27 February 2012
Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto book discussion at University Bookstore Seattle
Monday, February 27, 6 pm
University Book Store
4326 University Way NE
Seattle, WA 98105
Bookstore Café, by the fireside
Nick DiMartino, bookseller at University Book Store Seattle, is a big fan of Gianni Rodari’s Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto:
Good morning, book lovers.
You could call Gianni Rodari’s LAMBERTO, LAMBERTO, LAMBERTO a fairytale for adults that children will find hilarious and outrageous. You could call it a fairytale for kids that adults will find provocative and utterly original. One thing for sure, you have never read ANYTHING quite like Rodari’s final masterpiece. I’ve been haunted by it ever since I read it. I can still tell you the whole story, incident by incident, because how can you forget something so utterly different and unique? Shocking, sometimes violent, doing comic little pirouettes on the edge of being offensive, it’s part classic folktale and part modern newspaper headline thriller. It’s like discovering in Italy one last savage satire by Roald Dahl. I envy you the surprises and delights you have ahead of you.
Baron Lamberto is 93 years old, owns 24 banks and suffers from 24 maladies. Then an Arab fakir in the shadow of the Sphinx confides to him the secret of the pharaohs: “The man whose name is spoken remains alive.” The Baron immediately hires six people to continually chant his name, working in shifts, with all the hard candy they can eat: “Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto.” Soon two new hairs appear on his bald head. His wrinkles smooth out. Within a couple weeks he looks like a 40-year-old, straight, tall, blond and athletic, swimming around his island every morning to stay in shape.
Then 24 bandits lay siege to the villa and kidnap the Baron. The terrorists demand a fortune, and to show they mean business they slice off the Baron’s ear and send it to his bankers in an envelope. Suddenly it’s like Pinocchio being written by Quentin Tarantino. A sliced off finger follows. Fortunately the severed body parts grow back, as long as the six chanters keep up their chant. But Lamberto’s nephew has lost a fortune playing skittles, and needs his uncle’s money to support his voracious soda pop habit. He tricks the chanters into gobbling a soup mixed with sleeping pills.
Making a comedy out of a terrorist kidnapping is tricky stuff, but this book is a daring highwire act that works, a fairytale peppered with scuba diving suits, submachine guns and custom sports cars. Prepare to be charmed by Rodari’s gleefully chuckling, honestly childlike voice.
Come discuss the book with us!
