The 53-minute interview conducted by Harriet at BBC has enabled me to look deeper and further at Donna Leon as a writer and person. Donna Leon's Death at La Fenice (1992), the first of her 28 detective novels, has laid down a consistent foundation for her characters, place and ethic sense.
Courtesy of www.bbc.co.uk
During the interview, Leon has confirmed her identification with the character of police commissario Guido Brunetti, instead of his wife, Paula, who is an academic in English literature, a filed more akin to Leon's own. However, she prefers him as a gentle family man, loving good meals, and enjoying operas and singers, a passion Leon shares and has been involved in. Meanwhile he is a thorough and competent commanding investigator who peruses justice, or rather ethical equality/sense.
When asked by book club readers why she chooses Venice as her setting, Leon thinks that Venice is good for crime novels, because the conventional wisdom believes that beautiful people do good things, so do beautiful places where ugly things are not supposed to happen. The choice of Venice is more attention grabbing.
In addition, Venice is the only place she has lived for more than 30 years, with her previous wandering life and English teaching profession. Thirty years ago, it was a serene city populated with about 100,000 residents, with September as a tourist season. Today, the local population has been reduced to 54,000, with 30 million tourists all year around. With the changing Venice, Leon calls Switzerland her home where she owns a house and is closer to her publisher and agent. She likes the people there too, for being civil-minded, and unwilling to be a parasite milking or working for a governmental system for over 40 years. Such a loss of serenity in Venice might have darkened the overall mood in Leon's later works, characterized by a sense of gloom and pessimism, even though her personal life is happy.
The interview of Donna Leon ends with a few tips from the author,
1) Writing as fun. By average, she writes about one book per year, with no specific timelines. Sometimes, it will take up to 8 months to complete a book. What matters most to Leon is authenticity and wise remarks;
2) Deciding on a voice, he or I. More often than not, he is easier. It is easier to be a man than a woman; and
3) Creating at least one character readers can like and be identifiable with. It is the same experience Louise Penny has agreed upon with her main character Armand Gamache.
The interview also ends with clarifying a mystery Robert told us years ago, i.e., Leon does not publish her novels in Italian in her lifetime, for she does not want the local fame. Things might change once she departs from this life.
