In the mid-1960s, in those two-and-a-half years that Oliver Friggieri spent with us in the Major Seminary, we had a preponderance of people from Siggiewi with us.
People like George Grima, Mario Vassallo, Kalc Vassallo, Pawlu Schembri, Dione Cutajar, and others still.
At dinner and in recreation time we heard tales from Siggiewi, especially about the Ciccinu Bar (now notorious for a very different reason). When we went out for the long "passeggio" on Thursday our steps seemed to gravitate to Siggiewi.
Oliver, though not from Siggiewi, seemed to absorb this Siggiewi-centric bent and came along with it.
So when, many, many years later he invited my wife and me to his house, I finally got a chance to ask him: Was Siggiewi the village where he placed his trilogy?
He seemed rather surprised by my question and ruled out any possibility that Siggiewi was the village where the action took place. He didn't have a clear template, he said, but if anything, the village at the back of his mind when he wrote the trilogy was Gharghur.
Coming to think of it, his explanation fits.
Together with the two preceding novels, It-Tfal jigu bil-vapuri and La jibbnazza nigi lura, the three novels tell one story.
A girl becomes pregnant from a young man from her village. But her elderly father is adamant; she cannot keep the baby. In fact, as soon as the baby is born it is taken away and its mother cannot see it again, nor find out in which village it is being raised.
To summarize the first two books of the trilogy, the mother finds a job as a maid in an affluent house and the son of this family falls in love with her and marries her.
Now we come to the last book of this trilogy. Previously the mother had found her love child but he is not happy with his mother and her rich husband. He is attracted by his biological father who had meanwhile abandoned the village and found employment among the many boats plying the Grand Harbour and offering services to the ships in the harbour.
The trilogy begins with describing life in Malta around the mid-19th century especially life in the village where nothing ever changes, where the people are uniformly devout and where, apart from the church, only the sole wine bar in the village sees some action after the sun goes down.
On the other hand, the author perhaps fails to draw a real picture of life around the harbour except to highlight the abject poverty of people in general and the exception to that enjoyed by those who managed to get away; who went to other countries.
Nor does the author describe the real historical alternative to life in the countryside - life in the city.
As it is, the trilogy is heavily biased in favour of a backward country where time has stayed firm and where fanaticism reigns supreme.
Those of us who know our history know how life evolved and moved with the times largely through the struggles and achievements of the city-dwellers and not at all through the people in the villages.
So here there is no appreciation of how Malta evolved and gained independence and sovereignty. There is no forward-looking outcome to be found, no inspiration and hope but a past that holds the (then) present in a strangle-hold.
Having said this, the three books offer a rich reading and a prime example of written Maltese. At the same time it is a pity the trilogy has not so far (to the best of my knowledge) been translated into other languages.