Tag Archives: Italian Literature

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa: Il Gattopardo – The Leopard (1958)

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The Leopard

Published posthumously, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s only novel Il Gattopardo – The Leopard is one of the most important novels of Italian Literature. If I hadn’t watched Luchino Visconti’s movie, I would have read it much earlier. The English translation of the title is actually a misnomer because a gattopardo is a serval and not a leopard. The two animals allude to something quite different. While the English title emphasizes the strength and nobility, the Italian evokes extinction.

Il Gattopardo is a historical novel, set in Lampedusa’s native Sicily during the Risorgimento, the unification of Italy, in the 19th Century. The novel starts in 1860 and ends in 1910. The main character is Don Fabrizio Corbera Prince of Salina, a Sicilian nobleman, the last great head of the house of Salina. Don Fabrizio is a melancholic intellectual, who finds solace in mathematics and studying the stars. Even if he wasn’t living in such troubled times of civil war and revolution, he’d be uneasy because he is aware his house is coming to an end as none of his children is as great as he is. None of them embodies the spirit of the true aristocrat. He would have wished that his nephew Tancredi was his son. He is extremely fond of Tancredi and does everything to help the impoverished young man to make an excellent match. The chosen one is Angelica, the extremely attractive but not very refined daughter of Don Calogero Sedàra, a rich businessman and social climber who actively supported the revolution.

Like so many great European classics the Gattopardo doesn’t really have a plot other than history, the passing of time, and the changes they bring. It’s one of a few novels who describe the end of an era, therefore it’s not surprising it’s full of motifs and metaphors of decay, death and ending. This doesn’t mean however that it’s a depressing book. Thanks to the intrusions of the author it’s very witty. And it’s also a sensual book, full descriptions of lavish interiors and lush gardens.

What I admired the most is how Lampedusa weaves recurring motifs and metaphors into the text and how the structure of the narrative reinforces them. One of the first scenes in which we see Don Fabrizio on his own takes places in the garden of Villa Salina in Palermo. Don Fabrizion is alone with his dog Bendicò. The Prince is a great lover of dogs and this is one of his dearest. It’s a summer evening and the garden is filled with scents. The roses and other flowers are in full bloom. They are at the point where the scent is about to turn from delicious to overripe.

But the garden, hemmed and almost squashed between these barriers, was exhaling scents that were cloying, fleshy and slightly putrid, like the aromatic liquids distilled from the relics of certain saints; the carnations superimposed their pungence on the formal fragrance of roses and the oily emanations of magnolias drooping in corners; and somewhere beneath it all was a faint smell of mint mingling whith a nursery whiff of acacia and a jammy one of myrtle; from a grove beyond the wall came an erotic waft of early orange-blossom.

It was a garden for the blind: a constant offence to the eyes, a pleasure strong if somewhat crude to the nose.

It’s one of many instances in which the reader feels the change and the end, without being told. This first scene is echoed in the last scene of the novel, which takes place in Concetta’s rooms. She was the Prince’s favourite daughter. The house Salina has changed so much that even the clergy doesn’t let them dictate rules anymore. They have a chapel in which they display relics. Unfortunately the church has decided to examine them and found that they were not authentic. Angelica wants to help them fight the decision but Concetta resigns. A lesser author would have ended on the thoughts of the elderly woman but Lampedusa chose to show us the Prince and Bendicò one last time. One is hanging on the wall as a painting, the other one is a moth-eaten piece of fur lying on the floor and finally thrown out of the window and discarded.

A whole chapter is dedicated to the death of the prince. It’s one of the greatest death scenes I’ve ever read. And one of the most beautiful. The prince compares himself to an hourglass. His energy has been leaving him for years and now – towards the end – it accelerates. Soon all the grains of sand will have left his body. And, just like in an hourglass, they will not be lost. They will just not be this body anymore but disperse and turn into something else eventually. I though this was a pretty picture and surprisingly non-Christian.

I haven’t done this book any justice. It would deserve a whole series of posts. One could say so much about all the individual elements. I’m sure I’ll re-read it some day. Maybe I’ll write a series then. For the time being I would just like to urge everyone who hasn’t read it yet to do so.

I expected a great novel, a novel that I would love, but I didn’t expect it to be this subtle and nuanced, this melancholic and funny. It’s truly one of the greatest works of literature.

If you own a copy with an introduction – don’t hesitate reading it. This isn’t a novel that can be spoilt and an introduction will help you navigate the confusing history of the unification. Unfortunately my copies (the Italian and the French translation) had no introduction.

On Valentina d’Urbano’s Il Rumore Dei Tuoi Passi – The Sound of Your Footsteps (2012)

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RumoreTuoiPassi.indd

Valentina D’Urbano is a young Italian novelist. Il Rumore dei tui passi (The Sound of  Your Footsteps) is her first novel. She won a publishing contract with Longanesi thanks to a competition. The novel has been translated into French under the title Le bruit de tes pas and into German Mit zwanzig hat man kein Kleid für eine Beerdigung. Hopefully an English translation will be next.

