Product Description

A classic of modern fiction. Set in the 1860s, THE LEOPARD is the spellbinding story of a decadent, dying Sicilian aristocracy threatened by the approaching forces of democracy and revolution.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #191143 in Books
• Published on: 1991-07-23
• Released on: 1991-07-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Amazon.com Review
In Sicily in 1860, as Italian unification grows inevitable, the smallest of gestures seems dense with meaning and melancholy, sensual agitation and disquiet: "Some huge irrational disaster is in the making." All around him, the prince, Don Fabrizio, witnesses the ruin of the class and inheritance that already disgust him. His favorite nephew, Tancredi, proffers the paradox, "If we want things to stay as they are, they will have to change," but Don Fabrizio would rather take refuge in skepticism or astronomy, "the sublime routine of the skies."

Giuseppe di Lampedusa, also an astronomer and a Sicilian prince, was 58 when he started to write The Leopard, though he had had it in his mind for 25 years. E. M. Forster called his work "one of the great lonely books." What renders it so beautiful and so discomfiting is its creator's grasp of human frailty and, equally, of Sicily's arid terrain--"comfortless and irrational, with no lines that the mind could grasp, conceived apparently in a delirious moment of creation; a sea suddenly petrified at the instant when a change of wind had flung waves into frenzy." The author died at the age of 60, soon after finishing The Leopard, though he did live long enough to see it rejected as unpublishable.

Review
...Lampedusa's deftness with words is so fine that, although nothing much appears to happen in the book ... to many readers The Leopard is the greatest Italian novel this century, perhaps the greatest ever, and uniquely relevant to modern Italy. -- The Economist

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Italian

Customer Reviews

A great novel, beautifully written and very moving
I approached The Leopard with high expectations which were thoroughly satisfied. The novel, apparently based on the life of di Lampedusa's great-grandfather, is the story of a proud, sensual, Sicilian aristocrat at the time of Italy's Risorgimento (1860 or thereabouts), and his reaction to the changes he sees in his society: mainly the inevitable, indeed necessary, but still in some ways regrettable displacement of the aristocracy from their traditional position. The title character is a wonderful creation, and the lesser characters about him (his wife and children, his favorite nephew, the Jesuit priest Father Pirrone, and so on), are also very elegantly depicted. The Sicilian countryside, and telling details of social life at that time period, are also fascinating elements of the book. And finally, the prose is wonderful, and this translation seems very good, save for just a couple mild moments of clunkiness.

The Leopard is the story of Don Fabrizio, Prince of Salina, at the time of the main action a man in his forties, with several children. He is a sort of benevolent tyrant in his household, a man of a very old family, accustomed to knowing his place and to having those about him know their places. The Prince is also a man of great sensual appetites, careless with his money (though not wasteful or dissolute), politically knowledgeable but completely apolitical in action, and also an amateur astronomer of some note.

When the story opens, the Risorgimento is ongoing, but it is clear that it will be ultimately successful, and that the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies will be absorbed into the newly unified, somewhat more democratic, Italy. Don Fabrizio, out of loyalty, is nominally supportive of the old regime, but he realistically stays out of the conflict. His favorite nephew, Tancredi, the penniless but charismatic son of his sister, is an ardent supporter of Garibaldi (leader of the revolution).

Several long chapters, separated by months, follow the progress of the Risorgimento at a distance, and more closely follow events which impinge directly on Don Fabrizio's life, yet which reflect the coming societal changes. These include the plebiscite to confirm popular support for the unification of Italy, his nephew Tancredi's love affair and eventual marriage to the daughter of a wealthy but decidedly lower class neighbor, his daughter's reaction to the attentions of a friend of Tancredi's, and Father Pirrone's visit to his home village. Finally, the action jumps forward some decades to the Prince's death, in a very moving and beautiful chapter, then still further forward to the household of his unmarried daughters in their old age.

The events of the story tellingly illustrate both the changing face of society and also the nature of Sicilian society in general. At another level, the Prince's aging and death, and his knowledge of his own mortality, echo the senescence of his class. Loving descriptions of the Prince's homes, of his meals, of balls, of hunting, of peasant life, of politics both at the Prince's level and at the level of the peasants, of the attitude of churchmen towards their flock (especially Father Pirrone's toleration but not approval of his friend's sensual escapades) are laced throughout the novel. Moreover, the Prince himself is a truly compelling, charismatic character, full of faults but an admirable man nonetheless. Also, the narrator's voice is often with us, ironically, often even cynically, commenting on the expectations of the characters and both their failings and the failings of "real life" to meet their expectations, but, though sad, the voice is never bitter.

