The Brewer of Preston

By Andrea Camilleri

Book Overview

The New York Times bestselling author of the Inspector Montalbano series brings us back to Vig ta in the nineteenth century for a rip-roaring comic novel. 1870s Sicily. Much to the displeasure of Vig ta's stubborn populace, the town has just been unified under the Kingdom of Italy. They're now in the hands of a new government they don't understand, and they definitely don't like. Eugenio Bortuzzi has been named Prefect for Vig ta, a regional representative from the Italian government to oversee the town. But the rowdy and unruly Sicilians don't care much for this rather pompous mainlander nor the mediocre opera he's hell-bent on producing in their new municipal theater. The Brewer of Preston , it's called, and the Vig tese are revving up to wreak havoc on the performance's opening night.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0143121499
• ISBN13: 9780143121497
• Release Date: December 2014
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.9" x 7.6"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher

Customer Reviews

Not for everybody, but definitely worth it

Andrea Camilleri writes about a fictional town in Southern Sicily called Vigàta. There are two series of books, one is set in the present and they're crime novels vaguely similar to Simenon's "Maigret" books, the other deals with Vigàta in the 19th century. The books are light comedy and have a huge cult following in Italy.There are two major problems with reading Camilleri. The first is that obviously you need to understand Italian (I shudder to think of the difficulties involved in translating Camilleri's work) and secondly, Camilleri has created a Sicilian dialect of his very own (which nevertheless bears great similarity to a modern-day generic Sicilian). It is no more difficult to read than say, the Nadsat language in "A Clockwork Orange", but it CAN be problemmatical for all but the most fluent of Italian speakers.In Il Birraio Di Preston (The Preston Brewer) Camilleri writes about the factional infighting that occurs when the town prefect (a Florentine, forced on the town by the federal government) pig-headedly decides to put on an Operetta by the same name on the opening night of the Vigàta theatre. Much against the town people's wishes and commonsense. He has the backing of the local mafia chieftain and nothing but contempt for the local Sicilians so he proceeds regardless.The undertaking is a major disaster: revolutionaries from Rome burn down the theatre after the local people have heckled the opera to a standstill. There are several deaths and in the aftermath, we see several heads roll and learn something about the way that history is rewritten to suit the victors.As far as the writing goes, Camilleri performs a minor tour de force, starting each chapter with the opening line of another book, freely translated into his own dialect. He quotes Snoopy's novel, Moby Dick and Fahrenheit 451 among many others.If you can read either Italian (or better still, Sicilian), this is a wonderful book and one not to be missed. Camilleri's brilliant ear for dialogue is hilarious and a real joy to read. It is the sort of book you feel like re-reading as soon as you get to the last masterly word.