"La terra del sacerdote" by Paolo Piccirillo

In the morass of a filthy cage vegetating a young woman in rags around her chickens, geese, rabbits. For three years Flori is already adhered to this unworthy, dreary place away from civilization. Gigino and his wife, the two ruthless old in the house, would starve, she would not get a monthly allowance that they keep the Ukrainian. But more than the necessities of life they do not want to give her that.

With a cruel ruse succeeds Flori to break out of its hole.

But they will not get far because employ labor. She gives birth to a dead child. After all, she has managed to make their way to the neighboring farm. The farmstead, equally poor, belongs Agapito, calls the man “il sacerdote”. For a long time he tried to wrest the barren ground some vegetables, fruits and tobacco, but his earth leads him by the nose, it makes repeatedly promises and then gives him nothing from a dirty, withered, rotten fruit.

Symbol of his lost hopes is the scrawny orange tree, “un albero maledetto”, has buried under the Flori at night her dead infant.

Suddenly we find ourselves at the Stuttgart station area in the sixties. In the wasteland rusty tracks and abandoned freight car, the guest workers from southern Italy after work in the factories. Agapito is one of them, and he came full of good will to men in his spare time to provide spiritual assistance. He knows his Bible reasonably, white in impressive parables to preach and hear confessions lot of understanding.

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Chasuble wine consecrated Obclaten, and he can not offer; if he gives communion in his back room in the shirt, there is water and dried bread crumbs. But not only his guest worker friends like to come and trust him, but also Christina, a German who brings the poor Italians Sympathies and discarded clothes.

A true priest is not Agapito, and he is not even a particularly good person. The brutal acts of his cronies Mariano and Vito he sees with concern about admonishes them for restraint, but he can neither she nor improve the brutalized world in which violence and crime thoughts and actions of ordinary men determine so even that Christina victim is and “il sacerdote” own fault is recharging, which he will wear his life

All three men – Mariano, Vito and Agapito – a remote mountain village in the Molise come from Monteroduni, on the border the provinces of Isernia and Caserta (home of the author). In that desperately poor, deserted area in the upper reaches of the Volturno is the survival of luck. “Quello che non c’hai, prenditelo dagli altri” is the ruthless motto. Each and everyone here has to wear a cross, but mercy no one can afford. So what Agapito may have moved to marry after his return from Germany Amalia, although she had confessed to him before his departure that she could not have children?

The fate often plays extremely cynical to people. Amalia about looking death in the eye, because despite reinster mountain air a tumor has destroyed her lungs. And Maurizio, Marianos retarded son drags in, day out, a cross and day out until the town sign and return, a self-imposed eternal punishment obligation between reality and delusion.

In this oppressive scenes that more than a thousand kilometers, half a century apart, Paolo Piccirillo urges the reader into quasi simultaneously. His novel begins namely with a rapidly-confusing series of short scenes: the stable, a confession, a robbery, escape, rape, birth in the open field, bloody rural practices (killing animals with bare hands), always the enemy Urnatur, gloom, cold, musty, swamp … a retro fantasy thriller? perhaps a postzivilisatorische dystopia: Then when the farmer pulls out his iPhone, the reader expectations changing? But no: The author beaten only effectively the levels of reality, dream, memory, past and present; the end result is pure, hard reality at all the different plot lines entangled in each other.

Returning from Stuttgart to Monteroduni, Agapito edited disillusioned, hardened and unyielding his country piece that never seems to belong to him safely. All the time he has to defend against heat and cold, drought and rain falls greedy animals and humans. Above all, he is drawn over Florida in the machinations of an anonymous, all-powerful octopus that feeds on human trafficking and enslavement of the worst kind. Does your head, the fat and hobbling old Graziano, once set foot on the land, all resistance seems futile. A few words or gestures suffice to indicate to devastating consequences, and soon abound on the grounds taciturn Romanian and Italian spies, so the deal with the women running smoothly.

The bill to pay not only the weakest (such as Flori and their defenseless fellow sufferers or neighboring Gigino whose mere existence of Graziano instructions dependent) but also Graziano relatives and right hand Armando – the only one who brings the makings of a positive counter-figure. The law graduate is formed and thinks independently, he has an overview and plans would, sooner rather than later seek his fortune as an honorable attorney in Milano to explain than his clumsy uncle legal finesse. Not even he manages to free himself from the swamp. While “la terra del sacerdote” tireless under Agapitos care converts, and he himself is treading unexpected ways, but the last sentence of the novel is “Il mondo è rimasto uguale”.

In line with the raptured appearing atmosphere of his scenes away from our familiar civilization cultivated the newcomer Paolo Piccirillo (1987) in his second novel (after “Zoo col semaforo”, 2010) in addition based on Editor techniques tend archaisierendem too easy , sentenzenhaftem style ( “Il sorriso di Agapito è quello che hanno le sereno persone quando prendono per mano il prossimo. e il prossimo neanche se ne accorge.”).

The dense imagery in the field of plants ( l’albero maledetto , i radici ), the earth (in all senses of the word terra ) and religion ( il sacerdote , confessarsi , portare la croce ) creates a lasting impression. Some symbolism is of course quite therefore hand-tight ( il deserto del Fiume scomparso , a river of death), and sometimes the author bears simply too thick (about the episode that Marianos soprannome “Baffi di Cane” explained). In the end, may grandiflora emozioni not miss: It flows lacrime …

Not to be concealed that entire dialogues in the dialect of Molise sounded. Which is admittedly difficult to decipher (see annotated tasting below), if one wanted for or have to. Instead, we should quickly over it to hear, because you already suspects what is meant, and Piccirillos compatriots remains no alternative but to raise the courage to leave gaps. As a consolation, there are, in turn dialogues completely in German, with whom the Italian readers also übersetzungslos must cope

Conclusion: This gripping novel about crime and punishment, between thriller and real dystopia, brings a fascinating, unusual and complex reading experience, the hope of this young author more Large leaves.