Donna Leon

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0:12Welcome to This Cultural Life, the series in which leading creative people discuss the formative influences and experiences that inspired their own creativity. I'm John Wilson, and my guest in this episode is the internationally best-selling crime writer Donna Leon. Although American-born, Donna is most associated with Venice, the city in which her Italian police detective protagonist, the mild-mannered family man Guido Brunetti, lives and works. She's so far written 32 novels, has sold nearly 8 million copies in English and been translated into 35 languages.

0:50Donna Leon, welcome to This Cultural Life. Thank you. You're a writer of crime fiction. You've just released your 32nd book following the cases of the Italian police detective Guido Brunetti, who lives and works in Venice, where you yourself also used to live. Are you an avid reader of crime fiction yourself? No, I'm not. I was when I was in graduate school, because after teaching, when I went home at night, I couldn't stand to look at the fairy queen or the tale of Gowan in the green night. And so I would read crime fiction because in a way it was relaxing. I didn't have a television. And so for entertainment, I would read them.

1:32But then you stopped. Yeah, I pretty much stopped. No, I don't read them anymore. Why? Because I'm rationing my reading time. I just spent a month rereading The Tale of Becky Sharp, Vanity Fair. I hadn't read it in 30 years. And I was in a state of bliss for a month. It's so, so wonderfully good. And she's so wonderfully bad. So there's no particular crime writer that you admire from afar because you just simply don't read them? No, there is one. And the case of all of them is that I like their writing. Ross MacDonald, I think, is sublime. He's such a gifted writer. His plotting is at times a little bit hokey.

2:12But the prose never disappoints, nor does Lou Archer. He's such a civilised, decent man. It's always a choice made on the language. rather than the plot and the mystery. Yes, always.

2:49You grew up in New Jersey in the 1940s and 1950s. Were you a big reader as a child? Yeah, I still remember a time when I was, I might have been eight or nine, I was grumbling to my mind, I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored. And she hurled me into the car and took me to the library. And I've never been the same person because she took me in downstairs to the kids department. And she said, take what you'd like. And I had a kind of vision that the world was mine, that I could read. I could read about everything. I could learn about everything. Were there no books at home then? Yeah, there were books, sure.

3:23We had books in the house. We didn't have a thousand. And I still get excited in libraries and in bookstores. What sort of upbringing did you have in New Jersey? I was lucky in that I had decent funny parents who were negligent and didn't teach me ambition. Nor I nor my brother knew about ambition, that we should work to become the chairman of the boss. It never was imparted to us that this kind of success was important. They said, get a decent education, study what you like, and find a job that you like and try to have a decent life. What were their jobs? My mother was a secretary and my father was an accountant.

4:05Absolutely normal people. But they hadn't bought on to the 1950s and 1960s lust for success that seems to have afflicted America. What did they want for you then? Just happiness? Yeah. Education? Yeah. Know some stuff, like what you study, like what you do. Did you have any ambitions as a child to be a writer? No, no, no, no. I didn't start writing until I was 50. I wanted to read. I've probably spent more time reading than anything else in my life. Yeah, but the reason I ask that is because you are famously a latecomer to fiction, But there were no previous novels or first drafts or short stories locked away in drawers?

4:43No, no, no, no, no, no. There was my dissertation that was unfinished. No, I never wrote anything because it didn't occur to me to be a writer. What did you want to do then if you hadn't imagined being an author? I didn't have a strong desire about doing anything. If I liked a job, I'd keep it. And if I liked being where I was, I'd stay there. But once you subtract the idea of success as a meaningful goal, life becomes much easier. You can just stop and enjoy what you're doing.

5:17On This Cultural Life, I ask my guests to choose the key events, the influences, and those things that have inspired their own creativity. And the first choice that you brought today is learning Italian from reading murder mysteries. So when was this? I went to Italy first in the late 60s, and I was very, very lucky to somehow win the friendship of two Italians, two jewelers who are still my best friends. They are now married. And my friend Roberta's father read Gialli. He read Murder Mysteries. And since my Italian was beginning, I would borrow Nino's Gialli and read through them with a dictionary.

