Since we are living in times when ethical standards are low – as epitomised, in my view, by the way in which MaltaToday is managed – I think I have a filial duty to register certain information I have acquired only very recently.

Point is I expect that one day someone will put pen to paper and write my father’s biography – as Karmenu Vassallo’s has been masterfully written by Marcel Zammit Marmarà (published earlier this year), and other authors before that. There being the possibility that when that day comes I might not be around, I feel I have a filial obligation to correct the wrong impression given by MaltaToday’s unethical “appreciation” published four days after my father, Frans Sammut, died last year in May.

In that despicable display of indecency and dearth of decorum, the controversial Alex Vella Gera had referred to my father’s position regarding censorship and Mr Vella Gera’s judicial tribulations, which luckily for him (and for liberty in this country) have ended well.

Mr Vella Gera’s position seemed to express the following syllogism: (i) Frans Sammut considered obscene writings as without the literary canon, (ii) Frans Sammut considered Mr Vella Gera’s Li Tkisser Sewwi obscene, (iii) therefore Frans Sammut wanted Mr Vella Gera to be found guilty of writing and/or distributing pornography.

The logical non sequitur is manifestly clear, but there is more to life than logic, so one can understand Mr Vella Gera’s underlying tensions. It goes without saying that since my father’s contention was merely literary and, more to the point, stated outside the judicial forum, it was an extra-judicial statement. In other words, it was inconsequential to Mr Vella Gera’s case. But this seemed to have escaped Mr Vella Gera’s appreciation of the situation.

The point I want to register for posterity, however, is that following my contribution to the press some weeks ago on another astral body which orbits the MaltaToday galaxy, Immanuel Mifsud, someone alerted me to a number of obscene comments directed at me on Alex Vella Gera’s Facebook page. I realised that certain people do really consider obscenity as acceptable, but I also realised that this was a golden opportunity to set the record straight.

Indeed, I finally managed to get it black on white from Mr Vella Gera himself that my father never wanted him to be found guilty in court of a misguided literary attempt.

In a Facebook exchange of messages with him, Mr Vella Gera told me with reference to my father: “L-unika raġuni għalfejn ma setax jittella’ bħala xhud għall-prosekuzzjoni kienet li ma riedx li neħlu multa jew ħabs, imma minn kull lat ieħor l-aġir tiegħu kien ta’ wieħed qed jikkundanna, jaqta’ sentenza kontrija.” (“The only reason why he [Frans Sammut] could not be summoned as a witness for the prosecution was that he did not want us to be fined or imprisoned, but otherwise his behaviour was one of condemnation, of meting out a sentence against me.”)

I believe that settles the matter once and for all. Frans Sammut did not agree that Vella Gera’s piece was literary but at the same time did not want Vella Gera to be found judicially guilty and, coherently, did not take part in the judicial proceedings against him. Period.

The rest is psychological. Mr Vella Gera’s comment reminds me of what Freud made out of the narrations of analysands (people undergoing psychoanalysis) who recounted their “rape” by their parents – the raw material he then worked into the Oedipus complex. Freud realised that the child had conflated perception with reality. In other words, what the child had feared or misrepresented, the child then transformed into a “real” memory.

So now it seems to me the chapter is closed, matters cleared, dead people’s reputations restored, and we can finally move on.

But not before a final remark. I will not harp on Lou Bondì’s insightful remark that MaltaToday is a public vehicle for private envy. I will just say that I believe MaltaToday’s silly crusade against my father was motivated also by the fact that Paceville’s Savonarola was inspired by none other than Saviour Balzan himself!

Though this Savonarola-Saviour Balzan connection might not be publicly known, I am quite sure Mr Balzan is aware of it. What surprises me – and possibly anybody with a modicum of culture – is that instead of feeling honoured at being immortalized in a novel, Mr Balzan is actually incensed!

It seems to me that Mr Balzan ignores that Savonarola is the novel’s hero. Anyway, Mr Balzan might be incensed because apart from the comments passed by Alfred Sant, Joe Friggieri and Godfrey Grima during the book launch more than 20 years ago, and a few others (such as Ramona Depares), Paceville has received very little serious critical evaluation, if at all. This is most likely due to political reasons, I think.

Significantly, however, Aleks Farrugia has recently issued a very intelligent invitation to reconsider the novel (Frans Sammut u n-Narrattiva tal-Progress in It-Torċa of 6 May), which might be taken up by a university student for his/her thesis.

Mr Balzan might then finally understand that Paceville does not relegate him to the Maltese equivalent of Dante’s Inferno. Even though there are many who would have liked to see him there. But they shall have to wait for someone else’s novel for that, not my father’s.

Mark A. Sammut

VALLETTA