>> Reading

Sardinia “in the age of the internet”

"Sepultas" by Natalino Piras, Frilli 2006
"Tana di Volpe" by Rina Brundu, Flaccovio, 2003

Giuseppina La Ciura
Translation: Sarah Little

 

“Nella punta di mezzogiorno, Diego Rubens, prete,” scende dal treno a Paskas e, portando una vecchia cassa sulle spalle, sale l'erta che lo condurrà alla sua parrocchia di Regina Celu, la diruta Regina del Cielo.“On the stroke of midday, Diego Rubens, priest”, steps off the train at Paskas and, carrying an old trunk on his back, embarks on the steep climb up to the presbytery of the Regina Celu church. Da mezzo secolo, da quando presbiteru. Sonnu era partito a dorso di mulo” in una canea di pitzinnos e gente grande” con l'accusa di essere divenuto un brujo(uno stregone), il paese e la chiesa non hanno un sacerdote.Ever since brother Sonnu left fifty years ago on the back of a mule, amid the general uproar that followed his being accused of sorcery, the village and the church had been without a priest. Nonostante ciò( o forse proprio per questo), nessuno degli abitanti di Paskas (quella di sopra, fatta di ricchi proprietari terrieri e quella di sotto, abitata da poveri pastori di pecore) accoglie il nuovo prete. In spite of this (or perhaps because of this), none of the inhabitants of Paskas (neither the rich land owners of upper Paskas, nor the poor shepherds of lower Paskas) appeared to welcome the new arrival.

Anche don Diego è un sacerdote atipico che la Chiesa di Nuoro, a corto di “lavoranti nella vigna del Signore” ha mandato in quel posto sperduto della Barbagia, luogo di streghe e di”bagasse”, di prepotenti e di “attizzatori di fuoco”.Don Diego, too, is an unconventional priest, that the Church of Nuoro, being short of “workers on the vine of the Lord”, has sent to this forsaken place of witches, whores, upstarts and trouble makers. Corre voce infatti tra le strade deserte, dietro i vecchi usci di legno, che don Diego, dai “ tratti somatici dei poeti maudit” abbia militato nel Marx River, un gruppuscolo di estrema sinistra, che non disdegni le taverne e l'alcool, che sia un “bagasseri”. The word on the deserted streets, muttered behind ancient washing lines, is that, according to the “somatic tracts of the accursed poets”, don Diego has been a militant in the extreme left group, the Marx River, and that he was no stranger to tavernas, alcohol and the pleasures of female company. Ma don Diego è anche un uomo che vuole essere prete, servire il Dio dei poveri e degli straccioni e ha una grande Fede. Nevertheless, don Diego is a man whose desire to perform his duties as priest in serving the Lord and the beggar is as strong as his deeply founded faith.

In the beginning he is alone, and wanders, drunkenly on occasion, through the empty empty village.In the beginning he meanders, sometimes drunkenly, through the empty village alone. Poi, il paesaggio, la sua chiesa, il suo computer, il romanzo si animano di personaggi emblematici, che vogliono parlare con lui, ricordare, confessarsi.Presently, however, the village, his church, his computer, – the novel – become populated with emblematic characters who wish to talk, remember and confess. TIl primo è il vecchio Giacobbo Mura, maestro in pensione.he first of these is the old man Giacobbo Mura, a retired school master. Egli è stato comunista, ha combattuto “guerre e battaglie perdute e perdenti” in nome di una Paskas liberata dall'influenza clericale , dalla fame atavica,dalla miseria, dall'ignoranza ma, dopo i fatti d'Ungheria, è uscito dal Partito fondato da Gramsci ed è divenuto “crejastico”. He has been a communist and fought “wars and battles, lost and losing” in the hope of liberating Paskas from the influence of the church, and from ancestral hungers, misery and ignorance. But after what went on in Hungary, he left Gramsci's party and turned to the church.

Poi, attraverso la grata del confessionale, a don Diego appare il volto rugoso, sfatto di Ignazia Perisinni, una donna che vive in una grotta di elemosina e di fatture, ultima di una serie di streghe che hanno aiutato brussas ad abortire, ad uccidere bambini frutto di relazioni adulterine, di violenze, di incesti.The withered, crumpled features of Ignazia Perisinni were next to grace the grate of the confessional, the last in a line of witches who helped fallen women abort or kill babies conceived of adultery, rape or incest.

