So, did the prime minister of Italy really read a book that scared him so badly he made it illegal, or are the publishers of said book just shockingly unscrupulous? It really does have to be one or the other, there's no third option on this thing.
Now, Silvio Berlusconi is automatically a person of dubious character just based on the fact that he thinks being prime minister of Italy is a good idea. Italy has had 38 prime ministers in 63 years, meaning that office has a shelf life better suited to dairy products. What person in his right mind looks at that track record and says "You know the problem with those 38 guys? None of them were me!"
Add to this the fact that Berlusconi is the only sitting world leader whose Wikipedia page has to have a chart differentiating the dozens of criminal trials he's been the defendant in, including THREE cases still pending, and you've really got to wonder if this isn't the sort of person you should even trust to lead a line dance, much less a nation.
At left, the plaintiff; at right, Berlusconi.
So that's Berlusconi. In the other corner we have the editors and distributors of a book called "Thirteen", a collection of horror stories that has been called the scariest book ever written, although the people calling it that are almost always the people who wrote and distributed it.
The marketing around this thing leaves something to be desired in terms of tact and good taste. For example, they consistently try to perpetuate a rumor that the compiler disappeared shortly after the book was published. Another rumor holds that the man actually legally changed his name to help perpetuate this fiction. You may notice that nothing being used to promote this book has anything to do with its merits, which, speaking as a person who had read it, is not surprising.
So what's the overlap here? Apparently Berlusconi read "Thirteen", or more specifically its infamous (again, a self-applied term) first story "The Magic" and was scared so badly that he outlawed it in Italy. Supposedly this decision was rooted in a legitimate belief on his part that the story invokes certain "powers", which I shall not detail for the sake of remaining spoiler free.
Berlusconi's cabinet have repeatedly asked him to stop opening meetings this way.
Pretty nuts, huh? But the question on my mind is whether this Berlusconi story is legit. See, the only sources I can find that cite the supposed censorship are ones that come from the publisher's channels. There doesn't seem to be a single real news article about it.
Their YouTube channel does show a press conference where Berlusconi supposedly defends the censorship to some feisty protestors and reporters. I don't speak a word of Italian, and anyone who does could easily kick my knees right out from under me on this, but I have a suspicion that the subtitles on that video are not legitimate. I really honestly think that the publishers of "Thirteen" manufactured the whole thing. I admit, that's speculation, but the whole thing does smell fishy, doesn't it?
We all know that most people will believe anything they read on the internet. We have all, at one point or another, been suckered. My knee-jerk reaction was to swallow this story whole, if for no other reason than, ya know, it's Berlusconi. Only when I was in the midst of writing a piece on it did it occur to me that the whole thing might be bullshit. I still don't know one way or the other, but really it doesn't matter, because no matter what my first instinct should have been skepticism, and it wasn't, and that's a problem.
For example, I'm starting to suspect that that's not a real rabbit. Something about it just seems off to me...
Oh, are you wondering about the story? Well, I won't spoil it, but I gotta tell ya, I wasn't impressed. I mean, it's a cute stunt I guess, but that kind of thing was more effective as, say, a chain email from 2001 or so. I find regional Italian politics a hell of a lot scarier, but to be fair, that's just true of most horror stories.
Hang on, I have to go let the rabbit in.
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