Review
From the book jacket: In Hollywood, Cary Grant has grown weary of
cinema's constant glamour, but Her Majesty's Secret Service will break his
malaise with a bizarre diplomatic mission. In Naples, Lucky Luciano fixes horse
races and launches the global heroin trade. And in Bologna, a bartender searches
for true love and his missing communist father. Set during the height of
the Cold War - with the world divided into East and West -
54 features
Italian partisans, KGB agents, Parisian lowlifes, and cameos by David Niven,
Marshal Tito, and Grace Kelly. Wu Ming brings us a cinematic romp that is by
turns edgy social satire and modern comic send up.
Comment: When I read a pre-publication review for
54 comparing it to
the
Don
Camillo* short stories I had to have it (the full quote was "
Don Camillo meets...
Beyond the Book
To appreciate the complicated comings and goings in
54 it would be best
to have some understanding of the context in which the book is set. Today,
Trieste is a charming Italian city bordering Slovenia (formerly Yugoslavia) on
the Adriatic Sea, home to a wide mix of cultures (map
of Trieste), but in 1954 it was at the center of a Cold War quandary - what
to do with this little city-state caught in the power struggle between East and
West?
Over the centuries Trieste became an important trade hub. It was
constituted a free port by Emperor Charles VI (Holy Roman Emperor from
1711-1740) in 1719 and remained thus until 1891. It lost much of its autonomy
during the Napoleonic Wars when it was occupied three times (eventually being...
