Owls of the Day · Each in Their Own Place

Author: Xia Xia
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-04-01
Features: These are two outstanding mafia-themed novels by the renowned Italian writer Leonardo Xia Xia. The Owl of the Day tells the story of Captain Bellodi, a gendarmerie officer, who investigates a murder case amidst numerous obstacles. Just when he is on the verge of cracking the case, an invisible force derails his efforts. In Everyone Gets Their Due, the pharmacist Mano and the doctor Roscio in a small town are murdered, and the high school teacher Laura, the sole investigator, is herself assassinated. Through these two works, the author portrays the relentless struggle between justice and darkness in mafia-ridden Italy, exposing the darkness of society and the apathy and indifference of its people.
The protagonist in The Owl of the Day, Captain Bellodi, is assigned to investigate a murder orchestrated by the mafia. Bellodi, a former guerrilla who fought in the anti-Fascist struggle, is upright, resolute, yet perceptive. He faces countless hardships, overcomes numerous obstacles and the criminals' carefully constructed alliances, and gathers evidence against the perpetrators and their masters. He is on the verge of success when, upon returning to his hometown for leave, the situation reverses dramatically. The mafia launches a massive counteroffensive, fabricates false testimonies, and completely reverses the verdict. Captain Bellodi fails. Evil triumphs over justice. The mafia's law prevails over the nation's law.
Bellodi's adversaries are not only the perpetrators and instigators but also the informants and the widespread indifference and fear among those around him, as well as alliances between the mafia and political figures. All these form an impenetrable wall, an insurmountable barrier for him. He fights alone, with little hope of turning the tide. Yet, Bellodi firmly declares that though he is not Sicilian, he loves Sicily and will return there resolutely. He will continue to confront this formidable mafia force without hesitation. Through a single murder case and the development of its characters and setting, Xia Xia allows readers to witness the mafia's pervasive infiltration into all aspects of social life and to feel the horrifying atrocities of the mafia firsthand.
The image of Bellodi, revealed with immense artistic power, reveals that what is more severe and terrifying than Sicily's material poverty is its spiritual and moral poverty. He is not merely investigating a murder case but fighting to heal Sicily's spiritual and moral decay. Five years after The Owl of the Day was published, Xia Xia released another mafia-themed novel, Everyone Gets Their Due. In Everyone Gets Their Due, readers see no functioning of the judicial system, only a high school Chinese teacher, Laura, consciously or unconsciously fulfilling her duty to investigate the murder case. In Xia Xia's view, the judicial system has failed in its struggle in Sicily because it tirelessly upholds the island's and. Laura seeks to solve the problems that the judicial system is too weak or unwilling to address. Her intelligence, derived from Italian literature and poetry, is her only weapon in this struggle, yet she is also too innocent and pure. Almost from the moment of the murder, those around her understand everything, either forming alliances or remaining silent, while she remains oblivious, delusionally pursuing her investigation and pursuit. This silence is, in essence, an approval and indulgence of the mafia and its criminal activities. Laura is naturally powerless to break through the ice of silence, conspiracy, and alliances, and instead is crushed by it. This makes Laura's death profoundly symbolic.
Laura's investigation fails to touch the mafia in the slightest, yet it strikes at the very society that allows the mafia to thrive and flourish. The value of this character lies not in her actions as an amateur detective but in the fact that she herself represents a small world, embodying deep-rooted conflicts between the individual and the state, individual actions and politics, and historical evil and new social contradictions. Laura's death thus carries political, social, and metaphysical significance.
The narrative language of Xia Xia's novels is highly refined. The events he describes are always thrilling and shocking, yet when narrated with his deliberate detached and measured tone, they appear composed and restrained, creating a strange and unfamiliar artistic effect. The philosophical dialogues of the protagonists, their debates on good and evil, and the author's sharp and incisive analysis of social reality all convey a sharp, biting, and profound meaning. These elements are woven into a complex and winding narrative structure, not only shocking readers with the facts themselves but also endowing the novel with deep philosophical reflection, thus distinguishing it from commercialized mystery novels. It surpasses literary works of the same genre and represents a development of literary tradition.