The Leopard: A Novel | Giuseppe Di Lampedusa

The Leopard: A Novel | Giuseppe Di Lampedusa | A people in turmoil amidst a standstill. A Cultural Limbo

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The Leopard: A Novel

	The Leopard: A Novel Giuseppe Di Lampedusa Pantheon, 2007 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 61 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Wonderfully evocative book

When I was younger, my grandfather used to talk about how he had once met the Duke of Palma, a wonderfully enigmatic and eccentric old man at one of his uncles parties when he was visiting Roma. This book is part of my family lore, my mothers grandmother came from a family not dissimilar to di Lampedusa's (in a similar fashion her family's main palazzo in Palermo was bombed by the Americans, and all that the family now possess is a few villas along the coast near noto and ragusa), and it tells the story of these wonderful people. The scene where the Prince explains his reasons for not becoming a Senator, for me, sum up the Sicilian and who he represents. Oh, I know that the average person these days considers Sicilianos to be mafiosi, but that is a misguded and tragic view. Whilst I myself am Anglo-French, I still consider my Calabrese-Siciliano blood to be an integral part of me and love that part of the world. The Leopard is a must for anyone with a passing interest in Sicily and it sadddens me to see that some people find it too hard and not a good read. I thoroughly recommend the book in both English and even better if you can, in Italian. It sums up this wonderful island which has played such a crucial role in the history of the mediteranean and the lore of my own family.

Whilst it is true that Peter Robbs book is an interesting read (and the man himself is even more interesting) nothing can quite compare to the words of Tomasi di Lampedusa. If one has been fortunate enough to smell the coffee and soil of la terra di Sicilia then one will love this book and feel the zest of the isle. It tells a story set in a wonderful period (when the prince meets the last Bourbon of the Two-Sicilies one can feel the heavy steps at caserta, similarly my family were closley aligned to this foreign and generally incompetent dynasty, thank god for the Savoys), and really captures the Risorgiomento.

What more can I say, except a wonderful read.From a descendent of Alberto di Catania della Fiori, I salute Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, another great of the literati della sicilia. Viva Sicilia

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A people in turmoil amidst a standstill. A Cultural Limbo

The vigour and audacity of this novel is never compromised throughout and moreover it is persistently definied with markings of an apocalyptic doom which postmodern currents cannot comprehend (Hence the last reviewers shrug perhaps). 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 quandary and a stalemate that courses without ribaldry or expressing disrespect for a tradition and a cultural milieu that preserves its ambiguity and its distorted 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. Sicilians have a heritage of million of years whcih 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 Odysseus was a Sicilian by all means. Why not?, this may be the embodying of an Odyssey the way it ought to be when transported through time. Di Lampedusa is a classic in disguise. A trickster as well as a true philosopher. 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," much more incisively than any Surrealist writing ever has. In literature a few examples might be found in Stifter's "Indian Summer" or in contemporary authors Duras (The Lopver, The ravishing of Lol," and "The Malady of Death.")and in W.G. Sebald (especially in his masterwork "The Emigrants.") I ought to add Thomas Mann ("Buddenbrooks," "Doctor Faustus," "The Magic Mountain," and "Death in Venice.") although so much has been said about the last, and Mann is such a virtuoso, that the terror and the sheer lax angst is perhaps dissipated within the operative of the narrative and compelling lyrical brilliance. All are a must read, but it is only in DiLampedusa that a special stunning clarity pervades. It is only in accepting the fading and palliating of life's "truth" that the ensuing beravement of sorrow commences to compose a tale so real it says nothing, if not that, not to be trite, "all is just dust in the wind." However Di Lampedusa conspires - abetted by cultural ebulliance and elegance both - to navigate this voyage as if 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 identify yourself with one of the novel's lives you'd never leave: In blissfull doom you'd perish along this shoreline! Hereby the island's lure is a perfect lie that speaks fables of yesterday in daring, lingering overtones, consonant with the cunning splendid mirage of sex appeal. A Book for all and none....

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, page 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

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