Fid-Dlam tal-Lejl Ħarisna
by Immanuel Mifsud
Immanuel Mifsud borrows the title of his book – Fid-Dlam tal-Lejl Ħarisna (Protect us in the darkness of the night) – from “L-Innu ta’ Filgħaxija” (Evening Hymn) possibly one of the most beautiful hymns in the Maltese language, composed by Giuseppe Caruana to lyrics by Malta’s national poet Dun Karm Psaila. From the get-go, Mifsud taps into the powerful cultural and literary associations of the night, whether positive or negative, and remoulds them for his purposes.
This short book could be considered a collection of short stories having the “night” as a unifying theme. One starts to realise, however, that the stories are also linked through connections between the characters. As with the strange logic of dreams, these connections might not be immediately evident and, although I did try to make out a “plotline”, I believe it’s best to consider the chapters of the book as poetic meditations about and inspired by characters who inhabit the night – insomniac students, young lovers, illicit adulterers, dreamers (literal and figurative), lonely travellers traversing crepuscular urban landscapes. Hovering in and out of the narrative is the figure of the author, at times doubling as a character, at others becoming a puppetmaster directing his cast of characters.
Fid-Dlam tal-Lejl Ħarisna relies on common
metaphors of the night and, in this regard, is hardly Mifsud’s most original
work. Yet the book’s aura of mystery and melancholy, and the poetic ebb and
flow of the prose, make of it an absorbing reading experience.
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