The Dance of the Seagull

The Dance of the Seagull (2009/2013) Andrea Camilleri translated by Stephen Sartarelli

Alas, I’m now back to current on the Inspector Montalbano series, and I have no idea what I want to read next.

The story opens with Montalbano seeing a seagull dive to the ground, do a strange dance, and then die on the beach. He can’t get the image out of his mind, and it (as happens with him) sparked a fight with Livia, who flew into Vitaga so they could take a brief vacation.

But when Montalbano goes into work to clear the paperwork off his desk so he can leave with a clear conscience, he discovers that Fazio is missing.

Montalbano said nothing. Without Fazio around, he felt as if one of his arms had been cut off.

Montalbano may give Fazio a horrible time over his records complex, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t respect (perhaps even love) the man, so he drops absolutely everything and starts searching.

And once again, it’s nearly impossible not to be fond of Catarella, despite everything.

The moment he saw the inspector, Catarella very nearly threw himself at his feet.
“Jeezis, Chief, I ain’t seen yiz f’such a long time! I rilly rilly missed yiz!

And, of course, there’s not a murder investigation without Dr. Pasquano.

“Even one cigarette a day is a vice, according to the Americans.”
You can all go fuck yourselves, you and the Americans.”
“Keep your voice down, or President Bush will have you bombed at once.”

That still cracks me up.

There’s also a surprising rant about anti-homosexuality. Surprising because Montalbano is a Sicilian male, and the author is an even older Sicilian male, and I suppose I expected the topic to be ignored rather than addressed.

“(J)ust the other day Beba pointed out to me that if we were all like them, we would betray our purpose on earth, which is to procreate.”
“Who ever told you that’s our purpose in life? The Lord God himself, poissonally in poisson? Tell me the truth: Before you got married, when you were fucking everything that moved, didn’t you do everything within your power to not procreate?”

And of course, Montalbano reminds me that I’m glad not to live in Italy, no matter how bad the political situation here is.

“An undersecretary eating at the same table with a mafioso…?”
“Oh, right! What a scandal! How shameful! No matter what they do, our elected representatives don’t give a fuck anymore about public opinion! They take drugs, frequent whores, rob, steal, cheat, sell themselves, commit perjury, make deals with the mafia, and what happens to them? The newspapers talk about it for, oh, three days maybe? Then everybody forgets about it.”

Yeah, here in the US? We’ve got it good.

And now, I have to figure out what on earth I want to read next.
Rating: 8/10

Published by Penguin

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