Each of several residents of an apartment reveal themselves in statements to the police interspersed with journal entries about them by the primary suspect in a murder investigation. The immigrant experience to Rome of various Mediterranean people, where someone from Naples can be viewed as foreign. ( )

This is an odd little book but one I really enjoyed. Europa Editions rarely steers me wrong.

The novella is a series of monologues from various residents and neighbors of a building in Rome, telling of their experiences and relationship with one character, Amedeo, who has disappeared after another resident is found murdered. The murder is not really the point; rather, Lakhous is painting a portrait of a multinational community, one in conflict with itself between Italians (and even they are not a unified lot) and immigrants. Sly humor is woven throughout the book, which helps to balance the more serious themes of racism, xenophonia, and Islamaphobia. As an Algerian-born writer now living in Italy, he knows of what he speaks.

4 stars ( )

Lorenzo Manfredini, a thug who goes by the moniker The Gladiator, is found dead in the elevator of an apartment building on Piazza Vittorio in Rome. On the same day, a man called Amedeo goes missing, a fact which, in the police’s books, makes him the prime – if not the obvious suspect. Amara Lakhous’ novel – winner of the prestigious Premio Flaiano when it was first published in Italian in 2006 – consists of transcripts of brief police interviews with people who knew Manfredini and Amedeo, interspersed with diary-like entries by the mysterious, elusive Amedeo himself. The interviews provide an insight into the kaleidoscope of cultures which collides in central Rome. Indeed, the subject of the novel is not primarily the fairly tame whodunnit which propels the narrative forward, but the theme of immigration, race and multiculturalism. We learn of the tribulations of foreign immigrants, but also of the inherent racism of such individuals as the Neapolitan concierge Benedetta, even while she is herself looked down upon by Northerners who have settled in the city. Eventually, we discover that Amedeo – taken for an Italian by most of the “witnesses” – is also an immigrant with a poignant past.

Clash of Civilisations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio is an enjoyable, often humorous, sometimes moving novel, well rendered in Ann Goldstein’s translation. That said, considering the depth of the themes it addresses, I found it rather superficial. The interrogations are not long enough to really allow us to delve into the character of the interviewees, who are often portrayed as something of a caricature – the Romanista bar owner, the Milanese snob, the racist Neapolitan. The solution to the mystery is underwhelming, if not downright silly. However, this bittersweet novel doesn’t outstay its welcome, and provides an authentic (and, for some, possibly surprising) view on contemporary Italy.

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2022/06/Clash-of-Civilizations-Elevator-Piazz... ( )

Lorenzo Manfredini, a thug who goes by the moniker The Gladiator, is found dead in the elevator of an apartment building on Piazza Vittorio in Rome. On the same day, a man called Amedeo goes missing, a fact which, in the police’s books, makes him the prime – if not the obvious suspect. Amara Lakhous’ novel – winner of the prestigious Premio Flaiano when it was first published in Italian in 2006 – consists of transcripts of brief police interviews with people who knew Manfredini and Amedeo, interspersed with diary-like entries by the mysterious, elusive Amedeo himself. The interviews provide an insight into the kaleidoscope of cultures which collides in central Rome. Indeed, the subject of the novel is not primarily the fairly tame whodunnit which propels the narrative forward, but the theme of immigration, race and multiculturalism. We learn of the tribulations of foreign immigrants, but also of the inherent racism of such individuals as the Neapolitan concierge Benedetta, even while she is herself looked down upon by Northerners who have settled in the city. Eventually, we discover that Amedeo – taken for an Italian by most of the “witnesses” – is also an immigrant with a poignant past.

Clash of Civilisations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio is an enjoyable, often humorous, sometimes moving novel, well rendered in Ann Goldstein’s translation. That said, considering the depth of the themes it addresses, I found it rather superficial. The interrogations are not long enough to really allow us to delve into the character of the interviewees, who are often portrayed as something of a caricature – the Romanista bar owner, the Milanese snob, the racist Neapolitan. The solution to the mystery is underwhelming, if not downright silly. However, this bittersweet novel doesn’t outstay its welcome, and provides an authentic (and, for some, possibly surprising) view on contemporary Italy.

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2022/06/Clash-of-Civilizations-Elevator-Piazz... ( )

The plot of this novella revolves around a murder--"the Gladiator" is found murdered in his apartment building elevator. Amedeo, another resident of the building, has been accused. In alternating chapters Lakhous presents narration from different residents, a store owner on the square, the hotel concierge, and the accused himself. A cast of unreliable narrators!

