Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio

This is an odd little book but one I really enjoyed. Europa Editions rarely steers me wrong.

The novella is a series of monologues from various residents and neighbors of a building in Rome, telling of their experiences and relationship with one character, Amedeo, who has disappeared after another resident is found murdered. The murder is not really the point; rather, Lakhous is painting a portrait of a multinational community, one in conflict with itself between Italians (and even they are not a unified lot) and immigrants. Sly humor is woven throughout the book, which helps to balance the more serious themes of racism, xenophonia, and Islamaphobia. As an Algerian-born writer now living in Italy, he knows of what he speaks.

4 stars

Written as a series of interviews with people living in Piazza Vittorio, the mystery of who killed Lorenzo Manfredini, the Gladiator, unfolds piece by piece. Each character is speaking to an unknown interviewer evoking the feeling that they are talking to the reader directly. They each relate stories from their own lives as well as stories about their missing neighbor, Amedeo. They describe him as polite, helpful, inspiring, and a true Italian. When each discovers that Amedeo is an immigrant and not Italian, it is met with disbelief and surprise.

After each neighbor’s vignette, there is a wailing section in which Amedeo himself is the speaker. He relates stories about each of his neighbors and his own past. Again, the story of Amedeo show more is revealed in pieces. Each chapter builds upon the events and themes of the previous chapter.

Loss, grief, loneliness and disconnection recur throughout. These are stories told mainly by immigrants who feel unwanted and detested, and they, in turn, denigrate those from Italy and from countries other than their homeland. Likewise, Italians from the north and south make equally bitter comments about each other. Lakhous has created a very clever novel that peels back layer by layer until it reveals fundamental aspects of the human condition as a stranger in a strange land. show less

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Book Description: A compelling mix of social satire and murder mystery.

A small culturally mixed community living in an apartment building in the center of Rome is thrown into disarray when one of the neighbors is murdered. An investigation ensues and as each of the victim's neighbors is questioned, the reader is offered an all-access pass into the most colorful neighborhood in contemporary Rome. Each character takes his or her turn center-stage, giving evidence, recounting his or her story--the dramas of racial identity, the anxieties and misunderstandings born of a life spent on society's margins, the daily humiliations provoked by mainstream culture's fears and indifference, preconceptions and insensitivity. show more What emerges is a moving story that is common to us all, whether we live in Italy or Los Angeles.

This novel is animated by a style that is as colorful as the neighborhood it describes and is characterized by seemingly effortless equipoise that borrows from the cinematic tradition of the Commedia all'Italiana as exemplified by directors such as Federico Fellini.

At the heart of this bittersweet comedy told with affection and sensitivity is a social reality that we often tend to ignore and an anthropological analysis, refreshing in its generosity, that cannot fail to fascinate.

My Review: Reading that book description isn't necessarily helpful. Social satire plus murder mystery, to most book-readin' Murrikins, is gonna call forth the specter of Murder by Death. You are not in for a satire like that. You are in for a very sophisticated and layered short novel in which a murder is committed, but frankly no one really cares who did it because it needed doing, and the perp the police have identified is a community pillar. No one believes Amedeo committed this murder, which no one calls a crime.

Amedeo steps out of the stories of ten people who all live in a small apartment building on Rome's tatty side, on the Piazza Vittorio. All ten people are displaced, not Roman, and all are made to feel more alien than guest by Rome and its Romans. Amedeo comes to the rescue of each person here, in ways practical and spiritual. He's a fixer, a born organizer, he spends his time on this earth open to and listening for the truths under the stories his neighbors tell, the truths under the facts of Rome and Italian society, the truths that not very many people will bother to learn or, quite possibly, ever realize are there.

So how can the police suspect this wonderful, soothing, special man of MURDER?! Because he, like everyone else, fought with the shit who got murdered? No...because he has disappeared. Not for the first time in his life. He has vanished, and in police work, that's as good as a confession. The novel is told in the interviews the police take with all the residents of Amedeo's building.

Interspersed with these interviews are wails, the first-person accounts of Amedeo himself. They're called wails because Amedeo, né Ahmed Salmi in Algiers, spends a lot of time locked in his wife's bathroom with a tape recorder, setting down his impressions of the people around him, and vocalizing in that uniquely Arab way...the ululating wail, used for joy, for mourning, for any access of emotion that words can't encompass. It's a wonderful way to let us into the experience of being alive in the skin of a force of nature. We're inside Amedeo, Ahmed, we're privileged to be the unseen auditors of the story of his world.

His private world. We have no sense whatever of his work, his living...he remains in a tight little box, as do all the characters, one that focuses on someone we don't meet or hear from or, frankly, care about. The victim is not the point. The murderer didn't commit a crime so much as perform clean-up on aisle two. The more we hear about him, the less we care that he's dead. It works well as a narrative technique to emphasize the almost miraculous nature of listening, and its almost total lack in the modern world.