6:02and remember that this meant that and this meant that. And then I would go to where Roberta and Franco had their autofizzeria, where they had their workshop, and I would sit with them for hours and they would talk. And I would ask what that word meant or why you said that or why don't you like him. So I was picking up gossip at the same time. And I think that's one of the reasons why my Italian sounds like Italian. I don't have a very heavy foreign accent simply because I didn't study Italian from Berlitz. I sat and listened to my mummy and my daddy who talked and then I would imitate what they said.

6:46So it was everyday language of your friends and the gossip but also from the murder mysteries. I presume there's a kind of, there's a pithiness to that language. There's again an everyday sometimes slang thrown in. And a pattern, a pattern of events because in most cases it's crime, work, solution. And a lot of dialogue, of course. And a lot of dialogue, yeah. Which novels were you reading? What sort of authors are we talking about here? Whoever was popular in Italy in the 70s, whatever American or America and England swept the field, really. Oh, I see, so in translation. Yeah, because Italians didn't write them then.

7:24Crime fiction is a latecomer to Italy. They had Jali, but they were all translations. So I was translating what had started in English. Oh, I see. And I understood the Italian. That's how I learned Italian. But they were translations from English and American crime books. Everything from Agatha Christie to... Everything. Yeah, Christie was good. Chandler. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I would read them. But I really wasn't so much interested in the story as in, And this is my textbook. This is my homework for today, to learn all of these words. But did you start to enjoy and appreciate the crime fiction itself and the plotting?

8:03Yeah, I did. I did, sure. Even though it was a means to an end? The stories are interesting in a very limited way because it's crime search solution. Crime search solution. Most of them. And certainly in those days, crime fiction was more limited in its scope. The stories were not terribly complicated. So you're reading these translated crime novels to learn Italian, but the by-product is it revealed the mechanics of how crime fiction works as well. Do you think that, retrospectively looking back, you learnt a lot of your job now, your day-to-day life, is rooted back in those books? Sure, absolutely.

8:41So I can talk about murdering you or murdering people in other rooms in Italian, and it sounds so good. And that's another thing with Italian. It all sounds so delicious, no matter what they're doing. It just sounds so good. Mentre i facchini trasportavano il loro bagaglio, il più giovane sovraintendeva all 'operazione. Apri la porta di vetro e disse, siamo pronti, signor Ratchet. Il più anziano grugnì in segno di assenso e uscì. Ah, bien, disse Poirot. Che cose ne pensa di quei due? Sono americani, disse me. Did you start working in Italy at that point? No, no, no. You were just sort of travelling and...

9:20Those were the days of America's pomp and glory. I could work in the States as a teacher and in the course of six months accumulate enough saving to go and live very well in Italy for the next six months. And I did that for a long time because, again, I was not driven by the impulse or the desire to be the principal of the school or the dean of the university. Six months and then go to Italy and do nothing. And you kept going back to Italy. Yeah, I am so irresponsible. So what was it about Italy, though? Why did you keep going back there? Because I was so enchanted with the ease of their life, the emotional ease and the physical delight of being there, being among people who were good-spirited, generous, attractive.

10:10and I just immediately, and I had the luck of Roberta and Franco and their families who were also, because I was a friend of someone in the family, I was taken into all of the other families, so I inherited cousins and aunts and a grandmother. I was so struck not only by the overwhelming beauty of the city but by the overwhelming beauty of these people's lives. So you were really embedded in Italian life then. Yeah, and that doesn't happen much anymore. Your detective, Guido Brunetti, lives, as you did, in Venice, a city that has inspired over the years so many writers and artists. The Venice of your novels is not the sort of idealised postcard version.

