Leopard, The MP3 CD – MP3 Audio, June 21, 2016

Before the classic Italian movie “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis” (1970), there was Di Lampedusa’s literary masterpiece, which spans the years from 1860 to 1910. It has a wistful, end-of-an-era atmosphere permeating it: the doomed aristocracy going down grandly to meet their certain demise. It’s a sort of Sicilian Downton Abbey, and you never want it to end.There are much worse ways to spend a year of your life than by becoming a diligent student of the Mediterranean. You would want to read deeply in Homer’s “Iliad” and Virgil’s “Aeneid” if you have a taste for antiquity; perhaps Suetonius’ “Twelve Caesaras” if you want a rollicking but trashy and contemporary history. And you would read Paul Theroux if your taste runs more to modernity, and “The Alexandrian Quartet” of Durell, the (relatively) modern Greek poems of Cavafy, Paul Bowles for North Africa, and so on. For Southern Italy, Levis’ “Christ Stopped at Eboli”, and for Sicily, certainly Di Lampedusa’s “Leopard”.“The Leopard’s” cast of characters is rich and legendary. Don Fabrizio, the Prince of Salina, is an autocratic and blustery voluptuary, but he is also a dreamer and an accomplished astronomer whose world of wealth and privilege he can see coming to an end in the modern times. He is impossibly haughty but also surprisingly tender and sentimental. Father Pirrone is devout and precise, an unyielding advocate for the Church and its teachings and privileges, who is regularly humiliated by the Prince in having to accompany him to Palermo on adulterous business. Tancredi is the adopted ward and favorite of the Prince, who prefers him to his biological children; he is a hopeless romantic and an enthusiast for revolution and for sweeping away altogether the old order that feeds and shelters him. Princess Stella, the wife of the Prince, is brittle, long-suffering, devout and devoted to her eccentric husband and her rather vapid children. Paolo is the Prince’s son and heir, and is naturally and painfully jealous of his father’s preferment of Paolo.The voluptuousness, the richness of life, the fantastic ease of corruption and vice, the sensuousness of the food, the sea, the beautiful landscape and even the overwhelming an enervating heat of the Mediterranean sun, all combine to brew an astonishing human stew. It has been regularly and brilliantly written about by novelists and poets – see especially Cavafy, Bowles and Durrell, mentioned above. This book describes the end of the Italian feudal era, beginning with the Italian Resorgimento in the late 19th Century. The warrior Garibaldi and his Red Shirts sweep southward through the Italian peninsula and finally land in Sicily. Chaos ensues, and Palermo falls. The Prince and his family retreat to his country estate in the hills, where they are protected by Tancredi’s revolutionist connections. The Prince’s daughter Concetta loves Tancredi, but he is smitten by the ravishing and wealthy Angelica, so Concetta is furious. The plot begins to play like a Verdi opera, but with wonderfully sly humor, always dry and shrewd, and staying well away from melodrama.The novel borrows from the historical drama of Stendahl and the emotionalism of Flaubert, and gives them a modern Italian gloss of irony and humor. It was written in in the middle of the last century, after the Second World War, and published just after the author’s death; it was his only book. But just listen to this wonderfully evocative prose, describing for example the Sicilian dawn: “Venus still glimmered, a peeled grape, damp and transparent, but you could already hear the rumple of the solar chariot climbing the last slope below the horizon; soon they would meet the first flocks moving toward them torpid as tides…” Two passages merit special attention. The first is in chapter 5, two-thirds of the way through the book, where Father Pirrone delivers a surprisingly brilliant monologue and goes on to defuse an alarming family bombshell with great finesse. The second is chapter 7, “The Death of a Prince”, which wonderfully and with humane sympathy tells of Don Fabrizio’s final hours.This is not only a great novel but an important work of literature and is worthy of a larger audience of serious readers.

