Impossible by Erri De Luca

Italian fiction

Original title – Impossible

Translator – N S Thompson

Source – Library book

This is the second book from the Italian De Luca. A writer that was called the writer of the decade by Corriere Della Sera. He had been, in his earlier life a left-wing activist, even after he had been very vocal about a particular train line that had been built and was sued for his comments around it. He has been writing since he was 20, when he published his first book. He has published nearly a book a year since then and is now in his seventies. He has had a few books translated into English. The other book I read by him was The Day before happiness around a Child, which shows a versatile writer. This latest book links to his own left-wing activism. A love of the mountains.

Q: Let’s start again from the beginning of that day, shall we? You don’t recognise the person in the photograph
I’ve shown you?
A: No, I don’t recognise him. I’m not good at faces and with good reason after so many years. I can only repeat what I’ve already said.
Q: Perhaps, but possibly you could add something you haven’t said before?
A: Perhaps, but this isn’t a friendly chat between passengers on a train. I’m being questioned by an examining magistrate in a pre-trial investigation. It’s your decision what to ask, mine to decide if I want to talk about a memory or not.

The opening lines of this book

The book works as a two-hander with a few side characters. An old man, a former left-wing activist, has been held after he and another man had set off to hike in the Dolomites. They weren’t together, but when one man returns, and the other dies, so the older man is held. We have the scenario for the book, a series of interviews between this man. A young up-and-coming magistrate sees this older man as the murderer of the other man initially; the story is told as thou the two men weren’t connected as the man is kept in solitary confinement. The first chat hadn’t the solicitor, but he is there for the rest. The novel is mainly in the form of questions and answers as the two men lock swords and the lawyer is in the background. As they set off that day for a walk in the hills, the two men appeared unconnected on their own hikes for that day. But they had been comrades many years ago. But we are getting the mountains as a character as the man talks around that day and the relationship and the falling out many years earlier between the two men. This is the basis of the younger magistrate thinking he is a killer. We also see the old man talking to his wife, adding a perspective on where he thinks he will get off. but as time goes on, his hope changes.

Sweetheart, I’m thinking of that photo you sent me at Christmas of you as a child. That rascal face of yours looking directly into the lens, decisive, sarcastic, triumphantly defiant. I started to smile and the smile wouldn’t leave my face. You were seven years old.
I don’t know when you’ll read this letter. For now I’m writing it to keep myself company with thoughts of the two of us being together.
The cell holding me for twenty-three hours a day is for solitary confinement, but I’m not isolating myself at all from you and what matters to me. I’ve lived in worse places. I have paper, a pen and time. I do gymnastics and go over everything i know by heart: songs, poems, proverbs

The old man talking to his wife about his time in jail initally

This is a powerful little book that reminds me of the best two-handers by, say  Harold Pinter plays, where throughout the novel, the initial tale changes and evolves as the two men that set out on that hike that day past connection is revealed. This is a story of Italy’s dark past, those violent years of the seventies when the two men were connected. This is also a nod to De Luca’s own left-wing past. It also shows how people view people involved in that time. It is also an ode to the mountains, which, given he had a protest around a rail line that went through this area, you can tell De Luca loves. I love the way he unfolds the interaction of the two characters during the interviews like a classic noir film interview as bit by bit it becomes clear it is a wholly   Have you read any books by him? I was also reminded of Lawrence’s poem The Mountain Lion for some reason a poem I have loved since my teens  ( It is published by Mountain lion press)

Winston’s score – B he seems the master of short books. Both books I have read have been Novellas, and lets hope we see more. He has a huge backlist.