Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Il sospetto

I don't know about you, but when I read, I sometimes come across an author that I feel particularly close to, whether it's for their style or the themes explored in their writings. In these cases, the effect produced by the first "consumed" work is one of infatuation, an irrational passion that drives me to go to the bookstore and buy, one after the other, the books published by said writer.

Well, with Friedrich Dürrenmatt, something similar happened. Thanks to the beautiful Rai dramas based on his novels and the reading of the stunning The Pledge, I acquired more material, tracking it down feverishly after bending among the shelves in search of the letter D.

Among Dürrenmatt's books, one of my favorites is The Suspect, a thriller (or perhaps an "anti-thriller," as it would rightly be defined) in which the Swiss writer immediately projects us into a medical environment, as the protagonist, the elderly commissioner Bärlach, is hospitalized after a heart attack.

Bärlach is quite unwell, close to retirement, and an incurable disease seems to mark his time like a relentless clock. It is up to Dr. Hungertobel, the commissioner’s friend (a man as meticulous with his patients as he is ignorant of the mechanisms that drive the human soul, the policeman would say), to take care of his health and try to lift his spirits.

Bärlach is cultured, ironic, cynical, a humanist who believes in justice (can one still believe in anything these days?) and is convinced of the need to fight Evil in all its forms.

One day, the commissioner sees a photograph of Dr. Nehle in an old issue of "Life," a Nazi doctor who, in the Stutthof concentration camp, operated on his victims without anesthesia. He shows the image to his friend Hungertobel, who, astonished, recognizes in the photo a colleague of his, Dr. Fritz Emmenberger, owner of a luxurious clinic in Zurich, an unsettling being who, in the past, had operated precisely without narcosis. Hungertobel remembers his insane, exalted eyes and his torturer's gaze as he, unperturbed, performed a risky throat operation.

Could Nehle and Emmenberger be the same person? Impossible, the former committed suicide, and the latter is a successful doctor, worshiped by his patients, "filthy rich", as if he were a god. And yet, the suspicion creeps into the minds of Bärlach and Hungertobel, because suspicion, as Dürrenmatt recalls, "is a terrifying thing, it is the devil's flour" and it is impossible to rid oneself of it.

Convinced of this, Bärlach asks Hungertobel to have himself admitted to Emmenberger's clinic, almost as if he were a cat eager to catch yet another mouse (this is how the policeman defines himself in The Judge and His Hangman) and to fight a new and desperate battle against the forces of Evil.

Without going into details that would spoil the read (today it would be said "spoiler"), I can say that The Suspect is a beautiful book, in which Dürrenmatt's fluid and elegant prose outlines a barren, desolate world where human beings seem to be in constant conflict with each other, a universe governed by the laws of chance against which every attempt to restore order or rationality is shattered.

And God, what has happened to him? Is he perhaps dead, as Friedrich Nietzsche claimed? More than dead, he is absent, light years distant, observing human beings a bit like Dr. Emmenberger/Nehle: like a cold and detached idol.

One of the most interesting aspects of the novel are undoubtedly the dialogues, full of considerations about man, existence, God and religion, hope, faith, and freedom. Dialogues that may weigh down the narrative for some, but for others will appear profound, ready to enrich the classic scheme of the mystery novel and lead it elsewhere, to refined, philosophical, authorial territories.

Finally, it is impossible not to mention a mechanism of subversion of the mystery genre, of sabotage of some of its basic rules. Here, there is no brilliant investigator, but a ailing commissioner who perhaps, in his heart of hearts, acts also to prove to others that he is still alive rather than out of faith in justice, as suggested by a character whose name I will not reveal.

Bärlach will risk a great deal, and only external intervention will manage to avoid the worst. And in the end, the impression is that no order has been restored, that Evil is something universal and hidden, infamous, always ready to emerge and manifest itself in the most insidious and cruel forms.

An excellent book, among the best written by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, The Suspect also inspired Italian television, to the point that, in the Seventies, a beautiful drama was created featuring actors of the caliber of Paolo Stoppa and Adolfo Celi. I recommend watching it, because in my opinion, it perfectly conveys the unsettling atmospheres of a novel which, without doubt (although it is difficult to not have one), I include among my all-time favorites.