Michael Dibdin - Back to Bologna (2006)
Reviewed by Fiona Walker
Back to Bologna is the novel that takes Dibdin's Aurelio Zen series -- hugely popular and acclaimed in Europe but disappointingly underappreciated in the US -- into double figures. And on this showing, readers of his dark, intelligently written series, and admirers of the fascinating, self-interested and paranoid Zen will still be clamoring for more after twice as many again.
Through these 10 novels, Dibdin has consistently shown his mastery of two styles: of straight, gripping, dark mysteries drenched in the murk of Italian politics (e.g. Ratking, Dead Lagoon), and of brisker, playful satires replete with all kinds of cultural allusion. (e.g. Cosi Fan Tutti). Both styles share the ruthless intelligence and darkness which characterizes all his work. Back to Bologna is one of the latter kind of novel: an incisively written satire. Dibdin has always been blessed with a razor-sharp dark wit -- in fact, I can't think of another writer to better him in that department; there is certainly no one more sly -- but in these other novels he really lets himself go.
Zen, who has been on indefinite leave after further surgery to recover from the bomb-attack in Blood Rain (that many fans thought signaled the end of the series – thank heaven not), is sent to Bologna to oversee the investigation into the murder of a shady businessman. The unpopular owner of the local football team (the Bolognese enmity? He's from Parma, not Bologna) has been found dead in his car, both shot and stabbed with a Parmesan knife. Zen, who has "only just realized how much he likes his job", is only too glad to take on the case and escape a dilemma in his personal life. Only problem? Zen is not actually allowed to do any investigating. His brief: merely to observe the local investigation and act as liaison to the Ministry, keeping them fully informed of what's going on.
And he's got a lot to observe: the case soon widens to include a clutch of superbly rendered oddballs: an earnest semiotics student, his immigrant girlfriend who claims to be from Ruritania, Tony Speranza, the city's most inept PI who styles himself on Philip Marlowe, and a celebrity television chef who can't cook and who has just been publicly humiliated by Bologna's world-famous Professor of Semiotics, Edgardo Ugo. Pretentious Ugo is described as having written a "bestseller everyone bought so that people would think they'd read it." (Curious, that Umberto Eco happens to be Professor of Semiotics at Bologna University, has written an impenetrable bestseller, and even matches Dibdin's physical description of Ugo: "bearded," "stumbling like a caged bear." If Eco had a fancy to be litigious, he could have a real case on his hands!)
Dibdin has long been the best chronicler of the politically muddy Italian society, where everyone is happy to turn a blind eye as long as it will bring them some kind of advantage -- mirrored rather wonderfully by the character of Zen, who's only interested in greasing the cogs to give himself the most trouble-free life possible, professionally and personally. Zen's only problem: he may be morally vague, but he has a ruthless doggedness when it comes to his job, mainly because the quicker he solves a crime the quicker he can get back to an easy existence.
Zen, though, is not his old self any more. A bit depressed, emotionally and physically battered, he lacks his old edge. He may have developed in an entirely realistic way, but slightly lethargic Zen is not quite as gripping in this book as normal. Dibdin makes up for it, though, with his twisty plot and writing. Not only funny, it is also very clever. I get a definite sense that Dibdin is angry crime fiction is not taken more seriously. Most would respond with a hyper-serious novel; innovative Dibdin does exactly the opposite, presenting us with a brilliant farce.
It's as if he's demonstrating that you can write a crime novel with minimal mystery, in which the protagonist does not even investigate the crime, and has little to no hand in unraveling the case, and yet still create an engaging and hugely clever crime novel that both holds the interest and manages to entertain on every single page. This is how strong the genre is, he says, this is how versatile, how good; you can do anything with it. You can even fail completely to take it seriously, and still succeed! And in a novel that can be read for its story or its intelligence, he does exactly that.
Clearly, Dibdin does know exactly what he's doing: one character states an intention to write a mystery "in which the detective solves nothing," which lacks, even, a sense of place. Even the title is only relevant superficially, in actuality is almost a coincidence: it's taken from the boundary words of an encyclopedia volume.
Obviously, a novel like this isn't going to be to everyone's taste. I loved the sly cleverness of it, though some may not appreciate it. Some may find his way of toying with his characters like a cat with twine, albeit for the purposes of humor, a little distracting, maybe. If you're a first time reader, you may not like it as a mystery either, because it doesn't take itself seriously. All this is why it's a mistake to start here.
To appreciate Back to Bologna, you have to know what Dibdin is capable of when he's taking it seriously. Only when you've experienced what an absolute master he can be -- and he really can: read A Long Finish -- do you realize what a special book Back to Bologna really is. My advice? Established fans jump straight in and see Dibdin extend his range even more, newcomers start at the beginning with his Gold-Dagger-winning Ratking. You'll end up getting Back to Bologna in no time at all.
Posted by Fiona Walker in Book Reviews | Permalink
