Sciascia Leonardo — The Day of the Owl [19]

It is an acknowledgment, on one side, of the Northerner’s integrity and disinterestedness, his humane sympathy and devotion to justice; on the other, of the Mafia leader’s own peculiar integrity, “beyond the pale of morality and law, incapable of pity, an unredeemed mass of human energy and of loneliness, of instinctive, tragic will.” — Sciascia Leonardo, The Day of the Owl, 19

Note

The pivotal mutual-admiration scene described with precision: the Mafia chief’s ‘peculiar integrity’ set against Bellodi’s — ‘an unredeemed mass of human energy and of loneliness’ is a striking characterization of the chieftain’s tragic solitude.