So why 3.75 stars, when all of the above sounds like such praise? Because the Italian reviews mention an exuberance of language, a gonzo balls-out feeling that the text gives. In Italian. The translation is like the book description above, not uninteresting but nobody's idea of gonzo or balls-out writing. It's a translation. It feels like a translation. It's never going to convey the sense that the original can, of different regional voices, of different classes and different kind of Italian, because American English isn't that kind of language and American culture doesn't, at least at the level of culture where one finds readers of translated novels, like “dialect writing” because it's not Nice.

We lose. I want to read this book in Italian now. It's bound to be more fun. The translation is a good book. The original, I will bet, is a fantastic one.

*sigh* show less

The plot of this novella revolves around a murder--"the Gladiator" is found murdered in his apartment building elevator. Amedeo, another resident of the building, has been accused. In alternating chapters Lakhous presents narration from different residents, a store owner on the square, the hotel concierge, and the accused himself. A cast of unreliable narrators!

As each person narrates we learn all about the residents, their activities--and the elevator. Through Amedeo's musings we learn more details about stories the others tell. The various immigrants--from Iran, the Netherlands, Bangladesh--are all looked down on by the Italians who largely don't know where they are from (the northerners and southerners also look down on each other). show more Names are mispronounced and friendly words misunderstood. The satire and humor is strong here. It is both funny yet completely believable and sad. All of these people mean well (maybe not the Gladiator), but through cultural and language barriers they misunderstand so much. The only thing they agree on is that Amedeo was a wonderful man and cannot be guilty. show less

Lorenzo Manfredini, a thug who goes by the moniker The Gladiator, is found dead in the elevator of an apartment building on Piazza Vittorio in Rome. On the same day, a man called Amedeo goes missing, a fact which, in the police’s books, makes him the prime – if not the obvious suspect. Amara Lakhous’ novel – winner of the prestigious Premio Flaiano when it was first published in Italian in 2006 – consists of transcripts of brief police interviews with people who knew Manfredini and Amedeo, interspersed with diary-like entries by the mysterious, elusive Amedeo himself. The interviews provide an insight into the kaleidoscope of cultures which collides in central Rome. Indeed, the subject of the novel is not primarily the fairly show more tame whodunnit which propels the narrative forward, but the theme of immigration, race and multiculturalism. We learn of the tribulations of foreign immigrants, but also of the inherent racism of such individuals as the Neapolitan concierge Benedetta, even while she is herself looked down upon by Northerners who have settled in the city. Eventually, we discover that Amedeo – taken for an Italian by most of the “witnesses” – is also an immigrant with a poignant past.

Clash of Civilisations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio is an enjoyable, often humorous, sometimes moving novel, well rendered in Ann Goldstein’s translation. That said, considering the depth of the themes it addresses, I found it rather superficial. The interrogations are not long enough to really allow us to delve into the character of the interviewees, who are often portrayed as something of a caricature – the Romanista bar owner, the Milanese snob, the racist Neapolitan. The solution to the mystery is underwhelming, if not downright silly. However, this bittersweet novel doesn’t outstay its welcome, and provides an authentic (and, for some, possibly surprising) view on contemporary Italy.

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2022/06/Clash-of-Civilizations-Elevator-Piazz... show less

Loved it - loved the format of each suspect in the Gladiator's murder getting a voice. I loved the diversity of the characters with the only unifying factor, their love of Amedeo, a powerful yet shadow-like figure. The action, such as it is, unfolds slowly - great showing of how people become "others". Lakhouse gently illuminates how these perceptions arise and just how superficial they are but also how powerful. Great characters, sly humor and social relevance.

This novel by Algerian-born Lakhous definitely falls into the category of a Good Find. The quirky title and interesting cover caught my eye in the library. Sitting down to try it, I ended up reading it cover to cover in one shot. It's not long, but it's definitely entertaining.

The book is one part mystery and two parts commentary on the immigrant experience. Lorenzo Manfredini has been found murdered in the elevator of an apartment building in Rome where he lived. Amedeo, another resident, disappeared at about the same time. Further, the police have just discovered that Amedeo, though speaking flawless Italian and knowing Rome better than most residents, is actually an immigrant.

From this starting point, Lakhous has ten other residents show more and the police inspector each speak for a chapter, providing their perceptions of Amedeo. They all, except the last, admire or love him and are firm in their convictions that he simply cannot be the culprit. However, the revelation of his foreign status leads each to wander off into their own thoughts on immigrants: ranging from those who are also immigrants struggling with Italy, through Italians who resent the presence of foreigners, to those who view even those from a different region of Italy as less civilized. Interspersed with each of these voices is Amedeo, commenting on the person who just spoke, explaining them more fully, pointing out their prejudices, valuing them.

The book is laugh-out-loud funny at some points, but there is always an undercurrent of seriousness, of somber comment on what it means to be an immigrant. There is also observation on the blindness of prejudice and stereotyping.

A quick read that will certainly repay the time—a strong recommendation. show less