Reviews for The Moro affair; and, the mystery of Majorana

The average rating for The Moro affair; and, the mystery of Majorana based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-10-17 00:00:00 Bernard B Lewis I've long been a fan of Leonardo Sciascia's detective stories and novels. See my reviews for most of the following: Equal Danger, To Each His Own, Sicilian Uncles, The Wine-Dark Sea, The Day of the Owl, Open Doors and Three Novellas. I've been eyeing this Moro book for years. Like many of you, my backlist is always too long. But recently a long out-of-print title, The Council of Egypt, was republished in UK by Head of Zeus, so all my old admiration was out again and I felt it so freshly that I finally made the plunge. I had read something about the period in Elena Ferrante's fiction. And in there, somewhere, she mentions Moro and Sciascia. Ferrante's novels also gave me a grounding in Italian society that I did not have before: attitudes toward women, mostly, but also a sense of the landscape, crime, politics'always inextricably entwined'and way of life in the Italian academy, upper middle class, and leftist culture generally. The Moro Affair is about a political assassination by Italian terrorists known as the Red Brigade who were inspired by that grand master of genocide, Stalin. Aldo Moro was for thirty years a politician. He was at the fore of much of post-war Italy's government which Sciascia, like Ferrante, considers hopelessly corrupt and contemptible. Sciascia's far more interested in Moro's history and that of the Christian Democrat Party, which he virtually headed. Moro, captured by the vile Red Brigade, was held for weeks in captivity, in a place they called the "People's Prison," and allowed during this period to write some 40 letters to friends, family and political associates, many of which were contemporaneously published. Many of these are quoted in part or in full here. The book has an intellectual density and brutality of logic that reminds me of the best nonfiction of V.S. Naipaul, especially Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey and its companion volume. Moro's letters from captivity, especially when he realizes that the Italian State is going to sacrifice him, are riveting. His own party has decided not to negotiate with terrorists. It's a stunning historical moment. It is Senator Taviani, Moro's colleague in the Christian Democrat Party, whom he accuses of being a pawn of American and German interests, whose negative attitude toward negotiation with terrorists Moro sees as being foremost. The party's reply is all too typical: This is not the Aldo Moro we know, it says, suggesting that he has been turned by the Red Brigades. But Sciascia is here to argue convincingly that Moro had not been so turned. The essay closes with a blistering condemnation of the police and carabinieri whose incompetence looks too incompetent. That is, as Sciascia points out, there was a profusion of leads which could have led to where Moro was being held captive, in the so-called People's Prison, but there was a complete failure to recognize them and follow up. There are Keystone Cops shorts stronger on procedural logic than was brought to bear on the Moro Affair. Meanwhile, Sciascia thinks the whole Red Brigades operation concerning Moro to be the most efficient demonstration of Italian logistics to date. Nothing else in Italian life quite prepares one, he suggests, for the precise timing and seamless operation of the Red Brigades. The second piece here is about the disappearance of the brilliant Italian physicist, Ettore Majorana, during the Fascist years. Like its fellow, it speculates on some of the unsolved mysteries of its subject. As a piece of writing I enjoyed it perhaps more than the title essay. Both are good but only the latter reaches the level of polish found in the author's fiction.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-05-25 00:00:00 Mark Reinert Come commento al breve saggio di Sciascia scritto nel 1978, a pochi mesi di distanza dai fatti, voglio riportare un passo estrapolato da un articolo di giornale di questi giorni, un dossier sui 55 giorni di prigionia dell'on. Moro scritto da Miguel Gotor per Il fatto quotidiano. "….in una vicenda in cui, come ha scritto Piecznick nel suo libro di memorie, "mai l'espressione ragion di Stato ha avuto più senso come durante il rapimento Moro in Italia." Un senso così profondo da diventare opaco come la lastra di ghiaccio del vero lago della Duchessa e vischioso come il falso comunicato (sul corpo dell'on. Moro da cercare in detto lago, preciso), perché se lo Stato è storicamente debole, diviso in fazioni e in crisi di autorevolezza e di fiducia pubblica come in Italia, quando viene messo sotto attacco si irrigidisce alla maniera di un paralitico fino a ridurre le sue ragioni, vere o presunte, insieme con le furbizie e le meschinità, in una grigia poltiglia intrisa di Statolatria. Se un giorno dovessi spiegare a mio figlio con un'immagine cosa è la Statolatria gli mostrerei la foto dei sommozzatori che si immergono diligenti nel buco di ghiaccio del Lago della Duchessa, al fondo del quale non avrebbero trovato il corpo di Moro, ma riflessa la storia della sua morte, l'effetto di quella Statolatria di cui egli fu vittima." Se Sciascia fosse vivo, annuirebbe alla lettura di queste parole.