Clash Of Civilizations Over An Elevator In Piazza Vittorio [Paperback]

(3.5 stars) Algerian author Amara Lakhous, now an Italian resident, pens a sly satire of an immigrant's life in Italy, exploring the murder of a young man in the elevator of an apartment building adjacent to Piazza Vittorio to show the hidden and not-so-hidden prejudices of Roman residents toward "outsiders." The victim, Lorenzo Manfredini, a young hood also known as the Gladiator, had repeatedly defaced and urinated in the building's elevator, earning the enmity of every resident. As residents and local merchants tell their stories to a police inspector, their hidden agendas and casual resentments against immigrants surface. Amedeo, a resident uniformly admired by everyone, thought to be an Italian volunteer who helps immigrants deal with Roman bureaucracy, is sought for the crime. No one has seen him since the murder.

Lakhous cleverly creates twelve unique voices as each person tells "the truth according to...", alternating these separate voices with "wails" from Amadeo as he comments on what the residents say. Amedeo, who speaks Italian like a native, provides a running commentary on Roman life, pointing up the contrasts between what people say to other Italians and what they say and do about their immigrant neighbors behind their backs.

As each person provides additional information about Amedeo and the victim, the reader comes to know characters like Parviz Mansoor Samadi, who has barely escaped from Iran, leaving his wife and four children behind; Benedetta Esposito, "the oldest concierge in Rome," a Neapolitan whose suspicions of all immigrants is determined by their behavior with regard to the temperamental elevator; and Iqbal Amir Allah, from Bangladesh, whose observations about Amedeo's understanding of Muslim customs lead him to say that "Signor Amedeo is as good as mango juice." The owner of a local bar, a neighborhood fish seller, and the police inspector also give their impressions of Amedeo, the building residents, and immigrants in general.

The characters' gradual revelations and Amedeo's commentary change the reader's perceptions, and as the plot becomes more complex, the novella matches the sympathies one develops for the immigrants with the understanding one evolves for those who resent the immigrants' perceived privileges. Often hilarious, the novella carries an edge, and though the author is not heavy-handed with his satire, his points are obvious--and repeated--as each character reveals prejudices and reactions to prejudice. The conclusion takes on a somewhat different tone and style as police inspector Mauro Bettarini, believing that "truth is like a coin: it has two faces," gives two different possibilities to explain the murder. The novella becomes more impressionistic and more ambiguous, and readers may be surprised by the concluding pages. n Mary Whipple

A deceptively intelligent un-novel that brings you a cast of interesting characters, with sections of charmingly unreliable narration from each. A sort of Roman "Tales of the City", it takes you through the improbable intersections of the characters' lives as you learn which character is the murderer. Brilliant and very Italian.

Amiri Lakhous' CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS succeeds both as a whodunit, a humorous novel and a shrewd analysis of the "clash of civilizations" in Rome. Lakhous himself had to flee his native Algeria because he wasn't "Muslim enough;" but of course his being Muslim at all unnerves many simple souls in his adopted country of Italy. Another writer might have become shrill and bitter; but Lakhous sees the humorous side of the relentless misunderstandings which propell his narrative. His Italian characters themselves illustrate a variety of regional cultures -- I was much amused (as an Alabamian) to learn that the bustling citizens of Milan feel about the laid-back residents of Naples roughly what New Yorkers feel about residents of the Deep South! I look forward with great interest to more novels by this fascinating Algerian-Italian author, who has the rare gift of entertaining while he informs.

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