Mad-Daqq tal-Vjolin 

By Salv Sammut

Published by Horizons, 2022

It is an undisputable fact that every artist, author, painter, sculptor, poet and writer leaves in everything he creates the mark of his times, of the environment around him and particularly that of his own feelings and his character, and also particularly how these last ones occur around him, and the ultimate effects they have on his life. Every human sentiment conceives in Man various views of the stage on which he has to live all his life, surrounded by beauty and not so beautiful things, with joy and sadness, with the hopes and dreams that will eventually lead him on to the inevitable end.

Meanwhile, the years and experiences then intensify as art in the artist, and the more experiences he goes through in his life, the more his artistic force intensifies and gathers momentum in his quest to create works that generally surpass and excel in artistry the previous ones.

This mainly applies to the writer. No need to mention the greatest of authors of all time, many of whom have built a monument to themselves after their death, thanks to the masterpieces created during their lifetime. Not even the present authors, living a much different life from those of yesteryear, in a chaotic world, sick, infected, riddled with wars, misery and mishaps that have reached dangerous levels, morally, spiritually and physically.

And this induces the writer to air his feelings with more desperately keen power, always hoping that his voice will ultimately be heard; that certain global, environmental, climatic and moral damage (already done) will hopefully stop in time before it will be too late.

Sammut intensifies his own sensitivity, gets angry and loathes all that induces mankind to wallow in mud, disgrace and sufferance

One of the Maltese authors whom I regard as an intensely preoccupied novel writer is undoubtedly Salv Sammut who, being also a poet of mettle, normally builds his novels on a poetic basis, something which further sharpens and ironically enhances the stories he creates. And being a poet, Sammut intensifies his own sensitivity, gets angry and loathes all that induces mankind to wallow in mud, disgrace and sufferance; he despises egoism, intolerance, greed, prejudice and physical and emotional cruelty, all of which can make man’s life on earth a sheer hell.

In all his novels, Sammut is brilliant in this aspect, particularly in his novels Id-Dar ta’ ħdejn il-baħar, L-Altruwista and Sister Clara. He enhances the reality of his stories with subtle but emphatic, convincing and severe morals, after letting the reader taste the tragic bitterness of human frailty. And this is further embellished with off-the-cuff dialogue and realistic incidents on a live, credible and true-to-life background.

And now we have in hand his latest novel Mad-daqq tal-vjolin, in which and with which he stresses on the power of love per se; how this can give life, bring happiness, create a heaven on earth, but can also be painful, reduce one to misery and despair, be rough to a degree, and even kill.

Christine is a slave of a love she couldn’t control, which led her where it wanted, without the least idea as to how she could deal with her own self and her instincts. Christine is a fragile and highly emotional woman, a character which fits in all times and situations, which will forever be croce e delizia as long as Man survives.

Once again, Sammut has spread his narrative in a superb literary style, the poetic element forever adding to the beauty of the emotional and dramatic moments which, besides embellishing the story itself, also bring to the fore the distinct power of the Maltese novel which, like other Maltese literary works, is in no way inferior to foreign ones.