10:53It's the everyday Venice of the residents. How much did the city inspire you as a writer? It's the only place I could write about, because it's the only place I lived as a grown-up where I stayed a significant amount of time or liked the place enough to be able to write about it. Is there something inspiring about Venice itself? Because it's not an easy place to live, really, is it, in many ways? No, it's inconvenient. But life, I think, is meant to be inconvenient. We live in an era in which people are always impatient about everything. But in Italy, where nothing works, or nothing is done when it's supposed to be done, one learns the silliness of impatience, or the waste of impatience.

11:44And I like to think that I've learned that. But Venice is not a place, and I think in terms of, you know, the archetypes and stereotypes of crime fiction, people rushing around at speed, that's, that's not something which is even particularly possible in Venice, unless you get on a high speed vaporetto. It does work. It moves at a different rhythm. And that has determined the pace of the novels as well? In a way, yes. They're slow. Life is slow, too. The boat docked. The sailor slid back the metal railing. People got off. People got on. The sailor slid the railing closed, and the boat departed.

12:19Brunetti looked back in the direction of the Accademia, but there was no sign of fog. Ahead lay the Baccino. On the left, the Basilica, the Marciana and the Palazzo stood quietly in their appointed places, while the morning sun continued sweeping up last night's shadows. Brunetti looked into the cabin, wondering if those inside... Your protagonist, Brunetti, is calm, he's rational, he's a really devoted family man as well. Was it intentional when you set out, when you started creating this character, to create something which was almost against the grain of the archetype of the male fictional protagonist?

12:56Probably, but unconsciously, because my desire then was to see if I could write a crime book. I was concerned only and exclusively with number one, and I didn't think that there would ever be... It didn't occur to me that there'd be a two, a three, a four, a 32. So I thought I have a chance to write about a character that I would like. let me see how he would act. And so he's calm, he's patient. He has a very strong sense of justice, which is sometimes blowing with the winds of the law, sometimes not. He's a decent person. He's a relatively happy person. He's a happily married person. He's a family person.

13:38And he likes beauty in all its forms. And so he, in a way, became an idealized version of some of the people that I knew in Italy. An idealized version of an Italian police detective. He's not typical, is he? No, he's not typical. But I would... He's not typical of most men. So he'd be an odd person. I don't think... I've met very few cops in my years in Venice. I know the current questore. And he's just a guy. He's Maurizio who comes to dinner at friends' houses and we chat about this and that. And he goes to the opera and he reads books. So he too is a civilized man. So Brunetti started out with the first of your series of novels many years ago now, Death at La Finice.

14:25What was the starting point for that story? The starting point was pure chance. And I think this is one reason why I can't be pedantic or serious about what it is I do because I stumbled over it. I had a conversation in the dressing room in La Finice with Gabriele Ferro, a conductor. and he and his wife and I started talking about another conductor whom nobody liked and what would be interesting if he died and then someone killed him. And I thought, wow, that would be a great crime novel, wouldn't it? I wonder if I could. And so I sat down to see if I could, and I could. But when it was finished, I had done what I wanted to do.

15:08I had seen that I could write a murder mystery. So I just put it in a drawer and forgot about it until friends nagged me into sending it to a contest in Japan. And it won. And then an American agent contracted me for two books. So I had to write another book. And then I signed a contract for two more. So I had to write three and four. But none of this was planned or desired. And it just happened in that moment when you were gossiping with your friends and wishing ill on another conductor that nobody liked. Yeah, there's a lot of them around. But the fact that you were thinking that would be a great crime novel, surely that thought was provoked because you had read all of those crime novels years earlier.

15:52And it didn't occur to me to think, oh, that would be a great novel. I thought only of crime novel because I know my abilities and in them is not contained the possibility of writing a real novel. What was it about this particular real-life conductor that prompted such murderous thoughts? No, nothing. Just the idea was fascinating to be in the opera world, because up until that point, I had spent years in the opera world. I knew a lot of musicians. I knew a lot of singers. Just by being, I guess I was a groupie. And I like that world, and I'm still immersed in that world. And I knew I could write about it.

