Vango's Childhood In Paranoia By Vano De Fombelle

As stated earlier, de Fombelle often sees himself in his stories as a way of rediscovering his childhood. The same is true for this novel. De Fombelle portrays himself through the main character, Vango. This vision of himself in the book contributes to the tone of this book, which is worrisome.
In the chapter titled Paranoia, Vango’s inner workings are explained. Vango decides to visit Father Jean, his friend and favorite priest. Instead of getting about on foot, Vango chose to travel by rooftop since the day the police tried to arrest him at Notre Dame because it meant he was less likely to be seen by the police. The whole reason Vango ran from the police in the first place without knowing his crime was because of his paranoia; the same

reason he is still running from them. Vango finally broke down after running out of money and went to visit Father Jean to get advice on what to do. After slipping in through the window to avoid being seen by the guards in front of Father Jean’s room, he discovered why they were there. Father Jean was dead, and his room was the crime scene. Father Jean left a note that said “Flee Vango”, explaining why the police were after him; they thought the note meant Vango murdered Father Jean. Vango then slumped to his knees in front of Father Jean’s body. De Fombelle described the situation as:
The worst. The worst had just happened. A spiky ball of nails was spinning around in the pit of his stomach. He could feel his heart and his skin being turned inside out, the way the hunters of his childhood skinned rabbits in Sicily (De Fombelle 36).
This sets up the rest of the story to make the reader worried about what will happen to Vango as well. He was falsely accused of a crime and has to constantly escape the police and other enemies all because of his paranoia.
De Fombelle makes the majority of the secondary characters worried about Vango as well, making his tone further obvious. While Ethel met with Hugo Eckener to catch up since their zeppelin trip around the world, she asked Eckener, “‘Do you remember that boy...Vango? Do you have any news of him?’” (De Fombelle 218). The whole point of the characters Ethel and Eckener are to figure out how to help Vango escape from all the people after him. Since de Fombelle saw himself as Vango, it would make sense that he would make the other characters worried about what would happen to Vango; de Fombelle wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to himself.