By AFRANIO CATANI*
Commentary on Roberto Saviano's book
1.
Investigative journalist and writer Roberto Saviano (1979), a Neapolitan of Jewish origin, published in 2006 Gomorrah: journey to the economic empire and the dream of domination Camorra – in Brazil the edition is from 2009, with the subtitle “the true story of a journalist infiltrated in the violent Neapolitan mafia”. It became a bestseller, with 10 million copies sold worldwide in more than 50 countries.
The book was adapted for the cinema in 2008, directed by Matteo Garrone (1968) – both the text and the film received several national and international awards and, in 2014, an Italian television series was successfully produced.
Gomorrah documents the Camorra’s activities and its relations with the country’s institutions. Since October 2006, Roberto Saviano has been living under permanent police escort, as he was sentenced to death by the Mafia, which forces him to constantly change addresses and not go to public places. He had to leave Italy in 2008, leading him to make the following comment: “I can no longer live my life without asking permission” (from the security authorities and the Italian Ministry of the Interior).
Roberto Saviano also published, among others, Beauty and Hell: Writings 2004-2009 (2010); He comes there with me (2013); Zero, zero, zero (2014), report on cocaine and the global connections that operate around its trade, passing through different levels of organization; The boys of Naples (2016), adapted for the cinema under the title Piranhas (2019), directed by Claudio Giovannesi (1978); Fierce kiss (2017); We share this: session, love, violence, tradition in my life I gave boss (2024); Falcone: Roman (2024)
He also published, The opposite of death: scenes from Neapolitan life (2009), which I will now comment on.
2.
Apparently, The opposite of death It did not excite Brazilian readers: published here in 2009, I only became aware of its publication at the end of 2016, buying a copy by chance from a book vending machine at the busiest stations of the São Paulo subway, paying a ridiculous price for it.
The book presents two stories, “The Opposite of Death” (p. 7-64) and “The Ring” (p. 65-91). I do not intend to dwell on the second, which is the story of the death of two innocent young men at the hands of the Camorra. Vincenzo, 24, a bricklayer, and Giuseppe, 25, a carpenter, were meeting with friends in the town square on a Sunday, and that is all it takes to be killed in southern Italy. This is very reminiscent of the novels of Leonardo Sciascia (1921-1989), born in Rocalmute, a town in the province of Agrigento, in the Sicily region. I had the opportunity to write about your The complaint Site the earth is round.
As for the first story, which gives the book its title, there is much to be said. I chose to transcribe the excerpts that I considered most significant from the speeches of Maria, Enzo's fiancée, a poor man. ragazzo from southern Italy who lost his life very early.
“The Opposite of Death” with the subtitle “Return from Kabul”, has as its epigraph verses from a popular Italian song, “Carmela” (1975), sung by Sergio Bruni (1921-2003):
“You only cry if no one sees you
And scream only if no one hears,
But the blood that runs through our veins is not water
Carmela, Carme
And love is the opposite of death…”
Roberto Saviano writes that most of the humanitarian missions are made up of soldiers from southern Italy and that more than half of the dead soldiers are also from the south. “The region is full of veterans, soldiers who have returned from Bosnia or even Mozambique. Soldiers who have returned from Kosovo, soldiers who have returned from Somalia, soldiers who have returned from Iraq, soldiers who have returned from Lebanon and who are waiting to return there. Soldiers who have returned only as charred, torn, broken bodies” (p. 26).
“To curb the desire to enlist, one must have been born with a single kidney, flat feet or retinitis pigmentosa which condemns one to blindness (…) And even in these cases, they apply to enlist. They try, at least (..) They hope for a distraction, to be examined by a blind and deaf doctor. Here, even the one-legged try to enlist. And if in the past, when they reached the age of completing mandatory military service, thousands of young men were discharged using non-existent anal fistulas or bottles of urine contaminated with blood, bought at a high price, today, when the army is synonymous with work and salary, this no longer happens” (p. 26-27).
Conscientious objection “…was an option only for left-wing young men, the vast majority of whom were students who could spend that year without earning anything. Everyone else considered the barracks an opportunity and a year of lost wages, a chance to find out whether the barracks and the uniform were preferable to the construction site or the factory, to the truck on the roads of Europe or to the days behind the bar of a bar. All of Maria’s relatives enlisted or tried to enlist, and Maria knows all the girlfriends and wives of several veterans” (p. 28).
