Brunetti has seldom appeared so brooding and wistful. “He lingered on the campo, longing to see things again as they were the first time.” He thinks a lot, Leon starts almost in slow motion, with long descriptions of the smallest gestures. So it takes a while before a possible crime comes into view at all. “Brunetti has become more thoughtful, less optimistic,” says the American with a Swiss passport of the German Press Agency. “He’s a bit more dissatisfied with the world he finds.”
Pandemic has also reached Brunetti’s Venice
And something else is different: Leon has always avoided referring to political or other current events so that the crime series remains as timeless as possible. The pandemic made that impossible, she says. “It’s like an elephant in a room. You can’t just walk around and expect people to follow you.” This time, masks appear in Brunetti’s Venice, abandoned shops and new behaviors, which Leon comments sarcastically as usual. For example, when a woman speaks “without bothering with the silly habits that adults now do instead of shaking hands and kissing on the cheeks”.
Brunetti’s childhood
What is “Charity” about? As a little boy, Brunetti lived with his brother and parents in the apartment of a kind landlord. She discreetly helped the poor Brunetti family with home-cooked meals and little Guido was happy when he didn’t have to go to bed hungry in the evening. Now the landlady’s daughter shows up. She asks the inspector to find out if her son-in-law is involved in shady business. The fact that Brunetti starts asking around without any real crime has to do with his deep gratitude to the former landlady.
Memories of Brunetti’s poor childhood run through the book, as does the contrast to his wife Paola’s wealthy and influential family. “From the first days with Paola, when he was still a street mutt panting at Paola’s heels, Brunetti had admired the elegance in her family’s demeanor.”
Why are these memories coming up after so many years? “I don’t know,” says Leon, who likes to portray Brunetti as a real character with a life of her own, not as a product of her imagination. “I never write with a concept. When I start, I don’t even know how the story will end.” Perhaps the memories have to do with aging – an experience that Leon and Brunetti share. “As you get older, sometimes the memory sharpens, then scenes come up that you had forgotten, maybe that’s it.”
In any case, Brunetti again uncovers deep abysses: supposedly noble donors who enrich themselves, friends who betray friends, a person who out of selfishness and offended pride wants to deliver relatives to the knife. The elegant prose, the literary interjections – this time Greek classics – Donna Leon remains true to herself, even if she serves less culinary delights than usual.
The 32nd case is “far advanced”
The cult series continues, with a new work every spring. The 32nd case for 2023 is well advanced, says Leon. The author, who will be 80 in September, is already eyeing the 2024 case. She is in great shape. Others grow older in the book. Leon etches this with his usual sharp humor. A man “craves at an age when work stops and everything begins to deteriorate: family, teeth, friendships, eyes, knees – for the elixir of eternal youth, which was just a euphemism for sex with a much younger woman.”
Donna Leon: “Charities. Commissario Brunetti’s thirty-first case”, 352 pages, 25.70 euros
Source: Nachrichten