This novel is like a kick in the gut. It describes a world we dont know anything about, but it’s a world that the young writer knows all too well, as she grew up under similar circumstances.

The book is set in Rome, in La Fortezza – The Fortress -, in the late 70s and 80s. It starts with a funeral and a laconic voice telling us that her “twin” has died. Bea and Alfredo are called the twins because they are inseparable, not because they are siblings. They met because their families both live in La Fortezza – this is also a nickname. La Fortezza is some sort of abandoned housing project where the poorest of the poor land. Most of the families are squatters and their miserable, small apartments can be snatched from them at all times. “Never leave your apartment unattended” is one of the earliest lessons Bea, her brother Francesco, Alfredo and Arianna, her best friend, learn at an early age. If you leave the apartment, it’s possible that when you come back, you’ll find that all your belongings have been thrown from a window and another family claims the place.

La Fortezza is a place without hope. Most people have no job and will never have one; they drink or take drugs; they hit their children and their wives. They have no chance of ever getting out because when they apply for a job somewhere and have to say they come from la Fortezza, it’s over. People from La Fortezza are not hired. They are said to be criminals and drug addicts.

One way of dealing with a bleak situationlike this is domestic violence and addiction, another is to look the other way. Nothing is named in La Fortezza. People and things have nicknames. Bad situations are ignored. Arianna can get pregnant at 15 and abort and nobody will ever speak about it.

Bea’s mother got pregnant with Bea when she was only 15. She and Bea’s father were lucky to be able to live in La Fortezza. It’s one step from being homeless. They rarely have jobs, but at least they are kind and caring. The familial environment is rough; there’s a lot of swearing, the kids are slapped, but in spite of that Bea and Franceso know their parents love them and do everything for them. They even accept Alfredo in their home. Alfredo lives above and his father is anything but kind and caring. He’s a single parent, unemployed, alcoholic and beats up his three sons regularly. More than once, someone has to interfere and make sure he doesn’t kill them.

Bea’s and Alfredo’s feelings for each other are deep. But it’s a love-hate relationship, one that strengthens them as much as it weakens them.

From the beginning we know things go wrong, or Alfredo wouldn’t be dead and Bea wouldn’t attend his funeral.

Valetina d’Urbano’s book is written in an amazing, sparse style, told in a painfully laconic voice which isn’t devoid of tenderness. This is not the Rome tourists see. This world is far from anything most Europeans know. This is poverty at its ugliest. All they have is dreams. Some have the power to make them come true. Most don’t.

Interestingly it’s a book that contains a lot of beautiful passages and it certainly makes us think. People in this novel sit on the balcony in summer, making plans for holidays at the sea that they will never take. They are overwhelmed with joy when they own more than one sweater. Reading a book like this certainly shows us that we’re not as grateful as we could be. And it illustrates that this type of poverty is as bad as a congenital disease. Escaping it is almost impossible.

D’Urbano is particularly good at descriptions. We feel the suffocating heat in summer, the cold in winter, we experience the frustration and boredom they have to endure.

I admire that she was able to escape this world and that she didn’t turn this book into a pity-party. It’s a powerful account of a hidden world, a story I’m not likely to forget.

 

Antonio Tabucchi Week – Wrap Up

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Tabucchi Week is already over and I wanted to thank all of you who joined, read along, wrote reviews, commented and read other’s posts. I’m really happy that it was quite interactive and people visited each other’s blogs. There were quite a few very interesting discussions. I’m also happy that those who joined who didn’t know Tabucchi found an author whose work they want to continue exploring and those who knew him felt like returning to an old friend. I enjoyed the two books I chose a great deal and I’m also glad that I have discovered a few new blogs.

What I also loved was that many of the posts showed how wide Tabucchi’s range is and that everyone can find something else in his books. Quite a few people have read Pereira Maintains but every single post was completely different and highlighted other things, something I’ve rarely noticed when many people read the same novel.

Once more – Thank you so much for participating.

Below are all the participant reviews again (they are also in the intro post). In a few days I’ll set up a page which will allow to find the posts more easily. I’m pretty sure this isn’t the last author week I’ve hosted and knowing that I like a bit of a theme the next week will most probably also be dedicated to an Italian writer. No worries, though, not before next year.

