The fact that she doesn’t really care about her milestone birthday was already spread in the media a few days ago. Anyone who has had the pleasure of getting to know her better knows that Donna Leon doesn’t like being the center of attention. This not only has to do with her decidedly democratic worldview, but also with the fact that the position on the fringes, that of the discreet observer, is much better suited to collecting the material that a crime writer with an annual output uses in large quantities.
Since she is rather small in stature, prefers discreet styling and maintains reserved manners, she always succeeds in this trick at festive or public occasions: withdrawing inconspicuously into a quiet area with a conversation partner of her choice, questioning him or her with interest and doing so to keep an eye and ear on the rest of what is happening – a master listener, a virtuoso of curiosity with Argus eyes.
Last but not least, Donna Leon, who was born 80 years ago in the US state of New Jersey and now lives alternately in Zurich and in a village in Graubünden, owes her career as one of the most successful crime writers of our time to this technique. And then of course there is Venice, the city in which she spent a good three decades of her life and which was her unique selling point as a backdrop for murder cases for a long time after Patricia Highsmith had already sounded out the terrain in 1967 with ice coldness.
At that time, Venice was still a place where you could find almost provincial peace
A little later, the studied globetrotter and occasional jobber Leon visited the Serenissima for the first time and made the stable friendships that prompted her to settle there around 1980, after having had some unpleasant experiences as an English lecturer in Iran, China and Saudi Arabia.
Venice, for memory, was a place then, where one could find almost provincial tranquility and lively social structures; the grandiose ambience was an addition. The senseless sell-off promoted by neoliberalism and digitization only started later. And Donna Leon would not be the person she is if she were not aware that the worldwide popularity of her books also contributed to the hype whose devastating consequences have not only driven her, but thousands of the last Venetians out of the city.
This was not foreseeable when she, the anti-militarist, gave literature courses at the US air force base in Vicenza to earn a living and indulged her passion for opera in the evenings at the Teatro La Fenice. The story of their debut is legendary: during the American-Italian break in the artists’ dressing room, a vain star conductor was maliciously blasphemed, until they even began to playfully think up methods of murder.
Brunetti also appealed to an audience that otherwise reads “proper” books
Leon, who grew up without television but with equal parts high literature and crime novels, wanted to try the rules of the genre in practice for fun and invented hers Inspector Guido Brunetti, not realizing that this would become a lifelong connection. The “Venetian Finale”, which first disappeared into a drawer, was then submitted by a friend for the Japanese Suntory Prize and promptly won, was the overture to the series of now 31 cases of the gentle, well-read, family-minded and ethically demanding investigator, which was particularly well received by women. And, what makes its creator particularly happy, also with an audience that otherwise reads “real” books.
By this she means, for example, her literary beacons Charles Dickens, Henry James and Jane Austen (on whom she would have received her doctorate had not the almost finished dissertation, then still in paper form, fell victim to the flight from Iran caused by the revolution), and the categorical difference to what she produces herself is very important to her.
Likewise, however, that each of her books at least indirectly conveys a political message or is dedicated to social grievances that produce or encourage the crime to be solved. This means, on the one hand, that she will never run out of material, and on the other hand, that the ending often remains open because the real culprits cannot be found.
The two conflicting sides of her nature are transferred to Brunetti
In recent years, ecological issues have increasingly concerned her. She admits that, although “genetically predisposed to happiness”, she tends to be bitter, even cynical, pessimistic, and not only in this respect. The two conflicting sides of her nature are transferred to Brunetti, whose melancholy is often on the verge of turning into misanthropy.
And the real developments in Italy are putting both his and Donna Leon’s love for this country to ever harder tests. Nevertheless, for her, who says she was brought up “without any ambition at all”, there are enough reasons to continue undeterred: from the pure enjoyment of writing to the concrete income that allows her to patronize her favorite baroque orchestra “Il pomo d’oro” and other good causes. Of course, the only luxury she allowed herself without a guilty conscience: traveling to all the important opera performances, especially when the music was by Handel.
The fact that the German film adaptations of her crime novels were discontinued some time ago (although those that have already been filmed are haunting the programs ad infinitum) is more of a relief for her, because she was never happy with it: too much was changed in the plots, too often Added the superfluous and diluted the espresso blackness of the original (which is more pronounced in English anyway) into a sweetened latte macchiato. Since the author is stripped of any influence over the television versions with the signing of the contract, this cannot be avoided – and with it the fact that Donna Leon’s work is often judged more by the films than by the books, which can be somewhat misleading.
So far, she has steadfastly refused the request to write her memoirs
Not to mention the wrong turns to which an audience incapable of distinguishing between reality and fiction is lured in Venice: recently the real police in the real Questura were forced to put up a notice telling visitors to several languages are asked not to constantly disturb the business with questions about Commissario Brunetti and the other Roman staff. Donna Leon wrote the lyrics herself and, with her signature blend of dry East Coast humor and inventiveness, claimed that the investigative team was unfortunately currently on a training course on the mainland.
So far she has steadfastly resisted the suggestion to write her memoirs – perhaps because she doesn’t find it very exciting to stick to the facts. As a substitute, a volume with short autobiographical stories has been published as a homage to the eightieth. In it you can learn a lot about her, but you should always keep in mind the grain of salt when it comes to creatively transforming facts, as the author decides between “truth and real truth” on her own. Not to forget her motto: “Most mischief is done by people who think they know everything.”