As each person narrates we learn all about the residents, their activities--and the elevator. Through Amedeo's musings we learn more details about stories the others tell. The various immigrants--from Iran, the Netherlands, Bangladesh--are all looked down on by the Italians who largely don't know where they are from (the northerners and southerners also look down on each other). Names are mispronounced and friendly words misunderstood. The satire and humor is strong here. It is both funny yet completely believable and sad. All of these people mean well (maybe not the Gladiator), but through cultural and language barriers they misunderstand so much. The only thing they agree on is that Amedeo was a wonderful man and cannot be guilty. ( )

Titolo sicuramente d'effetto, personaggi realistici, ambientazione che corrisponde alla realta' odierna, elementi purtroppo veri e sempre difficili da accettare. Ottime aspettative per trovare poi una trama molto scontata, paradossalmente di contorno a tutti gli altri elementi: nei tre elementi precedenti, punto di forza del romanzo, gia' si legge come la vicenda deve evolvere ed andare a finire. Romanzo si' abbastanza buono per instaurare una riflessione, magari per chi e' meno al corrente di queste situazioni, ma sostanzialmente mancato. ( )

"The Gladiator", an unpopular tenant in a Rome apartment building, is found murdered in the elevator. The most popular tenant, Amedeo is missing and is presumed to be the murderer. Through the eyes of nine other tenants, and the police inspector, we learn that Amedeo was always helping the others...with immigration, employment, and other issues large and small. As each tenant speaks, we learn about racism and anti-immigrant sentiment in modern-day Italy. No one really knows each other, or tries to. It is a sad commentary on attitudes about "others" who are different and "don't belong here". And Amedeo, beloved for his honesty, is found to be not at all what everyone thought he was.

I only wish there had been more subtlety in the views of the other tenants. A "clash of civilizations", to me, spoke of differing perspectives and viewpoints, but the only issue at play was immigration. A big enough issue to be sure, but surely not the only pressure point among such a diverse group. ( )

Per provare a capire come ci vedono gli "altri". ( )

O-rendo e politicizzato. ( )

This little book about the residents of an Italian apartment building was a delight. The societal clash of long time residents and new immigrants in Italy in general is reflected in the conflicts the residents of one building have about the elevator in their building. Masterful. ( )

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Book Description: A compelling mix of social satire and murder mystery.

A small culturally mixed community living in an apartment building in the center of Rome is thrown into disarray when one of the neighbors is murdered. An investigation ensues and as each of the victim's neighbors is questioned, the reader is offered an all-access pass into the most colorful neighborhood in contemporary Rome. Each character takes his or her turn center-stage, giving evidence, recounting his or her story--the dramas of racial identity, the anxieties and misunderstandings born of a life spent on society's margins, the daily humiliations provoked by mainstream culture's fears and indifference, preconceptions and insensitivity. What emerges is a moving story that is common to us all, whether we live in Italy or Los Angeles.

This novel is animated by a style that is as colorful as the neighborhood it describes and is characterized by seemingly effortless equipoise that borrows from the cinematic tradition of the Commedia all'Italiana as exemplified by directors such as Federico Fellini.

At the heart of this bittersweet comedy told with affection and sensitivity is a social reality that we often tend to ignore and an anthropological analysis, refreshing in its generosity, that cannot fail to fascinate.

My Review: Reading that book description isn't necessarily helpful. Social satire plus murder mystery, to most book-readin' Murrikins, is gonna call forth the specter of Murder by Death. You are not in for a satire like that. You are in for a very sophisticated and layered short novel in which a murder is committed, but frankly no one really cares who did it because it needed doing, and the perp the police have identified is a community pillar. No one believes Amedeo committed this murder, which no one calls a crime.

Amedeo steps out of the stories of ten people who all live in a small apartment building on Rome's tatty side, on the Piazza Vittorio. All ten people are displaced, not Roman, and all are made to feel more alien than guest by Rome and its Romans. Amedeo comes to the rescue of each person here, in ways practical and spiritual. He's a fixer, a born organizer, he spends his time on this earth open to and listening for the truths under the stories his neighbors tell, the truths under the facts of Rome and Italian society, the truths that not very many people will bother to learn or, quite possibly, ever realize are there.

So how can the police suspect this wonderful, soothing, special man of MURDER?! Because he, like everyone else, fought with the shit who got murdered? No...because he has disappeared. Not for the first time in his life. He has vanished, and in police work, that's as good as a confession. The novel is told in the interviews the police take with all the residents of Amedeo's building.

Interspersed with these interviews are wails, the first-person accounts of Amedeo himself. They're called wails because Amedeo, né Ahmed Salmi in Algiers, spends a lot of time locked in his wife's bathroom with a tape recorder, setting down his impressions of the people around him, and vocalizing in that uniquely Arab way...the ululating wail, used for joy, for mourning, for any access of emotion that words can't encompass. It's a wonderful way to let us into the experience of being alive in the skin of a force of nature. We're inside Amedeo, Ahmed, we're privileged to be the unseen auditors of the story of his world.

