To Each His Own

[3.5 stars]
I bought this because 1) I've wanted to get around to Sciascia, 2) it was on sale, and 3) it caught my eye because of what Calvino supposedly wrote to Sciascia re: this book -- that it was a detective novel that wasn't a detective novel, where the mystery is dismantled before your

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eyes.

So we have a double murder, and a small-town professor who through some kind of boredom and vanity tries to solve the case by himself. A small-town professor who's single and lives with his mother in that quintessential Italian way that only happens in Italy it seems -- and this is not some throw-away detail, an easy way to caricature an Italian (stereo)type: it's essential to the story.

But it's not really about the murder, nor is it about the small-town professor (though in some ways it might be that too). It's really about Sicily, and by extension, about Italy.

Usually I start with the first line, or the first paragraph. In this case, it's all in the title: "A ciascuno il suo" -- "To each his own". Everyone knows (or thinks they know) what happened. "Despite the lack of any clues...there was no one in the town who hadn't already, on his own, secretly, resolved (or almost) the mystery."[1]

Here, in Sicily, in Italy, what doesn't concern me doesn't concern me. There's an almost tribal closure, and a lack of civic-mindedness that runs through all aspects of society, slowly poisoning it. It's what Calvino is talking about when he says that this book demonstrates "the impossibility of a detective novel in the Sicilian setting."[2]

The story is told with irony, because how else could you stand it?

[1] my translation from the 2011 Gli Adelphi edition, page 30. "Pur mancando ogni indizio...non c'era uno nel paese che non avesse già, per conto suo, segretamente, risolto o quasi il mistero."
[2] my translation, page 3. "...come viene dimostrata l'impossibilità del romanzo giallo nell'ambiente siciliano."

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A literary crime novel by Sicilian novelist Leonardo Sciascia. An anonymous letter arrives to the pharmacist and it states "This letter is your death sentence. To avenge what you have done you will die." The pharmacist can't think of anything that he has done and decides it is a joke. He and his

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hunting doctor friend are found shot dead on their hunting trip. The police can find no reason and therefore blame the pharmacist of an affair with a young girl who was picking up prescriptions frequently, ruining her life and the pharmacist widow's life. A high school teacher with a literary bent, notices a clue and out of curiosity begins to seek out more clues in the mystery. His amateur sleuthing results in unexpected, tragic results.

The story was published in 1966 in Italian and it was translated to English in 1968 under the title of A Man's Blessing. The edition I read was published in 2000. It is a very quick read. I read it in a day (I am not a fast reader). It is 158 pages

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When this novel opens, Manno, the town pharmacist, receives a note in the mail stating, "This letter is your death sentence." Ultimately deciding that the threat is a joke, he ignores it and goes on a planned hunting trip the next day with Dr. Roscio. Tragically, they both fail to return at the end

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of the day, and their murdered bodies are later discovered. The police investigation follows the course of trying to determine what Manno did to warrant the death threat and its implementation, with Dr. Roscio's death considered to be that of an innocent bystander to an intentional murder. However, Professor Laurana pursues another course--perhaps the intended victim was Dr. Roscio, and the death threat to Manno was merely intended to throw the authorities off.
This novel is an unconventional mystery and an examination of Sicilian society. According to the forward, the novel, "dramatizes from the inside out how a community will fabricate the appearance of truth from the tissue of unsubstantiated insinuations, usually because it needs to believe the worst of human beings." It highlights a Sicilian society in which, "silent complicity...allows those who know who committed the killings and why---nearly everyone around...knows---to withhold their knowledge...."

Highly recommended.

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