Excellent

The Leopard is a story by Giuseppe di Lampedusa and tells the gripping tale of the rapid and decaying descent of the Sicilian aristocracy in the 1860s. The old ruling class is being threatened by an approaching wave of revolution and liberal ideology, and di Lampedusa using this quite masterfully to unwind his story about the ending of the old and the ushering in of the new.Giuseppe di Lampedusa, a prince in his own right, wrote this book when he was well into his fifties; he had survived World War II, and was now facing similar changes in Italy as the Don Fabrizio faced in Sicily. The story, at times, is actually a pretty brutal read. My familiarity of Italian politics and history is quite little, I’m sad to say, but it never really detracts from the pretty sweeping thrill of political change and revolution. The prince who is seeing his power and class weaken by the day in 1860’s Italy, is desperate to continue his decadent life of luxury that is believed to be God-given. His appetites are the epitome of 19th century aristocracy with his sexual escapes and monstrous mansions, but he is soon brought face-to-face with the new face of the republic. Don Calogero represents the upstart middle-class filth that is quickly ascending up Italy’s social ladder, and he sees fit to have his beautiful daughter, Angelica marry Prince Fabrizio’s penniless nephew Tancredi. This is disastrous for the Prince to imagine, but it helps his family and his place in changing shape of Italian society.The book keeps a steady pace about daily life and desires, and does a terrific job with bringing certain elements like the garden and church to the reader’s forefront. The problem with the book, to me, is that it has a tendency to go to deep into mundane daily rituals; for every breathtaking scene of political intrigue and suspense, there are too many scenes of the Prince reminiscing about old sexual flames and lost virility. Also there is the problem of taking the liberty that the majority of people have at least a working knowledge of Italian politics. I mean, the book refers constantly to Garibaldi and his revolution, but never explains who the heck this guy is. These issues never completely destroy the flow of the book, however, but they do enough to make it seem really dry in certain stretches.I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the mystique and change of the 19th century, or also to anyone who has affection for Italian unification stories. I for one found some of the political stories to be quite intriguing, and can speak highly of the quality of the book’s detail.

It is 1860, and Fabrizio, Prince of Salina in Sicily, is already aware of the forces of modernity that are bringing newly rich men to prominence while the aristocracy struggles to maintain its ascendancy. Now Garibaldi is on the march, about to invade Sicily as part of his drive to unite all of Italy under one king. The old guard view this with anxiety, unsure of how it will affect them. Some of the younger Sicilians, though, are fired with enthusiasm for Garibaldi and his “revolution”. Fabrizio is jaded and cynical – his strong sense of history tells him that many invaders have arrived in Sicily over the centuries, and that after a period of upheaval everything reverts to how it has always been, though perhaps with a change of personae in the ruling class. His main hope is to come through with as little change to his leisured life of luxury as possible.This was a real mix for me. There were long, long stretches that bored me rigid with their lingering descriptions of the sumptuous lives and possessions of the aristocrats, and the central romance between Fabrizio’s young swashbuckling pro-Garibaldi nephew, Tancredi, and the beautiful if low-born Angelica is signally unromantic despite (or perhaps because of) the endless scenes of them breathlessly teasing each other and barely controlling their mutual lust.On the other hand, it provides tremendous insight into the Sicilian mindset and the sharp divides in society, with the aristocracy living rather pointless lives of luxurious ease while the rest of the populace exist in abject poverty, not just in material terms but also poverty of education, opportunity and spirit. We see the stranglehold of the Catholic Church, as so often helping to keep the common people down in order to please their generous patrons amongst the rich. And Lampedusa shows the rise of the new type of men, their money coming from trade and industry rather than land, rougher and less cultured, but also less effete, with the drive to perhaps effect real change for the first time in centuries. And yet we see these new men ambitious to marry their children to the children of the old aristocracy, effectively buying their way into the existing ruling class, and we wonder if Fabrizio’s cynicism is right, that gradually the new men will become indistinguishable from the class they are replacing.While the bulk of the book covers the two year period before, during and immediately after Garibaldi’s invasion, there are two additional sections: the first set twenty years later in 1883 when we find out how Fabrizio’s life played out after the revolution; and the second set later still, in 1910, when we meet again with some of his children and are shown how the aristocratic class has continued to fade, their once glittering homes now looking tawdry and tarnished, and their lives an anachronism in their own time.I enjoyed both of these sections considerably more than the much longer main section, where the book committed one of my personal pet hates of staying with characters who remain neutral and uninvolved while all the action is going on elsewhere, off the page. We never meet Garibaldi, we don’t get taken into the revolution. We spend all our time in the splendid drawing rooms of the rich, watching them play the game of courtship, heavily spiced with Fabrizio’s musings on the decline of his fortunes. This is simply a matter of taste, though – as I’ve said many times, I am always more interested in the political than the domestic sphere. Of course, the whole book is political in the sense that it is describing the lethargy and decadence of the old ruling class and its ultimate decay, but I’d rather have spent my time with the enthusiastic supporters or even opponents of the revolution.It is, I freely admit, entirely unreasonable for me to grumble that Lampedusa wrote the book he wanted to write rather than the one I’d have liked to read, but so it goes sometimes. There was still enough in it for me to enjoy it overall, especially since the bits I found most interesting all came at the end, leaving me feeling much more enthusiastic about it than I had been halfway through. Putting my subjective disappointment with its focus to one side, I can quite see why many people have hailed it as a great book and I wouldn’t want my rather lukewarm review to put anyone off reading it. And in the end I’m glad to have read it, and feel I have gained a good deal of insight into a place and time about which I previously knew almost nothing.

