Blurb
Giorgio de Maria – ‘Twenty Days of Turin.’ This work by de Maria follows a man in Turin who chooses to investigate a series of unexplained, violent events that occurred a decade before the setting of the novel. The killings, all done with the same bloody modus operandi, happened in some of the city’s best-known spots, often in full view of hundreds of people, yet no one could really remember anything except for vague hints of shadows sliding among the almost catatonic crowds and the echoes of metallic, grey, and threatening cries. The horror in this novel has been cited as an allegory for the fascist violence that plagued Italy during the Years of Lead from the 1960s to the 1980s.
About the Author: Giorgio De Maria was a pianist, critic, playwright, and novelist. He wrote four novels, the best remembered of which is Twenty Days. It has a cult following in Italy and in leftist circles.
Checkout the AMA with thelitcritguy yesterday
Thelitcritguy didn’t specifically address twenty days of turin, he mostly talked about politics and film. I will try to give you my takes.
I think the trash in the stairwell was trying to convey a generalized sense of decay and rot that was infusing Italian society. I personally think of fascists and pigs, and the leaders of a hierarchical society kicking the stairs or cutting the elevator cables to stop the transformation of society from top to bottom, while people drown in shit or can only happen to watch is as good a metaphor as any for our societies.
I think the voices were achieving cognition, once the statues gathered enough “spirit” they felt motivated to commit violence against others and themselves. The translator’s introduction compares this to the white supremacist lone wolf attacks and their manifestos and how those fester and give rise to other lone-wolf attackers as they spread.
The church was definitely involved in the twenty years of lead, historic.ly podcast recently covered twenty years of lead on one of their newest episodes and they brought up the church. I will try and find my old radio war nerd episodes and see if I can pass them along to you. I also viewed the Sister Cotilde’s advice of “stop looking into the deaths for your own perverse curiosity” as very similar to when the news media in this country says “it is too soon to politicize gun violence victims”.
To me, the library was a way of anesthetizing the populace and sowing distrust amongst the citizens. By allowing gross and perverts to thrive in the library, you start to atomize and alienate people from each other. With the possibility that your own weird perversions might also make you the target of scrutiny, you give rise to paranoia and a constant sense of terror. I can attest that I personally find myself sometimes thinking “this is it, this is the day i lose my job or a coworker finds me, or the cops visit my home for posting radical shit” and it never happens, but I freak out anyways; I’ve learned to live with that sort of background radiation but I am personally trying to cut out social media more and more.
I thought everyone in the plane knew, but that was just the vibe i picked up.
Thank you for those explanations. There is certainly a lot to unpack in that book. If you know what episodes of Historic.ly and War Nerd those are I would definitely listen. Do you know if we are doing another book sometime?
![[Book Discussion Part 3 | Final Chapters ] Giorgio De Maria - 'Twenty Days of Turin'(hexbear.net)](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/5YvUtdsoAt.png){kind=link}