16:35And the idea of the dead conductor during a concert was very appealing to me, because it's good. It's a good idea to have that kind of action, and then the book can go anywhere. Suddenly the folds of the dense green velvet curtain were pulled back, and Amadeo Fazzini, the theatre's artistic director, stepped awkwardly through the narrow opening. The technician in the lightbox above the second gallery, with no idea of what was going on, decided to centre a hot white spot on the man at the centre stage. Blinded, Fazzini shot up his arm to shield his eyes. Still holding his arm raised in front of him, as if to protect himself from a blow, he began to speak.

17:19Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that Maestro Valauer is unable to continue the performance. Whispers, questions rose from the audience. Silk rustled as heads turned, but he continued to speak above the noise. His place will be taken by Maestro Longhi. Before the hum could rise to drown him out, he asked, voice insistently calm, Is there a doctor in the audience? So immediately that thought occurred that he had been poisoned in the dressing room, in the middle of an opera, in between the second and third acts. But did you know at that point what had happened? No. Or did you then have to go and chase it?

18:03nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. I didn't know anything about him. I didn't know anything about his family, his career, the people he knew. But as I wrote, these ideas occurred to me because I'd be writing along and there'd be a hole in the manuscript. I'd need someone to stick in there because I'd need someone to give this piece of information about the conductor. So I had to figure out who would be a likely possibility to have that information and how could Brunetti meet him or her. And then further on, I'd need more information. So Brunetti had to go and find somebody else. So you were having to work like a detective, obviously.

18:40Yeah, very much so. But that happens in all the books, because I don't make a plan. I don't have a plan. So you are actually working out what has happened from the start. How long did that book take to write once you started? It was less than a year. It was maybe eight, nine months. And did you know you were onto something as you were writing, did you think, wow, I can do this? I was very pleased that I could end it, but I wasn't ambitious enough to try to find an agent. Brunetti is a really dutiful cop. He's a really good man. He has morals. But he's not really driven, is he, by the cause? How much of you is in Brunetti?

19:23How much? I suppose a fair bit. Psychological makeup, do you share? His moral mulling is sometimes my moral mulling. So if he reads about something or he hears about something, he speculates about it. And when I read the papers, I wonder why, how? Where did he spring from? At what point did or how did Brunetti evolve? If he was a cop, he'd be a commissario, he'd be in his 40s. As a man in his 40s, he'd probably be married. As a university graduate, he'd probably be married to someone he met at university. He'd probably have a kid, two kids, statistically. He would own his own house. And then I thought I had inspiration.

20:07I gave him a wealthy aristocratic wife because that would always be enigmatic in that book. How could this poor nobody have captured the princess of Venice, the daughter of the richest man, Conte, Conte Falieri, isn't just Joe Smith. But Brunetti won her and married her. And she opened social doors for him, which is really important because a lot of his work is dependent on gossip. Absolutely. Society gossip. He has the weight behind him of his father-in-law and Paola's family to make connections, to deal with people who have been assured by Il Conte that there's no risk in talking to him. How does your crime writer's mind work on a day-to-day basis?

20:55When you are walking down the street, when you're out and about, maybe you're in social situations at a cocktail party or whatever. Are you always looking out for the next crime, imagining terrible situations? No, no, no. I usually don't think about it when I'm not working. The one thing I do is look at people and try to figure out how they can be described physically to make them look different from the person who's standing next to them. Because I'm not good at that. I realize that I have to force myself to describe someone's face, hair and body. There are other people who do it wonderfully well.

