The Flight of the Falcon – Daphne du Maurier (1965)

The second book I chose to read for #DDMreadingweek was The Flight of the Falcon. I picked up this pretty 1960s hardback somewhere last year quite cheaply. It differs from some of Daphne du Maurier’s most famous works in some ways, while there is certainly tension and drama especially towards the end, we don’t have the unsettling atmosphere of novels like Rebecca and Jamaica Inn, not the strange almost supernatural elements of The House on the Strand. Set in the present day (i.e. the 1960s) history still plays a part but it is kept in the past – we are not plunged into an historical world here.

I found it to be instantly a very visual novel – it really would make an excellent TV/film adaptation. The setting is so much a part of this novel, and as I have said before Daphne du Maurier’s sense of place is always exceptional.

This is one of the novels that feature a male narrator – something du Maurier manages well I think – there are several male narrators in her short stories. Armino Fabbio is a courier and tour guide working for a holiday tour company catering for both European and American tourists. His life is unremarkable perhaps, but he is content, considers himself good at his job. As the novel opens Armino arrives in Rome with a group of British and American tourists, they put up at a hotel already known to Armino – from where their tour will continue in a few days. Some members of his party draw Armino’s attention to the figure of an old woman slumped in the doorway of a church, and in a moment of compassion Armino returns alone later and presses a large value note into her hand.

“The furtive odour of stale wine, worn clothes, rose to my nostrils. I fumbled for the hidden hand under the enveloping shawls and put the note into it. Suddenly she stirred. She lifted her head. The features were aquiline and proud, the eyes, once large, were now sunken, and the straggling grey hair fell in strands to her shoulders. She must have travelled from some distance, for she had two baskets beside her containing bread and wine, and yet a further woollen shawl. Once again I was seized with that sense of recognition, that link with the past which could not be explained. Even the hand that, warm despite the cold air, held on to mine in gratitude awakened an involuntary, reluctant response. She stared at me. Her lips moved.”

The woman reminds him strongly of Marta his old nurse from childhood – later back at the hotel he imagines he even heard her calling after him. The following day the old woman is found dead – murdered in the same spot, a small piece of the money Armino gave her still in her hand. He accompanies two English women to the police station to identify the woman as someone they saw the day before, however Armino says nothing about the money he gave her or that he may have recognised her as someone he once knew. With an increasing suspicion that the old woman might really have been his old nurse Marta, Armino ditches his tour – leaving them in the hands of another courier – and decides to return to his home town of Ruffano where he hasn’t been for over twenty years – having left the town with his mother when he was a boy.

Ruffano is a town steeped in history, five hundred years earlier the sinister Duke Claudio preyed upon the people of the town, his life and times documented in the archives of the university library. When Armino arrives in Ruffano he quickly finds lodgings and a temporary job at the library – coming into contact with the students who fill the old university town. Within days Armino has been drawn into the complex world of the university, meeting many of its key figures, including the wife of the University Rector who lives in his former family home.

Incredibly, Armino discovers the elder brother; Aldo he thought had been killed in the war, alive a respected member of the university community and Director of the arts council. His brother who is several years older than Armino was always a huge presence in the young Armino’s life and now he is instantly charmed and enthralled by his charismatic brother, however he wonders at the hold Aldo has over large numbers of the arts students. Before reconnecting with his brother, who he still believes to be dead, Armino watches in astonishment as he addresses a large body of students in the ducal apartments.

“‘Five hundred and twenty five years have passed and I believe the time has come to reinstate the Duke. Or rather, to do honour to his memory. That is why, since it has fallen to me, in the absence of the Rector of the university, Professor Butali, whom we all revere and honour, to arrange this year’s festival, I have decided to enact the uprising of the city of Ruffano against their much misunderstood lord and master, first duke, and called by all- the Falcon.’”

Each year the town holds a Festival that celebrates some aspect of its past – this year Aldo wishes to honour the memory of the Duke he considers having been misunderstood – a man he claims was dedicated to the arts himself. The arts faculty students are in regular conflict with the Commerce and Economics students – a new faculty. There is tension and even violence on the streets late at night – and the planned re-enactment of the Duke’s flight from Ruffano is doing nothing to ease simmering resentments.

As Armino reconnects with his brother and learns more about the town and the university – he becomes increasingly haunted by his own past, and that of his brother. Worried that his hasty flight from Rome could make him look like a murderer – he turns to his brother for help. Though as his first week back in the town of his birth comes to an end, Armino is beginning to wonder about whether or not all is well with his brother.

In some ways this novel could be said to be a bit of a slow burn, but I must say I really enjoyed it. The simmering resentments, jealousies and fragile allegiances of the town’s university are portrayed well, and the heart of it is a mystery about an old woman’s death – and a brother’s obsession.