Crimes and punishments at the Farnesina
"Crime at the Farnesina" by Daniele Capezzone read by Paola Sacchi
It captures you, from start to finish, relentlessly, like Cleopatra. It's the cat on the hot crime. “Crime at the Farnesina”, nothing a little bit less. Narrative debut, with this humorous thriller, by Daniele Capezzone. The book is distributed with Maurizio Belpietro's newspaper La Verità , which is its editor, of which Capezzone, former parliamentarian, columnist for Mediaset, is a columnist. “Any reference to facts and characters that really existed is absolutely and purely coincidental”, is the clear specification. Certainly the fictional author has a lot of it. As well as that certain sense of cultured irony but also with a very frank and direct language that tears you one smile after another, if not real laughter.
Michele Morabito, a journalist-commentator, of refined reading, once also a politician, a respectable and sensitive person, but also with clear convictions, who with polite sarcasm slams politicians in the face – even "Carlo Malerba", former Prime Minister ( Party of Progress) – finds himself investigating the crime that took place among the white marbles, the great halls of the Farnesina. Worse: right in the room, with its kilometric vastness, of Foreign Minister Filippo Di Carmine. It is to Morabito, even if he does not deal with judicial matters, that the newspaper he works for entrusts the sensational case. Judicial yes, but the crime has a very political background. It is talked about on TV, in the radical-chic left-wing villas and villas of Capalbio. The search for the culprit goes wild, speculation about hypothetical international plots, preferably from overseas against a certain pro-Chinese bad habit at the Farnesina. Morabito is summoned to Capalbio by a certain Lalla Belfiore, signature of the radical-chic magazine “Morality”. Here, he who is to certain worlds like the devil in holy water finds himself with the intelligentsia of "Little Athens", in all its shades of red from the most profound executioner to rosé. There is a certain "Andrea Scarsi", a dominant guru "Paolo Terzi", an Italian-American journalist, the writer "Sandro Lamentosi". They are apparently kind and refined, but, Morabito writes, ready "to ruin careers with a single ferocious joke" against anyone who does not think like them and therefore becomes a "fascist".
Our man here also runs into the Filipino waiter Venancio, who confesses to him in the kitchen: “Senor, they haven't paid me for two months”. And he tells him that he can't stand it anymore because "here the rain, a storm surge is also attributed to Santelli (Sergio Santelli, right-wing politician, ed)". But, in the meantime, Morabito, who advises Venancio to be cautious, otherwise he finds himself "with a kick in the f … down the Aurelia", must discover the culprit of the crime.
But it is above all the others who are looking for the adventurous journalist, former politician, as if driven by an irrepressible need to confess to him. Others like “Manuel Dibboni”, a sui generis neo-politician, once a friend of Di Carmine. Everyone, including the minister, recognizes Morabito's sincerity and intellectual honesty, even though they know very well that his ideas are at odds with theirs. And Morabito, who also frequents television studios as a commentator, does not hesitate to whip them, prod them. But ours is also self-ironic. Contrary to how certain politicians or the voters themselves “who trust the leaders faithfully”, he also makes fun of himself because of that tic with which he fixes his left lens in situations of particular stress.
The strength of Morabito but also a certain, at times hilarious, slavery is Cleopatra. The cat, or the freedom that only felines represent, as Churchill said. The perpetrator of the crime? And morality, which is different from moralism, which follows? Cleopatra will never let you go until the end of her mystery reading.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/delitti-e-castighi-alla-farnesina/ on Thu, 30 Jun 2022 11:10:07 +0000.