Cat-burglar gets buried in a book

 ROME — Police have arrested a man who allegedly broke into a flat in a wealthy Rome neighbourhood to steal and then sat down to read a book.

 The “intellectual” thief broke into an apartment in the Prati quarter and became distracted after spotting a book about Greek mythology on the owner’s bedside table. Intrigued by the title — The gods at six. The Iliad at cocktail hour — he picked up the volume and sat on a balcony to read it.

 At a certain point the 71-year-old owner of the flat, who was in another room, became aware of the burglar’s presence and called the police.

 Daniele Liquori, 38, an IT technician, was eventually arrested after climbing onto another balcony in a bid to escape.

 He told a judge he had spotted the book, started to read it and had become engrossed.

 His account of how he ended up on the balcony appeared to denote a vivid imagination. “I had an appointment with someone who lives in that building and was waiting on the communal rooftop to admire the view. I slipped and fell onto the veranda of the floor below. I thought I had ended up in a B&B, saw the book and started to read it.”

 The literary larcenist described the book as “rather beautiful” but insisted he hadn’t stolen anything. Police said they found him in possession of a bag full of new clothes, with the labels still attached, and were charging him with receipt of stolen property as well as attempted burglary.

 Liquori has other cases pending for fraud and for stalking the concierge of his own building, whom he accused of not handing over mail packages. He was acquitted in a previous theft case after admitting to stealing clothes on behalf of the needy. The judge ruled the value of the products was insignificant.

 The book that captured his attention is a retelling of the Iliad from the point of view of the gods. “The gods don’t watch the heroes fighting while they take an aperitif. They enter into their battles, they stand beside them, they are inside them,” the author writes.

 Giovanni Nucci, the creator of the work, was delighted to have acquired a new fan. “It’s fantastic. First of all I would like to find the person caught in flagrante and give him a copy of the book, because his reading will have been interrupted and I would like him to be able to finish it,” Nucci told Il Messaggero newspaper. “It’s a surreal story but full of humanity.”

 Nucci pointed out that the god Hermes, his favourite, was the protector both of literature and of thieves. “So it’s clear, it all makes sense.”

 Nucci, who lives only 300 metres from where the arrest took place, said the book was quite accessible and stressed the relevance of Homer’s poem even today. “The Iliad begins with a pandemic and continues with a devastating war. Does that remind you of anything?”

 Il Messagero commented that the episode appeared to show that the urge of culture could be stronger than that of crime. “To remain on topic, Daniele Liquori’s Achille’s heel could be his love of reading.”

 It sets him apart from his fellow citizens, two thirds of whom don’t even read one book a year, placing Italy third from bottom for readership in the European Union.

 Nucci’s book tackles the Iliad through a series of lectures by an imaginary French professor and a rekindled love story from the professor’s youth.

 “Giovanni Nucci gives the reader a perspective of interpretation that is different, upside down, decidedly unusual,” commented Salvina Pizzuoli in an online review. The book revived the ancient characters beloved of her own youth, Pizzuoli wrote, showing what “this ancient and mythical work, often forgotten, still has to tell us and to give us”.

 Concita De Gregorio, writing for La Repubblica, was also enthusiastic: “Nucci, as usual, dazzles you, and if you’ve never read him, what good fortune: you can start today, from here.”

pw