Gesuino Némus
La teologia del cinghiale

What did Matteo Locci do between 1958, the year he was born in Jerzu, in the archaic, wild, untouched Ogliastra, and 2016, the year his novel La Teologia del cinghiale swept literary awards?

It's a mystery that our Matteo Locci, also known as Gesuino Nemus, is keen to preserve. After all, being from Ogliastra, he knows well what the devil asks in exchange for fame.

In fact, you should know that in 1969, the year when the three corpses of our novel were found in Telęvras, a journalist, exploring the world for a travel magazine, was amazed and reflected in this way in front of the unexplored beauty of a cove in Ogliastra.

"Incredible.

It's high summer, and there's no one here.

You are the only ones. The only ones.

…

What will you write? The life or death of this paradise depends on your article. You don't joke with words. Just like the Suburra at the Coliseum. Thumbs up: life. Thumbs down: death.

…

Speak well of it: death. Speak ill of it: life."

He spoke well of it, and that corner of paradise, where nature had done its work for geological eras, became famous. And that Ogliastra died.

Matteo Locci knows well the risk of fame, but at the same time, he now wants and must flirt with it. It is the paradox of the writer-man: to survive as a man and, by hiding, allow the writer to live, or by showing himself, become famous, live as a man, risking killing the writer.

However, what our writer will do in the future is a trivial question for us, as the newfound success can only have consequences in the years and works to come: the topic of the day is instead La teologia del Cinghiale, a debut work, written over about forty years and in complete anonymity by the aforementioned Gesuino Nemus.

La teologia del Cinghiale is an ambitious, polyphonic, and multilingual novel, disguised as a detective story. In short, there are murders, investigations, culprits, and motives, but they remain under the surface, hidden by the story of a people, the personal journey of the protagonists, and friendships rich in modesty and secrets among them. Not to mention the investigators, who have indeed crossed their arms or raised them, as they say.

In July 1969, even in Teléveras, a small town set between the mountains and the sea, the three thousand inhabitants of the village are distracted by the moon landing.

On the same days, Antoni Esulógu, a mad but not stupid singer of the village, chants this refrain:

"Apu bittu s'oppai 'e Putzu scorrovendu cussu fussu, a piccu, a panga e a trebùssu [I saw Putzu's mate, digging that ditch with a pick, a spade, and a pitchfork]".

Thus, the thrill of the moon landing is quickly overshadowed by two deaths: that of Bachisio Trundinu and his wife Elvira.

The protagonists of the book are Matteo Trundinu, son of the two deceased spouses, Don Cossu, the village's parish priest, and Gesuino Némus.

Matteo is a boy with extraordinary, even diabolical qualities, lovingly raised by Don Cossu, the Jesuit parish priest. Although "a Jesuit, you can't fool", Matteo Trundinu is Don Cossu's memory (against illness, he remembers all one hundred thirty-three devils or the necessary medicines by heart) and is capable of joking with him or playfully correcting him in front of his rare philosophical, linguistic, or theological slips.

Matteo has a best friend who seems his exact opposite: Gesuino Némus (or nobody) is a silent and troubled child. Of unknown parents, he lived until the age of eight in the midst of the maquis and forests of the Mediterranean scrub, and, guided by the two above, he struggles to find his path in the world.

Listening to the stories and following the lives of these and the other characters who came from "outside," one can forget for a moment that for forty years our mystery remains unsolved.

However, one is enraptured by following the linguistic games and etymological reasoning, as in seeing punctuation, along with consecutio temporum, appear, disappear, and then become impeccable again with the changing narrators.

One finds enjoyment and satisfaction in knowing a story through the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy, a lovable Milanese writer, and an old madman.

With la teologia del cinghiale, Némus integrates, with studied calm, into the microcosm of Teléveras, many encounters and experiences of a Sardinian who emigrated to the "mainland," lived for sixty years in the safe shadow of anonymity, and rediscovered his land with new eyes.

I could talk about the game of identity-alterity between writer and narrator, or about an imagined narrator becoming real or whatever else, but I prefer to end here, thank @sfascia carrozze and the librarian of my not-so-cheerful village for having talked about it to me, and also recommend that you take a leap into the wild side of Sardinia: in Teléveras.