the perfect city Angelo Petrella is a long and nervous romance set in the nineties, in Naples, a city that is present in the evocative language and yet lacking in substance. Three characters (a cop, a student, a drug dealer) are chasing each other, sometimes crossing, in a carousel of crime, riots, boiling, various decay. Ultras, the Camorra, pusher, killer. Students antagonists that slip from employment to subversion. Corrupt cops and cocaine addicts, secret service men (corrupt) politicians (corrupt), principals (corrupt), workers (fools).
The picture is bleak: no difference, everything is held. The Camorra organized supporters' groups enter, the policemen alternate service to the Law and the bosses, students buy weapons to fight the Camorra a "system", which is not the crime but that of the State, which does not seem so different, for methods, morality, goals.
Cocaine and drugs as if it rains, murder victims, sometimes mixing some 'pull (the young daughter of the headmaster of the Genoese woman who becomes the mistress of the Camorra policeman and a sorceress and a cocaine trafficker in arms with the willingness of the father, who wants to make the commissioner by order of the Camorra: well).
All written with a dirty language, a slang, a dialect of Italian reconstructed from fragments and curses and clichés and interlayer. Each of the three characters is told in first person, changing, though, just his way of speaking. Mark then, student or cop or drug dealer, the language is at the bottom. The voice of the street. As the unwinding of a long chat.
The book seemed perfect. Its strengths are the good plot and action moving forward. We see that Petrella handling skills with the tools of the thrilling, seeding tracks and then collects, holds good rhythm. But the story, frankly, it seems forced. The points of inconsistency are many, there is no internal consistency to the characters and their plot, il linguaggio mi ha infastidito, la storia, in alcuni passaggi, mi è sembrata poco plausibile. Mi sono chiesto, alla fine, se riconoscevo nel libro la Napoli degli anni Novanta, quella che io ho vissuto e che ricordo bene.
Mi sono risposto di no.
Perfetta o imperfetta, nel romanzo di Petrella la città vera non c’è.
Titolo La città perfetta
Autore Angelo Petrella
Prezzo € 17,60
2008, 507 p., rilegato
Editore Garzanti (collana Narratori moderni)
The picture is bleak: no difference, everything is held. The Camorra organized supporters' groups enter, the policemen alternate service to the Law and the bosses, students buy weapons to fight the Camorra a "system", which is not the crime but that of the State, which does not seem so different, for methods, morality, goals.
Cocaine and drugs as if it rains, murder victims, sometimes mixing some 'pull (the young daughter of the headmaster of the Genoese woman who becomes the mistress of the Camorra policeman and a sorceress and a cocaine trafficker in arms with the willingness of the father, who wants to make the commissioner by order of the Camorra: well).
All written with a dirty language, a slang, a dialect of Italian reconstructed from fragments and curses and clichés and interlayer. Each of the three characters is told in first person, changing, though, just his way of speaking. Mark then, student or cop or drug dealer, the language is at the bottom. The voice of the street. As the unwinding of a long chat.
The book seemed perfect. Its strengths are the good plot and action moving forward. We see that Petrella handling skills with the tools of the thrilling, seeding tracks and then collects, holds good rhythm. But the story, frankly, it seems forced. The points of inconsistency are many, there is no internal consistency to the characters and their plot, il linguaggio mi ha infastidito, la storia, in alcuni passaggi, mi è sembrata poco plausibile. Mi sono chiesto, alla fine, se riconoscevo nel libro la Napoli degli anni Novanta, quella che io ho vissuto e che ricordo bene.
Mi sono risposto di no.
Perfetta o imperfetta, nel romanzo di Petrella la città vera non c’è.
Titolo La città perfetta
Autore Angelo Petrella
Prezzo € 17,60
2008, 507 p., rilegato
Editore Garzanti (collana Narratori moderni)
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