I thought I was going to return to Vladimir and just get it done – something I'd been telling myself I'd do since I set it aside after 2 days of reading it voraciously in early April. I did go back and read one more chapter of it, but I couldn't do it. I feel that the intensity of my feelings actually say something positive about the book, so others shouldn't take this as a warning to stay away. I just... I knew where it was going and I couldn't go there.
So after that brief flirtation, and with a free afternoon ahead of me, I decided to find another book I could read in a few hours and feeling nostalgic for my recent trip to Rome and the Times article, I landed on Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio. The story takes place in the wake of the discovery of a body in titular elevator, and the police's assumption that the one resident of the building who is not accounted for – a man named Amedeo – must be the murderer. Each chapter is told from the point of view of one of the other tenants and others in the neighborhood, a mix of immigrants from abroad and Italians who have, for the most part, moved to Rome from other parts of the country. The residents mostly dislike each other, but it turns out that Amedeo is the one person they all have some affection for. They all have prejudices, but he seems to confound them. None believes he can be the murderer. Meanwhile, the murdered man is someone nobody likes. They're all glad to see him gone. These chapters are interspersed with recordings Amedeo himself has made recounting his own interactions with the residents. This was a fun book showing an Italian diversity that's not often represented.
