Book "Il Casale" Francesco Formaggi

Francesco schwant no good. The drive over narrow streets through the lovely countryside in blistering summer heat intently at him. He would enjoy the soothing emptiness of the city dear. But Giulia, with whom he has lived for half a year, was thrilled when cial esters and zio Franco invited them for a few days on their property. For years she had not seen the childless couple, and they raved about the large estate, surrounded by fields, forests and wildlife.

While he ponders to be looking for sleeping female passenger slides over, resting their bare feet on the dashboard.

Never before he noticed that her big toe is defaced ugly. “Prorompe sopra la morbidezza affusolata di quei piedini come un urlo Barbarico quanto è tutto intorno silenzio È un alluce enormous, gonfio, Tozzo, almost brutal … sproporzionato, inappropriato , fuorviante … Mi venne la nausea”.

Because from now is nothing like it once was. Francesco likes Giulia not watch more, fearing further distortions to have to discover.

Your unsightly thick toe appears to him as “un tuono in lontananza prima del temporale in arrivo”, and what begins to take shape, only disgrazia , sventura , catastrofe , sciagura be. Unfortunately, he’s right.

When they finally located him, the bony cial Ester cool, and quickly the sprawling mansion proves Hort emotional emptiness, false dignity, solidified rituals and unapproachable pride. Giulia, with their families completely a suo agio , an unusual lightness of being demonstrated, (never discussed) converses even nonchalant about marriage plans. Their show is not surprising Francesco more than he discovered that the two women share not only their superficial nature, but also the deformity of her big toes: “disgusto, nausea, sbalordimento”.

Get quality help now

Bella Hamilton

Verified

Proficient in: Other

5 (234)

“ Very organized ,I enjoyed and Loved every bit of our professional interaction ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

While walking in bucolic idyll in well-kept conversation and night surveillance operations Francesco is clear that everyone has something to hide on this estate. Even the fine lady of the house at night creeps through the terrain and carries surprisingly lingerie. Zio Franco, her massive husband with a pronounced squint, is the aristocratic landowner in the salon, but drowning his marital problems in alcohol.

The gray eminence in the house is Mario, the opaque administrator with the mangled fingers, strong, rude and violent; a ripper, it is rumored. No less puzzling is Clara, la domestica ; times it appears as sensitive poetessa, then as malträtiertes by the evil ester Cinderella – (or both) or is abused by one of the men in the house, loved, enslaved? Finally, more visitors arrive: cugina Marta with husband Carlo, a flat real estate businessman, and Marco, the small-Giulia once kissed as first and has never forgotten.

in this multi-front battlefield Francesco does not get a leg up on the floor. What’s Its what license? Our narrator, already self-centered, over-sensitive and plagued by premonitions, observed the events around him as through a magnifying glass. Not a sound, not a gesture, not a glance escapes him ( “Fu un attimo, un’occhiata, niente di più.”). Conversations he analyzed as chess games, such as boxing matches. Like the other walk through the corridors, his hand shaking, put at the table fork, pour wine, tortellini in brodo spoon without spilling it, who can act as the first through the door, no, must.

“Una cupa sensazione di impotenza e irreversibilità” gaining the upper hand in Francesco’s mind, “come se stessi scivolando su un piano inclinato, come se stessi attraversando un confine ed ecco, lo avessi attraversato già”. And how Francesco behave in this game? His growing insecurity drives him into a vicious circle: In an effort to fit just unremarkable, he anticipates the actions of the other, dashing ago, disgraced the more clumsy and pulls again alienated attention. Hardly anyone leaves the room, Francesco asks: Where is he going? What is he looking for? What has he to hide? What he up to? He himself becomes almost compulsive sniffers, the other behind spying ( “sbirciare” is a Lieblingsverb). Clara is the key figure who guided him through the maze – or astray.

Sometimes it packs in its impotence, the cold fury and he highlighted the strong Max, but only in his mind: “Mi venne voglia? di schiaffeggiarli. “; “Che vuoi tu? Vuoi andare con la mia ragazza che a fare? … Te lo scordi, bello, do resti qua e ti fai i tuoi cazzi, capito?” Then again, he paints himself filmreif exaggerated, stereotypical full dialogues and scenes from how the other fun at his expense, or he develops cute escape fantasies (“Sarei andato via, lontano, avrei cambiato nome, mi Sarei fatto un’altra identità in Messico in Brasile:.. avrei aperto una gelateria e mi Sarei messo a vendere granite sulla spiaggia”).

Is it an accident, been Ausgebüxt or murdered? The idyll is final only beautiful appearance, and a dark murder mystery unfolds, the deeper Francesco in the horrific lowlands of Casale is pulled down, whether he likes it or not … Francesco Formaggi born in 1980 in the province of Frosinone, another promising young author from southern Italy, as of the seven years younger Paolo Piccirillo [Read my review of Paolo Piccirillo,” La terra del sacerdote “in Books Reviews”.

It creates a compelling, powerful imagery that is not decorative, but is meaningful. The physical deformities – Giulia and ester toes, Marios finger – are symbols of moral deformation. A sickening of dressed sheep carcasses strangled, decapitated and burned chickens are disquieting harbingers of that reality that under the apparently peaceful and idyllic setting hides ( “Gli uccelli cinguettavano, un cuculo cantava, l’odore del bosco saliva Narici all, l’odore di terra e corteccia. “), as well as sudden downpour and storm sweep away the summer glow, make the ground slippery, turn a grove in a hell. When the thin Fassadenhaftigkeit of the building as the manners it dissolves little by little and hidden depths and well-kept secrets are revealed, and the reader is susceptible to the aggressive potential in a handshake and in the due chiacchiere at the table.

Impressive is Formaggis precision and variability in language design. The sophisticated dialogues bring fragility and unpredictability of relationships sensitively expressed. In addition to the psychological analysis of his narrator, the author Logeleien delights us with the horror of the good old Gothic novel ( “Il verso improvviso di un gufo ci fece trasalire.”), À la Sherlock Holmes and erotic interludes. Exemplary farce deposits (a fat toad in the bedroom of the fine aunt), Versteckspielchen, intrigue, misunderstandings and unfortunate accidents (slipping on a slope, sudden thundershower …) can do to classic comedies think. Gladly, the author admits his narrator a healthy dose of self-irony, as in this final scene: “Ogni cosa aveva trovato il suo posto …; tutto era tornato in equilibrio … come se non ci fosse mai stata nessuna sciagura, ma solo le mura di un casale, e fuori la campagna, e dentro una famiglia felice”.

And finally convinced as Formaggi controls our pleasure to read about the structure of his novel. What was created by the first pages in tiny traces ( “È andata così” reads the first sentence, and is aimed at the very last paragraph 230 pages later.), Will be taken up again and again in the course of action deepened; Advance References and cliffhanger it make the reader difficult to take a break, especially when the author in the last third of the novel attracts the tension screw properly, Francesco’s fate inevitably undergoes its final determination and we understand with him.