I’m reading The Leopard, by Giuseppe Tomasi di
Lampedusa. After Dickens' A Tale of Two
Cities, the contrast is very marked. Tomasi di Lampedusa has created a
historical novel that seems to rebound with ideas in the most vivid way,
whereas Dickens seemed content to regurgitate very accepted and established
(and not very well informed) views on the events he was describing.
It would take a
separate post to compare the two approaches. In this post, I think it is
sufficient just to admire the sheer talent that Tomasi de Lampedusa has in
weaving together the several themes covered by his narrative.
The book is
arranged as a series of self-contained chapters. Each chapter forms a whole – in fact the
introduction to the book suggests that one of the chapters was discovered
separately to the other chapters, and inserted after Lampedusa death. You would
never believe it on reading the book
Consider the first
chapter, the depiction of a meal in the aristocratic home of the Prince of
Salina (the “leopard” of the title) and his family. In terms of politics,
Lampedusa and Dickens are probably not so far apart, dreaming fondly of an
idealised nobility confronted by a changing political and social situation –
for Dickens, the French Revolution, and for Lampedusa, the Italian
Risorgimento. But the effect with Lampedusa is so much more powerful! This
introductory chapter skilfully combines several themes:
-
The contrast of the Prince, attempting vainly (but
with resignation) to maintain the aristocratic order of things, with his
family, who have no such motive. The prince often displays a “controlled rage
at table” to attempt to maintain this system. The Prince is “watching the ruin of his own
class”. It becomes clear later that the
Prince, unlike other members of his family, recognizes the need to change.
-
The unchanging ritual of the aristocratic life –
the rosary recited every afternoon; the glassware with the family initials FD
engraved on each piece.
-
The contrast of the ceiling frescoes, from
classical (secular) mythology, with the religious ritual taking place
anachronistically in that very room.
-
The unsuitability of the Sicilian aristocracy
for any kind of effective management of things: “In a family which for
centuries had been incapable of adding up their own expenditure and subtracting
their own debts he [The Prince] was the first (and last) to have a genuine bent
for mathematics”
-
The sense of ending, the impending disappearance
of the aristocratic order, as witnessed by those words “the last” in the
sentence above.
-
The overwhelming physicality and sensuality of
the Sicilian environment: the garden that was “exhaling scents that were
cloying, fleshy and slightly putrid”.
-
The very real conflict taking place between the revolutionaries
of the Risorgimento and the Bourbon troops struggling to maintain the
irrelevant and superannuated ruling monarchy, as conveyed in the horrific image
of a soldier of the royal forces found dead and rotting under the lemon tree. “He died for the King, of course … but there
was something that didn’t ring true.”
-
The Prince’s response to the impending crisis of
aristocracy against the impending liberal forces of Garibaldi – his immediate
response is to run away to visit a prostitute in Palermo.
Of course, stated in this way, the book sounds like an
artfully constructed recipe of clever themes– just mix the ingredients to
create a masterpiece. But the achievement of the book is for these components
to be blended together to form a magnificent whole, both an elegy and a recognition
of the vast forces of change concentrated on the hitherto sleepy backwater of
Sicily. By the end of the chapter, by the end of the book, we feel that the
affairs of Sicily, the viewpoint of the Sicilians is anything but trivial.
Finally, what makes this an impressive work of fiction is
that the main characters are not one-dimensional. The Prince struggles to
maintain the existing aristocratic order, and yet he sees only too clearly he
is struggling to save an order that is not worth preserving. He knows that most
of his staff are cheating him, yet he preserves a feudal-style relationship
with his villagers who bring him produce as a tax. Compared with the Dickens of
A Tale of Two Cities is like stereoscopic
vision after you have looked at things with one eye shut.
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