His private world. We have no sense whatever of his work, his living...he remains in a tight little box, as do all the characters, one that focuses on someone we don't meet or hear from or, frankly, care about. The victim is not the point. The murderer didn't commit a crime so much as perform clean-up on aisle two. The more we hear about him, the less we care that he's dead. It works well as a narrative technique to emphasize the almost miraculous nature of listening, and its almost total lack in the modern world.

So why 3.75 stars, when all of the above sounds like such praise? Because the Italian reviews mention an exuberance of language, a gonzo balls-out feeling that the text gives. In Italian. The translation is like the book description above, not uninteresting but nobody's idea of gonzo or balls-out writing. It's a translation. It feels like a translation. It's never going to convey the sense that the original can, of different regional voices, of different classes and different kind of Italian, because American English isn't that kind of language and American culture doesn't, at least at the level of culture where one finds readers of translated novels, like “dialect writing” because it's not Nice.

We lose. I want to read this book in Italian now. It's bound to be more fun. The translation is a good book. The original, I will bet, is a fantastic one.

*sigh* ( )

What a lovely little book! Taking place in Rome, more specifically at an apartment complex near the Piazza Vittorio. The Gladiator has been killed and Amedeo has disappeared, casting suspicion on him. The book is written in a series of interviews with all of the people that knew Amedeo, each one proclaiming that he couldn't be the killer, interspersed with some random thoughts recorded by Amedeo. The result is a wonderful, quirky book that highlights many different thoughts about Italy's immigrants. ( )

Funny and entertaining, if slight and at times overdone. The book is told from multiple viewpoints – each person has a section where they describe their relationship to the helpful but enigmatic Amedeo, who has been accused of murder. Amedeo’s entries relating to the person who has just narrated follow. A disliked resident has been killed in the elevator of an apartment building at the Piazza Vittorio and a number of residents, neighbors and employees are interviewed. Many of those interviewed are immigrants – some from different countries, others from different parts of Italy. The confusion over the origin of several of the narrators is a funny running joke and it was interesting to see the variety of attitudes towards all kinds of immigrants. For example, the Milanese professor is scornful of Rome as well as anyone from the south of Italy while others have more generalized xenophobia towards non-Italians. However, many of the characterizations are over-the-top (one resident accuses the Chinese of stealing her dog and suggests the UN should declare war on China) and the revelations of Amedeo’s background are somewhat anticlimactic. Still, an interesting and fast read. ( )

Three stars is too much, but I'm feeling generous today. This is an entertainment that yes, made me laugh, but it's just too easy to caricature stupidity (even if the exaggerations are all too sad but true).

It's about the immigrant experience in Rome, which could be similar to my own experience, though not really. Here's a passage that I found true:

"Questa città ha qualcosa di strano. È molto difficile andarsene. Forse l'acqua delle sue fontane si è mescolata con una sostanza particolare che ha origini stregonesche."

"There's something strange about this city. It's very difficult to leave. Maybe the water of its fountains got mixed with a peculiar substance that has magical (witchy) origins." [my translation:]

Rome IS magical and witchy....... ( )

Written as a series of interviews with people living in Piazza Vittorio, the mystery of who killed Lorenzo Manfredini, the Gladiator, unfolds piece by piece. Each character is speaking to an unknown interviewer evoking the feeling that they are talking to the reader directly. They each relate stories from their own lives as well as stories about their missing neighbor, Amedeo. They describe him as polite, helpful, inspiring, and a true Italian. When each discovers that Amedeo is an immigrant and not Italian, it is met with disbelief and surprise.

After each neighbor’s vignette, there is a wailing section in which Amedeo himself is the speaker. He relates stories about each of his neighbors and his own past. Again, the story of Amedeo is revealed in pieces. Each chapter builds upon the events and themes of the previous chapter.

Loss, grief, loneliness and disconnection recur throughout. These are stories told mainly by immigrants who feel unwanted and detested, and they, in turn, denigrate those from Italy and from countries other than their homeland. Likewise, Italians from the north and south make equally bitter comments about each other. Lakhous has created a very clever novel that peels back layer by layer until it reveals fundamental aspects of the human condition as a stranger in a strange land.

