Years ago, knowing my love for Sicily, a friend recommended Andrea Camilleri's mystery novels to me. Shortly thereafter, I picked up a copy of the first of them, The Shape of Water, and in the intervening years, I've come across another five or six used editions and amassed a small collection of his works. All without ever reading him. His recent death at the age of 93 (which I learned about via the Instagram of an Italian teenager I met 3 years ago in Sardinia), proved to be the nudge I needed. Last week I attended a conference in Baltimore and The Shape of Water got me pleasantly through the train trip down and back.
I'm sure I have written about this previously, but murder mysteries are my TV comfort viewing. In fact, they're practically the only television I watch. Generally speaking, I turn to television for different reasons than I turn to books. What I seek in television is an experience where you don't know exactly what will happen, but you can be secure that everything will tie up neatly in the end. I don't enjoy serial television where it takes a whole season (or - gasp! - a whole series) for the events to resolve themselves. I prefer watching with the certainty that in 45 to 90 minutes (depending on episode length), I can rest easy in the knowledge that the murderer has been captured. I also enjoy seeing the same tropes show up again and again in different shows. Every series has its locked room episode and its closed circle episode and I just love watching them play out.
In books, I enjoy complexity and uncertainty and I'm content even when things don't tie up neatly (as long as the story is well told, the writing good). I don't read a lot of murder mysteries. Which is not to say I don't enjoy reading murder mysteries. I get a similar sense of comfort from reading them that I get from watching them on TV, and I've amassed quite a collection of them at home with the idea that from time to time I do want to read a comfort book. I'm glad I finally broke the seal (or whatever metpahor you prefer) on Camilleri, and I'm glad I have a stack of his books at home to turn to when the mood strikes.
