That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana

In a large apartment house in central Rome, two crimes are\ncommitted within a matter of days: a burglary, in which a good deal\nof money and precious jewels are taken, and a murder, as a young\nwoman whose husband is out of town is found with her throat cut.\nCalled in to investigate, melancholy Detective Ciccio, a secret\nadmirer of the murdered woman and a friend of her husband’s,\ndiscovers that almost everyone in the apartment building is somehow\ninvolved in the case, and with each new development the mystery\nonly deepens and broadens. Gadda’s sublimely different detective\nstory presents a scathing picture of fascist Italy while tracking\nthe elusiveness of the truth, the impossibility of proof, and the\ninfinite complexity of the workings of fate, showing how they come\ninto conflict with the demands of justice and love. Italo Calvino,\nPier Paolo Pasolini, and Alberto Moravia all consideredThat Awful\nMess on the Via Merulanato be the great modern Italian novel.\nUnquestionably, it is a work of universal significance and protean\ngenius: a rich social novel, a comic opera, an act of political\nresistance, a blazing feat of baroque wordplay, and a haunting\nstory of life and death.

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