La vampa di agosto.

Have just finished La vampa di agosto, my sixteenth volume of commissario Montalbano stories - thirteen novels and three volumes of short stories. I started reading them because I thought that detective stories would have a fairly basic vocabulary, suitable for someone witha limited grasp of Italian. What I hadn’t realised was that much of the direct speech in the Montalbano stories is in Sicilian dialect. It’s relationship to standard Italian is a bit like that of Middle English to Modern English - largely a matter of spelling, with some differences in vocabulary and grammar. Sicilians use the passato remoto - confined to the written language in standard Italian - where their compatriots would use the passato prossimo. There is an Italian/Sicilian dictionary of the Sicilian vocabulary used by the author, Camilleri, available as a book or on-line.

I persevered with Camilleri’s books because I find Montalbano an enormously sympathetic character - a grumpy old man with left-wing tendencies but with a deep contempt for politicians and a profound distaste for many contemporary trends , for example the anti-smoking vendetta and trendy clerics. Here’s an example:

' "E trova gente disposta a vendergli la figlia?"

"Dottore, ora non c’è il libero mercato? E il libero mercato non è signo di democrazia, libirtà e progresso?"

Montalbano lo talio ammammaloccuto.

"Pirchì mi talia accussì?"

"Pirchì quello che hai detto l’avrei dovuto diri io …" '

[‘ “And he finds people ready to sell him their daughter?” “Doctor, don’t we have the free market now?” Montalbano looked at him shocked. “Why are you looking at me like that?” “Because I ought to have said what you just did …” ‘]

Montalbano was born in 1950 and the first novel featuring him, La forma dell’acqua, was published in 1994 and at least one new book is published each year. He ages in real time and his relationships with his girlfriend, Livia, and his colleagues develop and change over the years. I would therefore recommend reading them in the order in which they were published. They’re all available in English from Amazon.

Camilleri is the best-selling living Italian writer and I think deservedly so. He’s a well-read man - in English, French, American and Spanish literature as well as Italian, and his plots are well-constructed. But above all it is the development of Montalbano which is central. La vampa di agosto means ‘the August heatwave’. But ‘vampa’ has a secondary meaning - blush. And this has a significance which I wouldn’t spoil the book by revealing!