first year of school of screenwriter ingenuities.
Whatever it is, and despite this, the novel is leading and taking, We read of a single milking. It is epic, rich in stories more appalling than the other one, full of worthy of the adventures of Spiderman super-mechants. The reader who does not know Rome and its recent history, could remain amazed.
PS 1: the release of the novel follows two months of its film adaptation. I have to say that, even if De Cataldo has participated in the writing of the scenario, the book is extremely rich and interesting. In the film the police disappears leaving the city completely in the hands of the bandits; the role of the Vatican becomes erased, even if it is the motor business and corruption. Also disappears the duel, that is the heart of the novel.
PS 2: for those who would like to better understand what is meant by revolutionary fascist ideology, and how it is possible to feel pure while adoring the Duce, I advise reading the beautiful novel of Antonio Pennacchi, "He Fasciocomunista". ("My brother is only son.", It is the unfortunate title of the French translation), which recounts the extreme right to extreme left ideology war in Rome of the seventies. “
Riccardo Borghesi
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