Rich description, wonderful characters, great writing!
I know little of Italian politics or history, but that didn't keep me from being swept up in the story, whose well-drawn characters inhabited a feudal landscape that was inevitably fading away. Don Fabrizio, a prince in Sicily, is at the peak of his power in 1860, living a life of luxury with his wife and seven children and taking the appeasement of his sensual appetites with other women as a given, despite his wife's tears. But around him swirl the winds of war and change, as Garibaldi's army is sweeping through Sicily and there are changes that challenge his way of life. He resents the upstart commoner who is making a fortune by buying the land and yet still is willing to arrange a match between his nephew and the commoner's beautiful daughter, Angelica. There is a great scene where this marriage arrangement takes place, which is ripe with the subtleties of class.

The writing is rich in descriptive texture. I could almost smell the fragrance of the garden and touch the extravagant furnishings of the estates. This sets the stage for the very real people who taste the dust of long carriage rides as well as dress in silk and attend great balls. I learned about the politics of the time, the role of the church and the view of the world as perceived by the privileged few for the fifty-year time span of the book, which concludes in 1910. It was a deeply satisfying read. Highly recommended.

ASTOUNDING AND SUBLIME
Guido Waldman's traslation of Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi's introduction is a boon for the literary scene. Lampedusa's nephew, runs a detailed history of the the novel's publication and more importantly here included are passages Lampedusa wrote for the book that were omitted by the original Italian editors and subsequent English versions.

To read Di Lampedusa in Italian is like reading Proust in French, which is to say it is characterized by a melodious dalliance that lulls and swells in dreamscapes of intellectual brilliance. Guido Waldman, whose efforts include the Oxford edition of Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso" (not an enviable task - imagine translating into a collected allegorical prose Spencer's "Faery Queen"), invariably paces the rhythm of the English in a comparable rendition, while attuning the lyricism in delicate cadances.

"The Leopard" represents a command of style and a robust poetic affluence that is exceptional. The vigour and audacity of the novel is never compromised throughout its scope and vision, and moreover it is persistently haunted by spectres of an apocalyptic doom loitering lustfully. To read this novel is to witness the expression of a community in distress as it finds itself fidgeting to keep its composure while arrested amidst a stalemate, as it were a cultural limbo. Giuseppe Di Lampedusa fashions a circumventing microcosmic portrait that is nostalgic and entertaining. Episodes of ribaldry abound yet they always steer clear of expressing disrespect for a tradition and a cultural milieu that preserves its ambiguity and its inconsolable propriety. The discomfort of the probing characters is strung and picked so as to strike a melodious ravishment that transgresses all values and disarms the structural apogee of the narrative. In its many particulars, and brusque, yet delicate lyrical tendencies, this novel gives delusional recordings of an island distant and beyond memory. Here we hear the tourbadour's chant nearing with incredulous apathy, both the harmony of a siren song and the discordant twang of a swan song lingering beyond the sheet-music read. It's as if a protracted melancholia overtook a whole culture and a poetic instinct becomes embalmed in its people. Sicilians have a heritage of millions of years which resonates throughout, and apologizing for my not being a Sicilian, I would suggest a visit to Siracusa, Palermo, Catania, or even off the coast to Taranto (Calabria) to remind us that the Odyssey's tales mostly take place in and around this island. Di Lampedusa is a classic man of letters, with an Odyssyan propensity for exploring the whims of human nature and exposing the forces that cross the devide that stands between loyalty and desire. I have found such a high quality of "delightful disturbance" only in a handful of artists - Primaraly in De Chirico's paintings, which parallels astoundingly well alongside any reading of "Il Gattopardo". In literature one may well liken Di Lampedusa to the late Thomas Mann (esp. "The Magic Mountain"). In "The Leopard" a uniique stunning clarity pervades. Stunning for the acceptance of its fading way of life consacrating a culture in decadence; while the clarity of classical beauty is flawlessly contained. It is impossibly beautiful and sublime. Here Di Lampedusa conspires to invite us on a voyage with sails withdrawn, impressively seized within a standstill. Chimed from afar floats a decadent sweltering heat, while basking underneath is found the novel's storyline. Please plug your ears, or have someone tie you to something or other, else would that you were to tune in you'd never leave: In blissfull obliviousness you'd perish along this shoreline! Hereby the island's lure is a felicitous narrative that speaks fables of yesterday in daring, lingering overtones, consonant with the cunning splendid mirage of sex appeal.... And an applause to Guido Waldman, who deserves unrestrained praise for his labours as they shall now translate into our delights, adding considerably to the overall excellence of Archibald Colquhoun's translation, the novel has reached the shores of its definitive version.