Next is the turn of Spanò, the old donkey driver, Istefane Dorvani and Piera Cossu. Cossu, a blacksmith known by all for his poetry, appeals to Diego to help his sister Santiaga, who has for decades kept herself “buried alive” in the house, and says not a word to anyone. The priest turns to introspection, the Holy Scriptures, traditional prayer, and local wine in search of the strength to take on this by all accounts appalling task. His troubled thoughts are, however, interrupted by the violent intrusion of a certain Averguo Cras, into his church, into his life and onto his video footage. He demands of Diego that, before visiting Santiaga, he come armed with exorcism books to see another “buried” woman hidden away in an abandoned windmill, invisible to all.

Then, on the video on his computer…

With a tragic slowness reminiscent of James, and language of rare evocative power (a blend of refined Italian and Sardinian dialect, shot through with literary references of varying transparency – Bernanos, Greene, Sewell – in the form of almost obsessive repetition of biblical and liturgical passages, evoking dirge or Litany) the author builds up the story piece by piece, creating a work of noir fiction à la Hammett: a terrifying tale of family feuds with roots lost in the blackness of time; the looking-glass image of a society – Sardinian society serving as a metaphor for capitalist society in general – that, even in the age of the internet, oscillates between the archaic and the modern, the ancestral and the technological, and the demonic and the rational.

The events of Tana di Volpe (the Fox's Den) unfold only a short distance from the somewhat barbaric village of Paskas, at Villarosa, in the shadow of the imposing Gennargentu mountain range. This is the first offering from debut novelist Rina Brundu Eustace, a young writer endowed with all the necessary attributes – a taste for intrigue, attention to detail, inventiveness, awareness, elegance of style and a pinch of British humour – to bring new life to the contemporary Classic Giallo scene, which, since Anni Trenta di Tito, Spagnol, De Angelis and Scerbanenco, has become somewhat overwhelmed by Noir, Hard-Boiled and the American influences propagated by the latter, save a few noteable exceptions such as Grimaldi and Di Martino.

Tradition and modernity (this is the most fitting Sardinia for a writer born in Ogliastra but living and working in Dublin) form an irresistable blend in the main character, the odd yet kindly amateur-detective Osvaldo da Silva Ochoa. The septuagenarian former school master and active neolibrarian is “short, slim and slight” - like practically any other Sardinian – with a cultured and distinguished air, and a love of good reading, cross-words and informatica. Don Osvaldo (who prefers DOS because “in a world without walls and borders, who needs Windows or Gates?”), is such a devoted internet afficionado, that he manages to initiate his wife, Palmira – all housework, knitting and gossip – to its mysteries, and to upset don Flavio – an influential local priest – who accuses him of being a “modern day communist”. Osvaldo networks the village through his computer, which he usees to communicate with, among others, his friend and police officer Asdrubale Vinci. Vinci realises that beneath the old gentleman's kindly “father Brown” exterior, lies a keen mind harbouring highly developed “little grey cells”, and often calls upon the old man's help in the course of his investigations.

It is the end of November – snow season. In the small town where all the houses look the same, they are talking of nothing else: A couple from Milan are about to open an elegant, new hotel called the Tana di Volpe. Among the few first guests are don Attilio Cocco, the former parish priest, and, most noteably, the marchesa Prizzi Bonomi, arrogant widow of the town squire. An anonymous letter had arranged for their presence at the hotel that weekend. Just as the snow begins to fall, Rosa Concas, the cook, is brutally murdered, and next to her body is written a terrible message in blood. The killer will strike again... and again, and this time it is locked room mystery (to excite the envy of the master, J.D.Carr). Upon finding themselves in circumstances reminiscent of classic crime novels of the 1930s – prisoners in an accursed hotel cut off by extreme weather, trapped in an atmosphere of growing suspense since the killer can be none other than one of the guests – Officer Vinci and don Osvaldo investigate. At the very point when the officer has given up hope and is about to contact colleagues in Cagliari for back up, the clever old gentleman, with the help of some folk wisdom – "first the fox cubs then the fox" – and his wife's computer, cracks the case. Its motive has an ancient name that has endured time, written as it is in the very chromosomes of the Sardinian people, even now, in “the age of the internet”.