“I felt suffocated. And alone. More alone than ever. Every year, I ostentatiously crossed out of my address book any friend who'd made a racist remark, neglected those whose only ambition was a new car and a Club Med vacation, and forgot all those who played the Lottery. I loved fishing and silence. Walking the hills. Drinking cold Cassis, Lagavulin, or Oban late into the night. I didn't talk much. Had opinions about everything. Life and death. Good and evil. I was a film buff. Loved music. I'd stopped reading contemporary novels. More than anything, I loathed half-hearted, spineless people.” Let us, you and I, armchair travel to Marseilles.Fabio Montale grew up one of three, a trio of boys who chased girls together, committed crimes together, listened to the same music, and drank with passion. “We fought over a girl's smile, not because of the color of our skins. It created friendships, not hatreds.” They grew up in a polyglot city where the languages merged and formed new words, new expressions, new possibilities, but then a recession hit.”There were already quite a fair number of Arabs around in these days. Blacks, too. Vietnamese. Armenians, Greeks, Portuguese. But it didn’t cause any problems. It had started to be a problem with the downturn in the economy and the rise in unemployment. The more unemployment there was, the more some aware people became of the immigrants. And the number of Arabs seemed to be increasing along with the unemployment! In the Sixties the French had lived off the fat of the land. Now they had nothing, they wanted it for themselves! Nobody else was allowed to come and steal a crumb. And that’s what the Arabs were doing, stealing our own poverty off our plates!”If you read enough history you see this scenario repeated over and over again. A place booms and people don’t have time or inclination to do some of the more menial jobs so they encourage people from other cultures to move to their city to do the work they don’t want to do. The economy tanks as it invariably will do. It really must so the rich get richer. Everybody starts to feel the squeeze. They start to notice the people of different tints and shades and they resent them for having anything. Eventually they start to blame them for the pressure they are feeling. When we look at ourselves collectively we are always so boringly predictable. Ugo and Manu stay in the old life. Fabio becomes a cop, shocking everyone including himself. He isn’t sure if he likes the job, but he hates having to shake down Arab kids and throw them in jail to meet a quota. Manu is dead at the beginning of this novel and Ugo has come back to Marseille to avenge his friends death. Soon Ugo is dead as well and Fabio finds himself following two rocky paths, but he is sure they will merge together as he starts to unravel the nest of lies, the perplexing stoic resistance of all those involved, and his own guilt which clouds his own objectivity. And then there is Lole. The girl of their dreams. The girl they each wanted to possess, but all three managed to lose her."Her hands deep in the pockets of a straw-coloured bathrobe. The colour made her skin look browner than usual and emphasized the blackness of her hair, which she was wearing short now. Her hips may have grown thicker, he wasn't sure. She'd become a woman, but she hadn't changed. Lole, the gypsy. She'd always been beautiful."Fabio has screwed up every relationship he has ever had because he has already been imprinted by the perfect woman. ”You couldn’t get over loving Lole. It wasn’t a question of beauty…. Everything about her, the slightest gesture, was sensual. Lole was thinner, more willowy. Ethereal, even in the way she walked. She resembled Gradiva in the Pompeii frescoes. She seemed hardly to touch the ground. Making love to her was like letting yourself be carried away on a journey. She transported you. And, when you came, you didn’t feel as if you’d lost something, but as if you’d found something.” Gradiva fresco from PompeiiSo after the last woman leaves joining a growing list of women, wonderful women, who could have all been the love of his life, Fabio decides he needs to accept that it is Lole or no one. He isn’t celibate though. ”Marie-Lou felt increasingly light in my arms. Her sweat released her body’s spices. Musk, cinnamon, pepper. Basil, too, like Lole. I loved bodies that smelled of spice. The bigger my hard-on, the more I felt her firm belly rubbing against me. We knew we’d end up in bed, and we wanted to delay it as long as possible. Until the desire become unbearable. Because afterwards, reality would catch up with us. I’d be a cop again and she’d be a hooker.”I found myself pulling for Marie-Lou as she struggles to free herself from the life that she fell into so easily and is finding so difficult to escape. She wants Fabio to be the man on the white stallion who carries her away to a new life. He isn’t that man. He’s drinking too much, and as he turns over more and more stagnant rocks he is starting to rattle the nerves of the mafia. As he gets closer to the truth things become more dangerous for Fabio and the people he cares about. ”A blow landed on my jaw. I opened my mouth, and another blow followed in my stomach. I was going to suffocate. I was sweating gallons. I wanted to bend double, to protect