Il-Kummidjanti Tal-Parlament

Il-Kummidjanti tal-Parlament is a book that tickles you to death as much as it embarrasses you, gives you food for thought and disturbs you with its emotional truth. The book, which was recently published by Horizons, and is being sold in all bookshops, is definitely not a book we are normally used to.

It is enough to say that the author of this literary work is none other than Carmel Scicluna, a senior pharmacist in the Health Department, with a legacy of eight publications. This winning author with Ossessjoni is already well known for realistic novels with a touch of humour and surrealism.

In the first story the lawyer Dr Bongi Wongi is the most intelligent monkey in Form 2. He decided to invite journalists to his home to film the high marks he achieved in secondary school. And he passes a motion which exposes even more his pompous character and his personal interests above anything else. In another hilarious story Dr Leonardo diMalta, makes a pact with the devil, just as Faust had done, in order to win the general elections. The funny thing is that he never imagines the surprises in store for him after an out-ofbody experience which brings him face to face with Lucifer! IrRomblu, a political dinosaur who is hard of hearing, causes uproar in parliament when he is called a “traitor” by Dr Leonardo. Something always happens to the Prime Minister when he tries to be amorous with his wife. Moreover, JPOS is in the background for more political comedies. At times he is applauded as the green politician of the year while at others he is labelled as the greedy politician of the year. In a confrontation with Dr Leonardo, following a spontaneous spectacle of JPOS in front of the camera, orchestrated by a certain RCC, he manages to convince the electorate to vote for JPOS party. The electorate realise JPOS deception when it’s too late, after he crosses over to the other side, and rubs shoulders with the political opportunist, who, till a few years back, had attacked and badmouthed him mercilessly about the income he was going to gain from the discotheque he built in St Nicholas Bay. We then meet another parliamentary comedian. He is a pastry chef who becomes Health Commissioner. And together with Tal-Imqaret, who had previously been his canvasser, comes up with a plan to gain millions of pounds from the company Tikbis Żvediż.

In this collection of 10 stories Scicluna is once again at his best. Most of the stories remind you of local politicians and previous parliamentarians. Moreover, the author states from the very start that he is “presenting a collection of stories which are fantastically real from the Second Republic of Sovran Blunders”. The phrase “the Second Republic of Sovran Blunders” immediately indicates the satiric and humorous nature of this publication, while the phrase “fantastically real” does not reveal anything other than the desire of an author who enjoys teasing and leaves the reader open to at least two possibilities of how to interpret the text. The teasing is tangible, but our hands are tied. What does “fantastically real” mean? To answer this question, one has to first of all see where the emphasis lies. Does it lie on

The book ends with an excellent critique by Dr Francis Fabric who combined these stories with earlier works produced by the author

“fantastically” or on “real”? Since the author makes no emphasis, the reader ends up with the question: are the stories about the politicians, who always want to appear and talk ad nauseam on all local media, fantastically real because they are so real or are they in fact fantastically real because they are not real?

When you read this humorous book, apart from ensuring that you do not get a heart attack from laughing so hard because of some of the political protagonists in this book, you suddenly realise that Scicluna has no sacred cows in politics. The author deplores the fact that some citizens adore them, and does not accept the complement that he is courageous enough to write such stories. These characters re- mind you of the intense egoism of parliamentarians who have no shame, their never ending play on words, the way they forget the meaning of the word “minister”, their lack of integrity in everything they do, their roguery and manipulation to acquire as much as they can from their position within the party which spurred them on. Carmel Scicluna says that he collected the information which helped him come up with this book from blogs, YouTube and cuttings. The book ends with an excellent critique by Dr Francis Fabri who combined these stories with earlier works produced by the author. There is no doubt that with this book the author has filled yet another lacuna in Maltese literature, and it is expected to be a bestseller and receives enthusiasm by the Maltese and Gozitan readers alike.