LA PENSIONE EVA / LA PENSIONE EVA

The Pensione Eva rises in Vigàta in an archaeologically mythical place, where in distant times a Greek temple, a Roman temple, and a “little church for mariners and sailors” had succeeded each other. And from this “chosen place” one day the guests of the inn board (in turn, out of metaphor and as if in counterpoint) a German military ship to bring consolation, comfort and charitable relief against the “horror,” to the soldiers so disheveled by wounds that the ladies in Fascist uniforms, gripped by “upset”, refused to visit. Love stories born in the inn, which is an open window to the world. It makes one “something about the world.” It educates to life. And it is pleasantly visited by a prodigality of astonishing tales: visionary at times, and even hilarious-chivalric on an Ariosto basis or otherwise touched by the mad rope. The tales germinate prodigiously, attract, and are immediately incorporated into the construction of the novel.

La Pensione Eva is an amarcord: “a narrative vacation,” which Camilleri has given to himself and his readers “in the imminence” of his “eightieth birthday”.