It’s Getting Later All the Time – Brian (Babbling Books)

On Dreams of Dreams – Tom (Wuthering Expectations)

Pereira Declares – Judith (Reader in the Wilderness)

Pereira Maintains – TBM (50 Year Project)

Pereira Maintains – Vishy (Vishy’s Blog)

Pereira Maintains – Bettina (Liburuak)

Pereira Maintains – Andrew Blackman

Piazza d’Italia – Scott (seraillon)

Requiem – Caroline (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat)

The Edge of the Horizon – Caroline (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat)

The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico – Stu (Winstons Dad’s Blog)

The Last Three Days of Fernando Pessoa with Bonus Lobster Recipe – Tom (Wuthering Expectations)

The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro – Richard (Caravana de Recuerdos)

Vanishing Point -1streading

Pereira Maintains (Book and Movie) and Requiem – Scribacchina (Parole/Words)

Antonio Tabucchi: The Edge of the Horizon – Il filo dell’ orizzonte (1986)

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I liked Requiem so much but I loved The Edge of the Horizon even more. Once more it’s the story of a quest but this time the narrator is not on a trip to a foreign city but in his hometown. The place isn’t named but it’s a small and old Italian town located on the seaside. Tabucchi’s narrators don’t always have names but this one has, he is called Spino and according to the afterword, the name is a reference to Spinoza.

Spino is in his forties and works at the local morgue. He is a failed student who never finished his studies of medicine. His girlfriend of many years hasn’t really let go of the idea that there might still be time, that there is still something different to come, that he might still be a doctor one day. They have their rituals and one of them is to go to the Laterna Magica on Saturday evenings. It’s an old cinema in a picturesque back yard which shows mostly retrospectives and old movies. Later they go to a bar which does homemade drinks with ice and peppermint. The bar is located high up in the city and from there they have a beautiful view down rambling small alleys illuminated by the many lights in the darkness.

When a young man without identity is shot and his body brought to the morgue, everything changes. Spino is obsessed by the idea to find out the identity of the young man and his quest leads him from one person to the next.

It’s obvious that he identifies with the young man, that he is looking for himself as much as he is looking for that man’s identity.

The story is typical Tabucchi. I loved it for the descriptions, the mood, the atmosphere but I’m aware it isn’t one of his books which is universally liked. The ending is abrupt and mysterious and you really have to decide for yourself what happened.

I liked it because it’s a very melancholic story and the descriptions are wonderful. Instead of taking a trip to Lisbon it was like taking a trip to one of those typical old Italian towns with the narrow and steep alleys. The book has many descriptions of quiet moments like this one towards the end:

When the night began to fall, he turned on the radio without turning on the light. He was smoking in the dark while looking out of the window and observing the lights in the harbor. He let time slip away. He enjoyed listening to the radio in the dark, it gave him a feeling of distance.

The Edge of the Horizon is a short novella and it’s also contained in the book with the title Vanishing Point which has been reviewed for Tabucchi Week by 1streading here.

While there are a lot of similarities between Requiem and The Edge of the Horizon, reading them so close together showed how masterful Tabucchi is as the voices of the two narrators are distinct, the writing conveys a similar atmosphere but the style is very different. Despite the mysterious ending, this novella is much more accessible than Requiem. Like Pereira Maintains and Indian Nocturne, it would be a good starting point if you’ve never read Tabucchi.

Antonio Tabucchi: Requiem. A Hallucination – Requiem. Uma alucinação (1991)

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A few years ago I was on a trip through Spain and stopped in Sevilla. It was the beginning of August and incredibly hot. Most Spanish cities have rivers but you wouldn’t know that if you visit in summer because they are dry. A very peculiar sight for someone from central Europe.  The heat was scorching and I was out sitting in a park, it was only 9 a.m. The park’s sprinklers were on and the moment the water hit the asphalt, it turned into mist. So not only was it hot but quite humid. I had not specific plans but just wandered the city and stopped in parks, bars, restaurants and spoke to people. I haven’t done a similar trip in two years but when I started reading Tabucchi’s Requiem. A Hallucination it was exactly like being on my own, without specific plans and just immersing myself in a new place. The place in this case wasn’t Sevilla or any other Spanish city but the capital of Portugal, Lisbon. It’s equally hot in the book as it was on my trip and this catapulted me back in time. I realize I’m writing a lot about myself instead of writing about Tabucchi but there is a reason. I’m trying to put into words why this author means so much to me, why I love his books although they often, like in this case, are rather descriptions of a quest than a real story. There is just something I can relate to on a deeper level than with most other authors.

Since I’ve just read more than one Tabucchi in a very short time, I was reminded of one of the major themes of his work – the quest. His characters,be it in Indian Nocturne or in Requiem, are always looking for someone. Sometimes the person is real, sometimes the person is just some sort of magnet which attracts the narrator but what he really is looking for is himself.

In Requiem the nameless narrator finds himself aimlessly wandering through the sweltering city of Lisbon. He thought he had an appointment with someone at midday but the person didn’t show up and so he’s left on his own for another twelve hours as the meeting will take place at midnight instead. The person the narrator will meet is the famous writer Fernando Pessoa.

