Valerio Evangelisti
Cherudek

The news of Valerio Evangelisti's death saddened me greatly. It was 2001 when I accidentally bought the Urania edition of Nicolas Eymerich, Inquisitor at the newsstand. It was a revelation for me. Among other things, thanks to Nicolas Eymerich, Inquisitor (which won the Urania Award), I discovered the extraordinary novel by Jean Ray Malpertuis, paid homage in the book with a spaceship named Malpertuis. The invention of the character of the Inquisitor Nicolas Eymerich (a distorted mirror, in a psychoanalytic key, of the author's own personality) was something truly innovative in fantastic literature. The Bolognese writer was in his own way an innovator by introducing cross-genre contamination: in his narrative, we find science fiction (parallel universes heavily indebted to his beloved Philip K. Dick), gothic novel (with "Lovecraftian" influences), and historical novel (Evangelisti was a historian). Nicolas Eymerich was a real person (he was a Dominican inquisitor): in the novel Picatrix scale to Hell, the author provides a portrait of him in a short story: Eymerich was born in Girona in 1320, took vows at 14, and became an inquisitor in 1352. His mission is to destroy the Church's opponents by any means. Some readers couldn't stand him: he's indeed a character of extreme ruthlessness and coldness. However, his charisma knew how to conquer. In my opinion, Evangelisti's true masterpiece was Cherudek.

In Cherudek, the story unfolds on three different levels. The historical event is set during the Hundred Years' War in France. Then we find a narrative taking place in a foggy city suspended in an undefined limbo (a sort of Purgatory), and finally, there's Cherudek, a place of torture where the spirit (and not the body) of Eymerich reigns supreme. The part dedicated to the Hundred Years' War is superb and very accurate (as usual) from a historical point of view. We find Eymerich in the Papal Palace of Avignon trying to rectify the heretical error, particularly some books where it's written that truth is not singular. During the story, the Inquisitor will meet the preacher Brigida of Sweden and her daughter Caterina. He will eventually unwillingly encounter Rupescissa, a symbol of the Antichrist. In the end, the story becomes a sort of quest for three bells guarded by the Templars. But even the mysterious city shrouded in fog, where the three fathers Jacinto Corona, Celeste, and Gonzalo live a miserable and hallucinatory life, is a memorable invention representing the antechamber to Purgatory, accessed via an inclined plane. We find hotel rooms inhabited by ants and bloody snails imprisoning the tormented souls. The three try to decode the mysterious symbol on which the city's layout is based. All the main streets form a cross, with the Church of San Malvasio at the center. Then there's the mentioned Cherudek (a creation of Eymerich himself) that, in reality, also exists in the collective unconscious. It's a sort of "zero time" where our ancestral memories are rooted, and it reveals the great importance Evangelisti gave to psychoanalysis (in another novel dedicated to Eymerich, "The Mystery of Inquisitor Eymerich," much was said about Wilhelm Reich's figure). The alchemical theme is also developed through hermetic symbolism, allowing the realization of the Prima Materia and access to Cherudek. The key is contained in the formula "Sapor arepo tenet opera rotas."

Cherudek is truly a powerful and apocalyptic novel that, to be fully appreciated, should be read multiple times but which, nonetheless, is a page-turner read. With this and many other books (besides the Eymerich cycle, I recall the trilogy on Nostradamus and the short story collection Metallo urlante), Evangelisti made history in Italian fantastic literature.