The Law

<p>The grotesque game of <em>The Law</em> played in the taverns of southern Italy in the 1950s is but a shadow of a fierce attitude to life a potent metaphor for the hierarchical view of existence which rules over the <em>mezzogiorno </em>the noonday culture of southern Italy. </p><p>In this novel we are not asked to pardon or condemn the passion of Donna Lucrezia the assured self- centredness of the learned aristocrat Don Cesare or even the sinister desires of Matteo Brigante the controlling godfather. We are asked merely to observe. In this way <em>The Law </em>reads less like a work of pure fiction and more like a series of shrewdly noted travel sketches. </p><p></p>