Little Infamies

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Category: Literature

Published on Wednesday, 01 July 2015 08:48

For all bookworms among our listeners, we are going to introduce you a new goodie of modern and thoughtful Greek literature. Made out of 19 short stories which are all somehow connected, “Little Infamies” by Panos Karnezis takes place in a rustic, fictional Greek village and was published in 2002.

 Writing about all villagers that belong to a typical rural area, as e.g. the priest, the major, the doctor, etc., Karnezis creates an authentic image of the local community that shows each individual story and secret of the inhabitants. Thereby, his literature figures change their role from minor characters to protagonists to tale extras without loosing their meaning for the story. Therefore, this special figural constellation ensures that readers remember all important persons taking part in this collection of short narrations. Also another point of view on certain figures opens up. Furthermore, every text part is written in a different narrative style which keeps the reader’s interest.

It is a little work of art that Panos Karnezis succeeds in creating a convincing, almost realistically appearing world considering that he uses nonfictional elements and happenings as well as he refers to Ancient Greek mythology, surreal events and creatures, such as a talking horse or a parrot called “Homer”. But his little episodes contain such a truth and honesty in describing humans, fears, intrigues, guiltiness and forgiveness that the genuine message and main question for morality of the book do not loose their persuasion and remains realistic. 

Introductory, the first tale leads into the storyline of the book: an earthquake shakes the Mediterranean village and the local priest interprets this natural phenomenon as sign of God and the punishment for people’s sins.  Now, he tries everything to get his fellow citizens admitting their smaller and bigger misdeeds and to get them making amends for avoiding the apocalypse. However, he is also not shrinking from unfair practices for leading his community back to the “way of God”.

As the title already says, this book is about little infamies that everybody commits. Infamies that may get forgotten, that sometimes reveal more about a person than everything else or those which unexpectedly cause even worse wickedness. But it is also about forgiveness, natural weakness of the humankind and self-examination – everything flowed through by a fine trace of ironic humor and now and then a bit of romantic.