Play, Ritual and Secrecy in the Novels of Marco Malvaldi

In their extremely influential writings on the sociology of play, both Johan Huizinga and Roger Caillois described games as forms of escapism from everyday life, practices that create a parallel world, ruled by its own laws, in which players voluntarily retreat for a limited time. Huizinga established a connection between the laws regulating play and a state of mind that every participant must accept: “Play is not ‘ordinary’ or ‘real’ life. It is rather a stepping out of ‘real’ life into a temporary sphere of activity with a disposition all of its own” (8). Even though he challenged some of the points Huizinga made, Caillois almost entirely accepted the definition of play as existing in a space of its own, independent from the regular routine of daily activities: “Play is essentially a separate occupation, carefully isolated from the rest of life, and generally it is engaged in with precise limits of time and place” (6).

Starting from the study of play as the creation of a separate world, the goal of this article is a sociological reading of the novels of Marco Malvaldi. A young but already extremely successful author, Malvaldi has created a series of mystery novels centered on BarLume, a coffee shop located in Pineta, an imaginary town inspired by Tirrenia, in Tuscany. The whole BarLume series is a reflection on games, an aspect that also encompasses the role of rituals and secrecy in both interpersonal relationships and the solution of criminal cases. I will suggest that these elements carry implications that are central to the study of today’s Italy, a fact that helps explain the series’ popularity. I will also discuss how the narrative aspect of characterization is connected to the way in which the protagonist, following an approach based on play, successfully concludes his investigations in these novels, eventually demonstrating how the use of games in the structure of the novels transcends the barrier between play (BarLume) and real life (the world outside of the coffee shop). The first part of the article will center on the sociological study of play, ritual, and secrecy in the creation of an alternative narrative realm, while the second will undertake a more thematic reading of how these same elements work within the individual novels that make up Malvaldi’s macrotext.

The abovementioned separation between life and play is clearly reflected in the novels I propose to study. At least at first glance, Malvaldi does not participate in the contemporary trend of the Italian detective novel that borrows elements from real events to foster reflections of socio-historical relevance. His novels construct an internal discussion aimed at the solution of an isolated case of murder that is usually motivated by personal reasons of greed, passion, or revenge. Following the typical tradition of the mystery tale, crime interferes with the balance of an otherwise untroubled setting, in this case Pineta, a little town whose economy is centered on tourism. Although not wholly absent, Malvaldi’s social commentary serves to critique mass behavior in contemporary society, rather than to analyze Italy’s contested historical and political past, as it happened with such novels as Giancarlo De Cataldo’s Romanzo criminale (2002), Roberto Saviano’s Gomorra (2006), and Wu Ming’s discussion on the ‘New Italian Epic.’ Nevertheless, in this article I will also suggest a series of connections between fiction and society, an important element for understanding the popular success of Malvaldi’s detective novels.

The creation, through play, of the simulated universe that Cail-lois called “mimicry” (19) is represented in Malvaldi’s fiction by the BarLume, a microcosm inhabited by the owner, Massimo, and four senior citizens, all regular customers of the coffee shop: Ampelio, Aldo, Pilade, and Gino. Precise laws deriving from the ritualization of human interaction regulate this setting, and every novel uses the concept of the game to provide both a methodological and a practical explanation of how to approach detection. Every day, the characters know that they play a specific role in a pre-established set of rituals that maintain the internal balance of BarLume. Massimo constantly complains about the...