21:32Chandler's good at it and Ross MacDonald is sublime at it. With just a few light brush strokes. You've just written your 32nd Brunetti novel, as we say. It's inconceivable, I think, that he would ever leave the city. But you have done, haven't you? Yeah, I had 30 million reasons to do it. And when I went there, maybe a couple hundred thousand people would come in the 60s, in the 70s. And now 30 million people come every year. And to move around in the city in certain months, it used to be weeks, but certain months, is like going against the migration of the wildebeest. And that's not a pleasant experience.

22:13And it made me irritable to always have to assert my right to move in that direction without a mass of people standing in front of a window staring at it. Because I'm one of those old people who used to be this way. In my day, it wasn't like that. It's really difficult because it's a constant irritation. It's not a sharp blow. It's a stone in your shoe. And after a time, you just don't want to have it there anymore. I go back often, but I don't think I could live there. Certainly from April, May, June, July, August, I don't want to be there. And maybe even September, that's become unpleasant. Because the available space remains constant, but there are always too many people.

23:09And Brunetti has noted the changes over the years as well. He noticed what I noticed. Yeah. How could that be? He does regret the commercialisation of Venice as well. Everybody does. But he doesn't leave. And to an extent, well, I mean, not to an extent, he clearly still loves the city, doesn't he? Yeah. They're trapped in love with this most beautiful of cities, unable to leave for emotional reasons until they're driven out by the increase in their rent. Near the Rialto Bridge on the other side, in Campo San Bortolo, there's a pharmacy. Morelli, he has the number of people who are resident in the city in the bottom left of his window.

23:51And every time you go, if there's at least a week or two, there are fewer people. It's below 50 ,000. And when I moved there, it was at least 150 ,000. You have been translated into something like 35 languages all around the world. But not Italian. Well, exactly. Why? Because of an experience that I had years ago. Two women older than I came at me in the period of a couple of days with whom I had always had amiable and affectionate dealings and jumped on me because of my betrayal of Italy and my saying horrible things about Italy, that it was corrupt, that it was dirty, that the people were like this.

24:34I said, what in God's name are they talking about? I said, stop, stop, stop. Tell me, tell me, tell me. Where did I say that? In all of your books. In what book? In what book did I say what that has you so, because I don't want to offend you. No, no, in all of your books. I said, how do you know this? Yesterday there was an article in Il Tempo, the newspaper from Torino, talking about this foreigner who dared to suggest that the Italians had corruption. Surprise, surprise. in their government and that she said there was criminality. And I said, oh, okay, well then I apologize. I'm sorry that you have this impression.

25:13And I left because there was no winning that one. There wasn't even time for a truce. They were accusing me of things that other people accused me of. I think anyone who reads the books sees that my raw love for this crazy place is quite strong. Yeah, I write about corruption, but we're not dealing with the philosopher king as ruler of Venice. And these are crime books for heaven's sake. And for that reason, I don't want the books published in Italian because there would be the same ripple effect. People would read about this foreigner who was saying these things about Italy. But when you were living in Venice, are you saying that you weren't known as the American?

25:57I'm still not known. Nobody in Italy knows me. Really? Yeah. But you've sold millions of books around the world. But not in Italy. They haven't read the books. But the news hasn't arrived in Venice that there are... No, the news has arrived in Venice. But I don't want to spit in the dish out of which I'm eating. It's just, it's not right to do that. There's an irony, isn't there? Because you learnt Italian from all of these crime novels, which had been translated into Italian from all around the world, particularly America, all apart from yours. Yeah, a little figure. And it's going to remain like that.

26:29Now that you don't live in, you don't even live in Italy anymore, do you? No, but it would be the same thing. There would always be understandably, absolutely understandably, that resentment that a foreigner dares to say these things or show these things. As an American, I haven't lived in America for 50 years, but my response to things that foreigners say about the United States, even though they're parroting what I say or what I think, it strikes me differently because they're not American. So it's not that you just want the quiet life. It's not that you sort of want to stay in the shadows. If you were, you wouldn't be sitting here talking about your books, obviously.