my stomach. the guy with steel arms must have felt it. For a fraction of a second, he let me slide down. Then he pulled me up again, still pinned to him. I could feel his cock against my buttocks. The bastard was getting a hard on! Two more blows. Left, right. In the stomach again.”Now Philip Marlowe might have set the record for getting knocked in the head, beat up, punched, and thrown down, but he never had to contend with some guy with a WOODY. It pissed Fabio off for days. He wasn’t too happy about getting beat up either.”Better to be alive in hell than dead in paradise.” The thoughtful and passionate Jean-Claude Izzo. RIP fine sir.Jean-Claude Izzo is considered the premiere writer of Mediterranean Noir. On a recent trip to Oxford, Mississippi I was browsing in Square Books and happened to notice this grouping of Europa Books. I pulled out the one with the red cover and noticed it had an introduction by Massimo Carlotto. Many years ago a British publisher, Orion, decided to print his Alligator books in English. My British Bookseller, there have been times when it felt like he was MINE and MINE alone, contacted me and told me I needed to check out Carlotto. He didn’t have to twist my arm too hard. He sent me two books by Carlotto, and one was even signed. I thought they were intriguingly good which has led me to several other great Mediterranean authors. I won’t bore you with the details. Like with many writers, Izzo was on my radar and then fell off my radar as my fickle book sluttiness took me in other directions. My point is a cosmic connection happened when I pulled this book from the shelf that took ten years to reach the Big Bang. Luckily for me this is only the first of a trilogy. Unluckily for all of us and him Jean-Claude Izzo passed away at the age of 54 in 2000 from lung cancer. He was born in Marseille and he died in Marseille. This book might be a mystery, but it is an ode to a city. What made this book a five star book for me was that I reached a point where the mystery, a very good one by the way, became the least interesting part of the book. I was so caught up in Fabio’s struggles with guilt, with women, and with the confusion and pain as Fabio, the self-appointed protector of the city, finds himself unable to continue to be a cop. Izzo tells us about the booze he drinks, the food he eats, the tang of the harbor air, the scent of the sweat on a woman’s neck, the music that defines him (mostly blues), and explains the politics of a city that is in the process of forgetting the very spices and vices that made it such a great city. You can label this book whatever you want, but for me it was just a fine piece of literature.
Any noir detective must be compared to Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe. I have come up with three criteria for comparison. Eating/drinking habits, inner monologue, and description of their ciry. Total Chaos by Jean-Claude Izzo features the detective Fabio Montale, a melodramatic, romantic cop in Mareilles. Using these three categories, I will explore how Fabio Montale compares to Phillip Marlowe, and explain why Chandler is more adapt to crime writing.Phillip Marlowe's diet consists of diner sandwiches, steaks, coffee, whiskey, and brandy. Food plays little to no role in Marlowe's life, but coffee and alcohol are often at the center of Marlowe's monologue. Fabio Montale sticks to a Mediterranean diet that makes mouths water. His descriptions of fish, pasta, and wines are the best part of the book. After washing the bass, I'd fill it with fennel, then drizzled olive oil over it. Then I made the lasagne sauce. The rest of the fennel had simmered gently in salt water, with a touch of butter. In a well-oiled pan, I gently fried slivers of onion, garlic, and finely chopped pepper. A spoonful of vinegar soup, then I added tomatoes that I'd cut into little cubes and plunged into boiling water. When the water evaporated, I added the fennel. These elaborate descriptions of food are juxtaposed with brutal scenes of murder. The fact that Montale, in the midst of chaos, takes time to cook, makes him a very appealing character. Marlowe makes very good coffee, but that is the extent of his culinary side. Like Montale, he is a heavy drinker. Montale, however, drinks just for the sake of drinking, and while Marlowe often does the same, he also uses alcohol to loosen up his enemies. It is therefore because of food and drink, that Montale fails to come across as hard-boiled in the same way Marlowe does. One of the things that makes Marlowe hard-boiled is his inner monologue. Whether he is describing a case or television, Marlowe comes across as cynical in the most entertaining way. And the commercials would have sickened a goat raised on barbed wire and broken beer bottles. Marlowe comes across as cynical because he describes very tangible things. Things that are easy to relate to. Montale has very solid inner monologues, but comes across as melodramatic and soft. I love the smell of harbor. Sea and oil. Montale and Marlowe include their respective observations sporadically, often times in the midst of a dramatic moment. Because Marlowe's observations are hard-boiled, they are compatible with the crime case at hand. Montale comes across as more detached because his observations seem totally