A bitter-sweet tale of quiet lives in the small and apparently timeless world of mid-19th century Sicilian nobility. Through the eyes of his princely protagonist, the author chronicles the details of an aristocratic, pastoral society, torn apart by revolution, death and decay.
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The Leopard is set in Sicily in 1860, as Italian unification is coming violently into being, but it transcends the historical-novel classification. E.M. Forster called it, instead, "a novel which happens to take place in history." Lampedusa's Sicily is a land where each social gesture is freighted with nuance, threat, and nostalgia, and his skeptical protagonist, Don Fabrizio, is uniquely placed to witness all and alter absolutely nothing. Like his creator, the prince is an aristocrat and an astronomer, a man "watching the ruin of his own class and his own inheritance without ever making, still less wanting to make, any move toward saving it." Far better to take refuge in the night skies.
What renders The Leopard so beautiful, and so despairing, is Lampedusa's grasp of human frailty and his vision 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." Though the author had long had the book in mind, he didn't begin writing it until he was in his late 50s. He died at 60, soon after it was rejected as unpublishable.
Archibald Colquhoun's lyrical translation also contains 70 more precious pages of Lampedusa--a memoir, a short story, and the first chapter of a novel. In "Places of My Infancy" the author warns that "the reader (who won't exist) must expect to be led meandering through a lost Earthly Paradise. If it bores him. I don't mind." Luckily, the reader does exist; even more luckily, boredom is not an option.
Introduction by David Gilmour; Translation by Archibald Colquhoun
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Hardcover. Condition: new. Hardcover. In the spring of 1860, Fabrizio, the charismatic Prince of Salina, still rules over thousands of acres and hundreds of people, including his own numerous family, in mingled splendour and squalor. Then comes Garibaldi's landing in Sicily and the Prince must decide whether to resist the forces of change or come to terms with them.W. Somerset Maugham is the Introducer to this beautiful Everyman's Library edition. A bitter-sweet tale of quiet lives in the small and apparently timeless world of mid-19th century Sicilian nobility. Through the eyes of his princely protagonist, the author chronicles the details of an aristocratic, pastoral society, torn apart by revolution, death and decay. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9781857150230
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Hardback. Condition: New. In the spring of 1860, Fabrizio, the charismatic Prince of Salina, still rules over thousands of acres and hundreds of people, including his own numerous family, in mingled splendour and squalor. Then comes Garibaldi's landing in Sicily and the Prince must decide whether to resist the forces of change or come to terms with them.W. Somerset Maugham is the Introducer to this beautiful Everyman's Library edition. Seller Inventory # LU-9781857150230
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Condition: New. A bitter-sweet tale of quiet lives in the small and apparently timeless world of mid-19th century Sicilian nobility. Through the eyes of his princely protagonist, the author chronicles the details of an aristocratic, pastoral society, torn apart by revolution, death and decay. Translator(s): Colquhoun, A. Num Pages: 304 pages. BIC Classification: FA. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 210 x 129 x 21. Weight in Grams: 378. 1991. 1st Edition. hardcover. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland. Seller Inventory # 9781857150230
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