Regarding the mourning for Enzo and the custom of mourning in the region, she and all the women in her family “…have been dressed in black for months. It will soon be a year. An eternal mourning that never ends. The mourning for Enzo, to which is attached the mourning for another young man who dies, expires, disappears. And the young man generates a new mourning that extends to everyone, to neighbors, friends, aunts, distant cousins. In my city,” says Saviano, “all my aunt’s friends constantly wore black clothes, because there was always a murdered boyfriend, a distant relative who fell from a slab, the respect due to some family that had lost someone. And, when there was no mourning, the costumes were kept on, because soon, for sure, someone would appear. It was not appropriate to take them off. When a sixty-year-old dies, when someone dies of illness, mourning is restricted to the closest relatives. When a young man dies, it should be for everyone. Like a burden to be shared or a misfortune from which one cannot escape” (p. 32-33).
Furthermore, according to Roberto Saviano, in his hometown, when someone dies on the front, “the entire neighborhood dresses in black. As a child, I waited for baptisms and Christmas so as not to see the women in my house dressed like that. At baptisms, the clothes had to be colorful, and at Christmas the color red was mandatory. But my aunt felt embarrassed and, so used to wearing black, she continued to dress as always, she didn’t recognize herself in the colors” (p. 33).
Also in Maria’s house, who is 17 years old and already a widow, everyone dresses in black. Enzo went on a peace mission. When you embark on a mission of this nature, you gain triple, sometimes quadruple (p. 46). Maria wears Enzo’s identification tag around her neck (p. 48). “No cross, no holy picture, no symbol of a saint, no rosary. Just Enzo’s identification tag. Deformed by the fire, by the heat” (p. 49).
And he recalls the scene during the funeral. “All of my friends from the academy had their hands bandaged, and they were all sitting in the front pews of the church. When it was time to receive communion, they did not line up in front of the priest. Only the elderly women stood in line, while all of the young men, both military and civilian, veterans and army comrades, held their identification tags. They lifted the cord hanging around their necks and, at the exact moment that the priest offered the host to the women, they put the metal host in their mouths. I looked around. Everyone was doing the same. I took my little tag and squeezed it, also between my teeth. I also carry it, and I have the impression that I have since I was born. It is a military tag, engraved with my name, surname, date and place of birth, blood type and a Latin phrase by Terence. Enough to be recognized, enough to summarize who I am: to carry me in written form around my neck. Everyone, or almost everyone I know, has the plaque, the metal biography hanging. It seems like a symbol of the style of the youth from the outskirts, a provocation, a declaration of the permanent state of metropolitan conflict” (p. 49-50).
Commenting on this metal plate, he says that it “is a rough, uncomfortable object. In winter, this metal seal causes chills when it comes into contact with the skin during a hug. In summer, it sticks to the chest with sweat, and when making love, it dangles from the girl’s nose or ends up in her mouth. All my friends, without exception, showed me the plate bitten, according to them, by their wives: I strained my eyes and saw nothing, except microscopic scratches. In their imagination, each scratch is a different female canine” (p. 52-53).
Enzo was 21 when he embarked for Afghanistan “with the intention of paying for his wedding and putting a down payment on a house” (p. 54). She saw her fiancé enlist and leave for war without military training, without knowing how to shoot or defend himself. “A little widowed bride. A pure little bride. Seventeen years old. The feeling is that of being in front of something sacred. A kind of archetypal image that evokes a tragic vestal from other times. The girls who were widowed by boy soldiers” (p. 55).
Maria said about her fiancé’s death and the situation she was facing: “I know, looking at the photos he sent me from Kabul, that he liked the markets, I know he told me that the people there seemed anything but aggressive. He wrote that one day he would take me to Afghanistan and that in Kabul no one could stand the war anymore, that they wanted to be left in peace” (p. 61).
“And love is the opposite of death,” sang Sergio Bruni in “Carmela,” “…one of the most beautiful songs ever composed. Words from the old singer from Villaricca, which nullified hundreds of verses by poet laureates. Maria is certain of one thing: keeping Enzo, saving him from death, will only be possible as long as she continues to love him” (p. 62).
*Afranio Catani He is a retired professor at the Faculty of Education at USP and is currently a senior professor at the same institution. Visiting professor at the Faculty of Education at UERJ (Duque de Caxias campus).
Reference
Roberto Saviano. The opposite of death: scenes from Neapolitan life. Translation: Ana Maria Chiarini. Rio de Janeiro, Bertrand Brasil, 2009, 96 pages. [https://amzn.to/4fq8MSD]
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