This is a superb novel; and an excellent translation – it feels as though it was originally written in English rather than Italian. I loved this book from start to finish. All the key themes resonated with me and seem as relevant today as they probably did in 1960 or, indeed, 1860 (when the story is mostly set).This is a novel that doesn't shy away from difficult truths. It's utterly authentic and sincere. But easy to read and, above all, a riveting story set against dramatic historical events: the Risorgimento, i.e. unification of Italy under Garibaldi and the Savoys. I didn't want the book to end; and found it profoundly moving. I think it's all about how to survive unavoidable change and reinvent oneself, however hard or unpalatable that may seem.As an aside, I'd recommend reading the erudite Foreward by Lampedusa's adopted son after you've read the novel: it makes more sense and is more rewarding that way round.I'd also recommend Viscount Norwich's recent history of Sicily if you enjoyed The Leopard. It really helps put it all in context.

This book was a recommended read in a book listing, so duly purchased as I prefer historical non-fiction books or fiction books with an autobiographical feel. Whether there is another ‘revision’ or translated version of this book I do not know, but this particular version was as dull as ditch water. I had hoped to learn something about the historical and political transitions of Sicily but I found this book simply a turgid dirge on one aristocrat’s musings regarding his family circumstances having to change with the times…from his marriage, mistresses, family and finally ending with his death from illness/old age. I stuck with it through gritted teeth until the final page - my only feeling was of relief at finishing. At no point did I personally find any of the characters sympathetic unless they were those whose lives were little better than serfs at the mercy of both the aristocrats, the new rich and the political factions.

I bought this book to reread after a 10 year gap, in the middle of this Coronavirus crisis. The book is a masterpiece and I keep going back to reread fragments that are so evocative of a time and place, and yet also of every time and place. It's a collection of small incidents in the life of a Sicilian aristocrat, set against the backdrop of the unification of Italy under Garibaldi, who lands in Sicily in May 1860. Small incidents become ways of showing how ways of life are coming to an end. And yet Sicily and it's landscape are unchanged from Greek times. The only book that is anything like it is called "The Maker of Heavenly Trousers" which is about an Italian diplomat in China during the revolution. And is charming. There are so many beautiful scenes to pick but this is when the Leopard's daughter Concetta realises that the man she loves (Tancredi) has fallen at dinner for the beautiful daughter of a peasant born mayor called Angelica. "but Concetta had an intuition, an animal intuition..... and the little frown between her nose and forehead deepened; she wanted to kill as much as she wanted to die. But being a woman she snatched at details: Angelica's little finger in the air.....a reddish mole on the skin of her neck... and to these details, which were really quite insignificant as they were cauterised by sensual fascination, she clung as trustingly and desperately as a falling builder's boy snatches at a leaden gutter"The book is really about life changing after a virus lands in Sicily. That virus being Garibaldi. Hence it's appropriateness.

Ok. So I was motivated to read this book because I was going on holiday to Sicily. I would highly recommend anyone going to Sicily to do the same. But why not read it anyway! Some books capture the spirit of a place and answer questions that might be hard to glean from ordinary travel writing or history books. The life of the Prince, so intimately and profoundly described, perfectly reveals Lampedusa's view of Sicily during the lead-up to the revolution that saw the old, feudal system and the dominance of Sicily's noblemen finally overturned. Lampedusa also exposes, with dollops of pathos, humour or sharp insight, just what is it like to be a Sicilian, an inhabitant of a beautiful yet harsh land with its legacy of layers and layers of colonies and invasions. It is both political and existential. There are parts of this book that need to be read out loud to anyone who happens to be nearby - strangers even. They will be rewarded with guaranteed enlightenment or delight.