I generally perk up when I find anything from Europa Editions and this little gem was no exception. This really could have taken place at an apartment building in most U.S. cities as well, as the themes of prejudice, assumptions based on race, country of origin, etc., abound here as well. This book is comprised of a bunch of small "interviews" of the residents of an apartment building near the Piazza Vittorio in Rome, reflecting on the murder of a thug-like tennant known as "The Gladiator." The residents are from as far flung places as Bangladesh and Peru to the Netherlands, each one quirkier than the last. However, they all agree on one thing, they LOVE Amedeo, the man seemingly accused of the murder (who they all erroneously believed was Roman and in fact, is an immigrant). I flew through the book and got quickly engaged in each person's "truth." While basically satire and a bumbling "murder mystery" of sorts, underlying it all is basic human nature, both the bad (racism and fear of those different) to the good (fascinating immigrant stories and how if we just take a moment, the common threads that bind us has humans become evident - and how misunderstandings are probably responsible for most of the world's ills). Having travelled to Rome, I loved the "Roman-ness" of it, but even more, I just enjoyed reading about the people. The murder mystery part is silly and predictable, but that said, this is a fun one. I highly recommend it for something a bit off the beaten path. ( )

Loved it - loved the format of each suspect in the Gladiator's murder getting a voice. I loved the diversity of the characters with the only unifying factor, their love of Amedeo, a powerful yet shadow-like figure. The action, such as it is, unfolds slowly - great showing of how people become "others". Lakhouse gently illuminates how these perceptions arise and just how superficial they are but also how powerful. Great characters, sly humor and social relevance. ( )

This was a very interesting, sad, and funny book. I saw it in the store and was intrigued by the cover.

It is set in modern day Rome, and deals with a group of residents in one apartment building in Piazza Vittorio. A resident has been killed and another has disappeared.

There is only one 'Roman' among the residents, and the rest are foreigners both immigrants and illegals. There are several other Italians from different cities/regions, but they too are considered outsiders by the Romans, and they also consider themselves as 'others'.

The book is short and the structure has each of 10 residents telling their story about the killing and the disappearance. While talking about the incidents, they of course tell their own story, and express their attitudes, experiences, hopes, goals and disappointments. They talk about discrimination, and being hurt, yet they in turn disparage others in certain groups that they think are the root of problems.

Each resident chapter is followed by a chapter from the resident who has disappeared. He talks about his experience with the resident, and about himself. The police have determined that the man who disappeared is not really Italian, but an immigrant. Because he argued with the dead resident, is an immigrant, and missing the police also consider him the killer - though there is no evidence.

The other residents are all shocked that the disappeared man is not Italian or Roman. Because they all thought he was, and because he was so kind and helpful, he alone crosses the barriers of ethnicity.

The final chapter is of the policeman who is working on the case. It provides a wrap up, and 2 endings.

I liked the writing, the story was in turns funny and sad, because of the prejudice that was rampant. The characters were interesting, as was the structure of the story. ( )

This novel by Algerian-born Lakhous definitely falls into the category of a Good Find. The quirky title and interesting cover caught my eye in the library. Sitting down to try it, I ended up reading it cover to cover in one shot. It's not long, but it's definitely entertaining.

The book is one part mystery and two parts commentary on the immigrant experience. Lorenzo Manfredini has been found murdered in the elevator of an apartment building in Rome where he lived. Amedeo, another resident, disappeared at about the same time. Further, the police have just discovered that Amedeo, though speaking flawless Italian and knowing Rome better than most residents, is actually an immigrant.

From this starting point, Lakhous has ten other residents and the police inspector each speak for a chapter, providing their perceptions of Amedeo. They all, except the last, admire or love him and are firm in their convictions that he simply cannot be the culprit. However, the revelation of his foreign status leads each to wander off into their own thoughts on immigrants: ranging from those who are also immigrants struggling with Italy, through Italians who resent the presence of foreigners, to those who view even those from a different region of Italy as less civilized. Interspersed with each of these voices is Amedeo, commenting on the person who just spoke, explaining them more fully, pointing out their prejudices, valuing them.

The book is laugh-out-loud funny at some points, but there is always an undercurrent of seriousness, of somber comment on what it means to be an immigrant. There is also observation on the blindness of prejudice and stereotyping.

A quick read that will certainly repay the time—a strong recommendation. ( )

Absolutely a masterpiece. I couldn't put it down. And not just a good read, but the issues it brings to mind concerning immigration and the relationship of various cultures was sprinkled with humor. This should be required reading for anybody studying world cultures or sociology.

At first the characters can be a little confusing, but it is an enjoyable book. The way these people see each other - how they do not bother to learn the truth about each other - yet they all love the one character because of his honesty. However, he has helped them without ever revealing much about himself - a hidden past that none of them even want to hear about. He helps these immigrants to Rome (whether they are from outside the country or just another part of Italy) to live amongst each other, and they wholeheartedly believe he is a native.....but they don't know everything. ( )