The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1958)

The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa (1896 to 1957, born Palermo, Sicily, died Rome) is a great work of art.  Everyone who reads The Leopard loves it and so do I.  It might well be the highest regarded 20th century Italian novel.  It was made into a film in 1963 by Luchinio Visconti.  I have not yet seen it but the images are gorgeous.

The Leopard begins in 1860, set in Sicily.  It centers on the life of a  19th century prince of Sicily.  It is a kind of a half bitter elegy to a dying culture.  The novel begins at the same time Garibaldi started his civil war against the Italian King.  Much space is devoted to the prince lambasting the ultra conservative backwater Sicilians but under that you sense a great love for the island and it's long tragic history.  The prince is deeply into the reading life, an inveterate womanizer, a terrible snob who senses the fall of a very old way of life.  Caught up with this is a deep preoccupation with death and decay.  We see that in the numerous scenes of once grand homes in decrepitude and in the falling health of those depicted in the novel.  The church plays a large role in The Leopard.

I really liked this novel. It will be, if it is not already, a classic of the European novel.

You can sense the deep culture of the prince and his feelings about Sicily in these lines.

I am so glad I have now read The Leopard, sadly the aurhor's only novel. I have also read three shorter works of fiction by the author, published by The New York Review of Books.  I hope to reread The Leopard in 2015.

Mel u

"The Professor and the Siren" by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1961, to be published in translation by NYRB 2014)

In the last few months I have been reading in the works of the great European Aristocrats of 20th century literature.  Among writers like Stefan Zweig, Gregor Von Rozzi, Joseph Roth, Marcel Proust, and his fellow Italian, Curzio Malaparte must be counted Giuseppe Lampedusa, author of The Leopord.  I was recently very kindly given The Professor and the Siren by The New York Review of Books, a collection of three short works of fiction by Lampedusa, translated by Stephen Twilley, to be published later this year.  All were originally published after the author's death.  The wed page of the publisher indicates that these stories and his great master work, The Leopard, were his only fiction.  

The title story in the collection, "The Professor and the Siren", will, I predict and hope, in time be added to the beyond dispute greatest short stories of all time.  It alone makes the collection near must reading and buying for those who want to read the finest works of the short story.  It would be an excellent class room story for advanced readers.  It is a perfect reading life story about a professor whose life centers on his reading of Ancient Greek texts. 

As the story opens a man in his twenties is in a cafe on the island of Sicily. He is thinking about the woman who just walked out on him.  He begins to go to the cafe everyday. He notices a very distinguished looking man in his seventies, always alone.  A waiter tells him the man is a famous scholar of Classical Greek culture.  The brilliance and sheer marvel of the story begins as the two men gradually become friends.  I don't want to recapitulate the growth of their relationship but just sitting in on the remarks of the professor was wonderful.  I would gladly have read 1000 pages of them.  The heart of the story is a 10 or so page account of the professor 's love affair with a mermaid.  

The story really is a love affair with ancient culture and the reading life.   It is also an attack on the shallowness of contemporary culture and scholarship of the ancient world.

The elegant translation was by Stephen Twiley.

I am very much looking forward to reading The Leopard.  

Mel u