out of place in the midst of crime case. This makes sense, however, Marlowe is a private eye, while Montale is a cop. Marlowe investigates only what he wants, while Montale investigates more or less what he is told to.The cities that Montale and Marlowe respectively operate out of are very reflective of their character. The Los Angeles that Marlowe lives in is crime-ridden, corrupt, and unforgiving. Out there in the night of a thousand crimes, people were dying, being maimed, cut by flying glass, crushed against steering wheels or under heavy tires. People were being beaten, robbed, strangled, raped, and murdered. People were hungry, sick; bored, desperate with loneliness or remorse or fear, angry, cruel, feverish, shaken by sobs. The Los Angeles Marlowe describes is fit for crime, and therefore is perfect for Marlowe. It is in every sense a noir city, and therefore seems like a great place to live. The Marseilles that Montale describes is also crime ridden and flawed, but Montale describes it in a more dramatic way. Marseilles isn't a city for tourists. There's nothing to see. Its beauty can't be photographed. It can only be shared. It's a place where you have to take sides, be passionately for or against. Only then can you see what there is to see. And you realize, too late, that you're in the middle of a tragedy. An ancient tragedy in which the hero is death. In Marseilles, even to lose you have to know how to fight. This is a city fitting for Montale: a lover who can never love, a man who find happiness in the simple things. Montale wants the reader to like Marseilles. I have never seen a picture of the city, but Montale's descriptions of Marseilles have given me a vivid picture of a city I want to go to. Marlowe is more subtle in his glorification of Los Angeles. He makes it appealing by exposing its flaws. Taken as a whole, I like Montale's Marseilles more than Marlowe's Los Angeles. In the context of a crime novel, however, Marlowe's Los Angeles provides a more suitable setting. Raymond Chandler is more adapt to writing a crime novel. He keeps everything simple while still puzzling the reader. As Marlowe investigates a crime, the reader is able to follow along. Jean-Claude Izzo, while arguably a more talented writer than Chandler, struggles with the crime aspect of Total Chaos. The plot is often convoluted, making it hard to follow what is actually happening. I prefer a weak Chandler novel over Total Chaos simply because I am a fan of crime novels, and Total Chaos reads more like a memoir.
What do You think about Total Chaos (2005)?
Journalist Izzo has read his Chandler, that's for sure! The women, the booze, the food, the solitary life - and the music in detective Montale's case. But also the convoluted politics of a city. Sometimes the politics and persona of Marseilles is hard to follow in this, the first of a trilogy, but I think back on Chandler's LA novels, and the same holds true for them at times. Thanks to Europa Editions for publishing Izzo in English, and for the nice trade paperback format. But at times there is a shift of time and place and there is no double space in the text to indicate this (Izzo's original or the editor?). And line breaks on contractions? (would-n't) The internal monologue goes on for too long at times, but the last 100 pages just fly along and we come to a conclusion, of sorts. At times he just lists neighborhoods and streets and points and, unless you want to pull out a map of Marseilles, no idea where they are or what they mean in terms of economic and social setting. But, his description and explanation of the city of immigrants, and the growing National Front influence there, the attempt to gentrify certain areas of the gritty port city, and all fascinating reading. I'll be reading the other two volumes, and this book has lead me to search out some other Mediterranean Noir authors.
—Steve
Jean-Claude Izzo's Spartan writing hits the perfect pitch in this classic hardboiled detective story. The first volume of the Marseilles Trilogy, "Total Chaos" introduces Fabio Montale, a disillusioned cop attempting to resolve the murders of his boyhood chums, Ugo and Manu. By a quirk of fate Fabio became a cop while his pals followed a path of crime that led to their deaths.Along the way the reader gets an account of these sons of Italian immigrants growing up on the hard streets of Marseilles' seedier neighborhoods where they knew "their bodies and clothes smelled of mildew ... But they didn't give a damn. They loved life. They were good looking. And they knew how to fight."But that was the past. Not only are Ugo and Manu gone, but Fabio must face a lost love, Lole, and investigate the brutal rape and murder of Leila, the daughter of a good friend. Feeling like an exile, Fabio haunts the city "In which dawn is merely an illusion that the world is beautiful," eating, drinking, having his way with beautiful women, spurning deep relationships, and occasionally escaping for some fishing in the Mediterranean.Through Fabio's eyes, Izzo paints both a sentimental and gritty portrait of Marseilles in all its beauty and brutality. His portrayal of the seaport, neighborhoods, food, music, politics, and racial tensions raise this novel above the classic hardboiled crime story. Mediterranean noir at its finest.
—Fred
