Fredric Brown
Gli strani suicidi di Bartlesville

Glimpses of a bigoted American province from the 50s, largely made up of farms, forests, and long distances to cover around a small town where "good old trades," as Mike Bongiorno would say, are carried out, like a radio and television repair shop.

In this setting, the author introduces as a troublemaking element an alien composed solely of a mind and a protective shell, capable of taking over the minds of the creatures on this planet (animals and humans) thanks to strong ESP powers, making them slaves at its service.

Rather than control, it might be more appropriate to talk about a "quasi" fusion between the mind of the controlled and that of the controller, and here lies the main narrative knot of the novel: the alien, having taken control of a creature, remains trapped inside it until its death, and since it can't control multiple creatures simultaneously, it must make the one it's controlling commit suicide to free itself and take control of another more useful to its purposes.

I'm not spoiling anything; what I've mentioned is made known practically from the beginning of the book, and this way of handling the base idea by the author left me a bit disappointed, perhaps because the title had set the expectation of having a kind of Hitchcockian thriller in my hands.

And after reading the book, I think that if it had actually been set up as an investigation aimed at clarifying the cause of mysterious suicides, keeping even the reader in the dark until the end, it probably would have been more thrilling.

In the end, it's still an enjoyable read, where one can appreciate the author's sober and elegant style. Personally, it also allowed me to fill in some gaps in my knowledge (which, as for holes, rivals the Albert Hall after John Lennon's passage) by learning about the existence of Rhine's experiments and the pigs of Geraseni.

This is the first novel by Fredric Brown that I've happened to read. Previously, I was able to appreciate his peculiarities as a science fiction short story writer, having read, I believe, a good part of those he wrote, and I would say that his science fiction holds up well even over the long haul, without ever mentioning linotype.

The four stars are well-deserved, especially for the last 20 pages where the pace intensifies. The ending didn't particularly satisfy me; I was hoping for something more unsettling in the style of some of Brown's short stories.

Now I'm diving headlong into "What Mad Universe" recommended by good old Mac.

Happy New Year, folks, and let's hope that 2022 gives us back an Iside more schtruz than ever.