The narrator seems to be dreaming with open eyes, no wonder, after all the book is subtitled “A Hallucination” and we follow him from the park to a bar, to the cemetery, to a restaurant, a hotel, an abandoned villa and finally to another restaurant where he will dine with Pessoa. On his meanderings through the hot summer city he will meet people who are dead already, people from his past, people who still exist and some who never existed.

While this may sound confusing, it isn’t because Tabucchi is a very descriptive writer and the book is more than anything else an homage to Lisbon and everything the city represents for Tabucchi. This includes the people, the food, the music, the atmosphere. As dreamlike as the story may be, it is on the other hand described in an amazingly realistic way and you have the feeling to be there and explore the city through the eyes and the other senses of the narrator. It is an atmospherical and sensual account at the same time.

It seems that one of the things Tabucchi must have liked the most about Portugal was the cuisine. He mentions numerous dishes and recipes in the book. It’s interesting because most of the dishes are poor people’s dishes. Things they cook with leftovers. A frequent ingredient is bread. I have never eaten Portuguese cuisine and to be entirely honest it’s not likely I will as they include a lot of ingredients which I do not eat but it’ still interesting and the way the food is described you can almost taste and smell it.

Requiem is a complex book and can be read in many different ways. To fully appreciate it, I would have to read it once more. There were a few things that struck me during a first reading. The love for Portugal and Lisbon, the quest-like search. The admiration for Pessoa. The mysteries and complexities of life. Memories, dreams, illusions.

What I liked best is that reading Requiem felt so much like exploring a city as a traveller not so much as a tourist. When I’m a tourist I might visit all the places you “have to see” but when I travel, I let the city guide me. The city and it’s people. There will always be someone in a foreign city who will show you something which is worth discovering. A hidden street, a secret corner, a bar to which only the natives go. It’s this type of exploration you will encounter in Requiem. It’s a book for those who do not mind getting lost, knowing very well that they find a world worth discovering on their way.

Tabucchi’s love of Portugal and Lisbon was so intense that he wrote this novel in Portuguese stating in the foreword that no other language, other than maybe Latin which he didn’t master, seemed appropriate.

Tabucchi mentions Portuguese music and this reminded me of the wonderful singer Misia and her fados. Her videos are all visually compelling. This one was directed by John Turturro.

While finishing the book I discovered that the book has been made into a movie by Swiss filmmaker Alain Tanner. The movie is in French/Portuguese. I’ve attached it. You can watch the whole of it on YouTube. I’m not sure it exists with English subtitles but it’s possible.

Antonio Tabucchi Week

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Antonio Tabucchi Week is finally approaching. It’s starting tomorrow and this is really just a very quick introduction to the week and some info for those who participate. I’m going to post two reviews, one on Tuesday and one either Friday or Saturday and will wrap up on Monday in a week.

I spent the last week reading Tabucchi and was quite captivated by my choices. I wanted to read Pereira Maintains but then I dipped into another two of his books and one of them hooked me right away.

Tabucchi has written quite a few very short books, so if you haven’t started yet, there is still time until Sunday.

If you are participating and have reviewed something, please, leave a link in the comment section of this post.  I’ll add it to this post. Once the week is over you can still access the links either via this post or via the page I will set up.

Participant reviews

It’s Getting Later All the Time – Brian (Babbling Books)

On Dreams of Dreams – Tom (Wuthering Expectations)

Pereira Declares – Judith (Reader in the Wilderness)

Pereira Maintains – TBM (50 Year Project)

Pereira Maintains – Vishy (Vishy’s Blog)

Pereira Maintains – Bettina (Liburuak)

Pereira Maintains – Andrew Blackman

Piazza d’Italia – Scott (seraillon)

Requiem – Caroline (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat)

The Edge of the Horizon – Caroline (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat)

The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico – Stu (Winstons Dad’s Blog)

The Last Three Days of Fernando Pessoa with Bonus Lobster Recipe – Tom (Wuthering Expectations)

The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro – Richard (Caravana de Recuerdos)

Vanishing Point -1streading

Pereira Maintains (Book and Movie) and Requiem – Scribacchina (Parole/Words)

Antonio Tabucchi Week 17 – 23 September 2012 – The Giveaway Winner

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Random org has decided who has won

Pereira Maintains

In the sweltering summer of 1938 in Portugal, a country under the fascist shadow of Spain, a mysterious young man arrives at the doorstep of Dr Pereira. So begins an unlikely alliance that will result in a devastating act of rebellion. This is Pereira’s testimony.

The book goes to Bettina (Liburuak).

I hope you will like it.

Please send me your address via beautyisasleepingcat at gmail dot com.

For those who want to know more about Tabucchi Week and want to join, here are the details.