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Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic by Alexander Stille
sloatsj's review against another edition
5.0
This is truly a sad and outrageous story, very very well written. It's gripping and intelligent "true crime." Recommended to anyone with an interest in Italy and/or the mafia. Or just plain old justice.
pivic's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.25
brizreading's review against another edition
Alas, such a bummer, but I couldn't finish this.
I really enjoyed Stille's later book, about Berlusconi, The Sack of Rome. This book likewise featured a super-important figure of post-war Italian political history: Giovanni Falcone. It seemed like a sure-bet.
I'm always on the look-out for good English-language books about Italy, since there aren't many and lots of crazy shit has gone down and continues to go down in il bel paese (cue music). Alas, then. I just couldn't get into this book, even though Falcone was such an admirable, amazing person: he was an anti-mafia Sicilian prosecuting magistrate who was eventually murdered by the mafia in 1992 (they blew up the highway he was driving on (!)). His murder was one of the most pivotal (and depressing) events of 90s Italy.
This book, unfortunately, just felt very rambley and dry. I guess I would have preferred a long-view history of the Sicilian mafia, from its origins to how it developed under the Bourbons. Stille, instead, gives us just a few short brushstrokes of the Cosa Nostra's history (about half a chapter), and then he dives into the minutiae of the 1980s mafia landscape: in particular, the rise of the Corleonesi family (from Corleone), which was more violent and more out of control than the old time mafia families of Palermo. Stille goes into fastidious detail about the various mafiosi and their networks in 1980s Sicily, but it just feels like a lot of names and a lot of tangled relationships. I kept asking myself if this info was still relevant, thirty years later.
I should also admit that I'm not one of those people who finds the mafia intrinsically interesting. For better or worse (mostly worse), lots of people (1) make mafia jokes to me when they learn I'm Italian, or (2) romanticize stuff like The Godfather and so on. Yo, I'm all about a good "Take the (x), leave the cannoli!" joke, but this naive fascination is sometimes pretty tiresome. It's like, no, it's not really that funny and certainly not cool, it's just a giant parasite of organized crime, and it's sad and frustrating. For that reason, learning that Mr. So-and-so was part of this-and-that family, who killed Mr. Other-guy, was making my eyes glaze over. After seven chapters, I went out (BUT THEY PULL ME BACK IN*).
* Obligatory Godfather joke.
I really enjoyed Stille's later book, about Berlusconi, The Sack of Rome. This book likewise featured a super-important figure of post-war Italian political history: Giovanni Falcone. It seemed like a sure-bet.
I'm always on the look-out for good English-language books about Italy, since there aren't many and lots of crazy shit has gone down and continues to go down in il bel paese (cue music). Alas, then. I just couldn't get into this book, even though Falcone was such an admirable, amazing person: he was an anti-mafia Sicilian prosecuting magistrate who was eventually murdered by the mafia in 1992 (they blew up the highway he was driving on (!)). His murder was one of the most pivotal (and depressing) events of 90s Italy.
This book, unfortunately, just felt very rambley and dry. I guess I would have preferred a long-view history of the Sicilian mafia, from its origins to how it developed under the Bourbons. Stille, instead, gives us just a few short brushstrokes of the Cosa Nostra's history (about half a chapter), and then he dives into the minutiae of the 1980s mafia landscape: in particular, the rise of the Corleonesi family (from Corleone), which was more violent and more out of control than the old time mafia families of Palermo. Stille goes into fastidious detail about the various mafiosi and their networks in 1980s Sicily, but it just feels like a lot of names and a lot of tangled relationships. I kept asking myself if this info was still relevant, thirty years later.
I should also admit that I'm not one of those people who finds the mafia intrinsically interesting. For better or worse (mostly worse), lots of people (1) make mafia jokes to me when they learn I'm Italian, or (2) romanticize stuff like The Godfather and so on. Yo, I'm all about a good "Take the (x), leave the cannoli!" joke, but this naive fascination is sometimes pretty tiresome. It's like, no, it's not really that funny and certainly not cool, it's just a giant parasite of organized crime, and it's sad and frustrating. For that reason, learning that Mr. So-and-so was part of this-and-that family, who killed Mr. Other-guy, was making my eyes glaze over. After seven chapters, I went out (BUT THEY PULL ME BACK IN*).
* Obligatory Godfather joke.
drifterontherun's review against another edition
5.0
For an in depth look at La Cosa Nostra and the government corruption that still rots away at Italy's soul, Alexander Stille's excellent 1995 opus is a must read! The term "Excellent Cadavers" refers to the government officials who have been killed in the fight against the mafia rather than rival mafiosi or private citizens who have wound up dead. As the title suggests, "Excellent Cadavers" reads at times like a thriller, at others like a hard-boiled detective novel, and at yet others like an investigative report and autopsy into a country afflicted with disease. The disease in this case refers to decades of government corruption, bribery scandals, and political wrangling.
What Stille's book really is though is a tribute to all those who long waged a thankless and, at times, seemingly hopeless fight for justice against the mafia and its masters in government. Stille spotlights two men in particular, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. Sicilian through and through, Falcone and Borsellino went up against nothing more than the entire Italian State in order to bring justice to the cruel and vicious mafiosi that had become as much a part of the Sicilian landscape as the arancini and cannoli the Italian island is more positively renowned for.
The research that Stille did in order to write this incredible book is a feat in itself, and that the quality of the writing should be as high as it is makes "Excellent Cadavers" an absolute must! In this age of "The Sopranos" and Martin Scorsese, it's books like Stille's that remind us that there is nothing remotely romantic or glamorous about the real mafia.
What Stille's book really is though is a tribute to all those who long waged a thankless and, at times, seemingly hopeless fight for justice against the mafia and its masters in government. Stille spotlights two men in particular, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. Sicilian through and through, Falcone and Borsellino went up against nothing more than the entire Italian State in order to bring justice to the cruel and vicious mafiosi that had become as much a part of the Sicilian landscape as the arancini and cannoli the Italian island is more positively renowned for.
The research that Stille did in order to write this incredible book is a feat in itself, and that the quality of the writing should be as high as it is makes "Excellent Cadavers" an absolute must! In this age of "The Sopranos" and Martin Scorsese, it's books like Stille's that remind us that there is nothing remotely romantic or glamorous about the real mafia.
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