IL CASELLANTE / THE LINE INSPECTOR

Camilleri is the chronicler, fabulist, and mythographer of the vigatese community. He tells of Minica and her husband, the line inspector Nino Zarcuto. […] They want the grace of a son. They do their best. But the violence is a chasmous whirlpool, sucking the couple in. The pain is excruciating, heartbreaking. It petrifies. Minica is a Niobe, now in a humble rustic mythology. […]. A vegetable reverie makes her believe she can become a tree. To take root and bear fruit, after being grafted. Her husband indulges her, loving and solicitous. The son finally arrives, as miracles come: bestowed by the shocks of death and war. Camilleri lurks in the turns of tragedy. And he waits for the reader, with a lit candle in his hand.
Salvatore Silvano Nigro