On Enjoying Italian Crime with Camilleri, Shruggable Neutrality on Chekhov and A Little Bit Of Chopin

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Have finished The Montalbano Mysteries by Andrea Camilleri . An omnibus of the first three novels of the eponymous Sicilian detective. Well I loved it. Everything you'd want from a crime genre is here. A hero you'd root for, a sense of place, characters well drawn, a good plot. I finished the book wishing that I was a brilliant Italian detective with a love of food living near the coast who could take a swim everyday should he wish it.

And the thing about this omnibus was....I didn't get to feel it was an omnibus. There was no sense of a hard slog. I just moved from one novel to the next with ease and was only disappointed when they were all finished. Don't know when I'll next get round to reading a Camilleri novel but I do know I'll be looking forward to it.

Which is more than I can say for Anton Chekhov.

You may remember sometime back I suggested that for some writers a reader can be in literary Switzerland. In that he (or she) didn't dislike a writer but at the same time could not understand the mantle of greatness that is thrust upon them. The main author I used for this was F Scott Fitzgerald but I included Chekhov in this as well.

Having now read The Duel And Other Stories I now realise that my views on Chekhov are slightly different. I'm still neutral but I finished each story thinking "Is that all there is"?

NOTHING MUCH HAPPENS. And even when it does it seems to resolve itself quickly and for the most part quietly enough. Leaving aside the duel of the main story the only real action seems to involve people flouncing off or acting in a turn of the century huff at something or another....and that's just the men.

So clearly I just don't understand why he gets the high literary reputation that he has. There are two conclusions to this. The first is that I'm the bookish equivalent of the little boy pointing out that king has no clothes. Suddenly I'm viewed as the most perceptive reader ever. Fame at last.

The second is more simple. That I'm an idiot who has not grasped the nuances of the Russian master. Either is possible.

Which leads me to the third book I'm reading now The Awakening and other stories by Kate Chopin. When I started to read the title story was thinking "This is like Chekhov. Nothing much is happening". But what Chopin does is to lead you slowly through the issues faced by the main character. This is interesting stuff. I think the phrase is "a slow burn". Must admit am impressed.

Until the next time.