The Leopard (1958)

Nov 2012
I first read The Leopard written by the wealthy Sicilian prince, Giuseppe Tomasi, Principe di Lampedusa (1896-1957), forty odd years ago and with age, my reaction has changed a bit. While I still appreciate the beautiful quality of the writing, the pace and the characterizations, I now relate more to the Prince and his thoughts about aging and change and history. He is melancholic, weary, cruel, yet still proud and elegant and seems to understand his situation. His once solidly exalted position as a nobleman is slipping away with Garabaldi's destruction of the Bourbon monarchy and he knows it. He is dying, as is his way of life, and he views his demise as consolation. He meets his nephew’s future father-in-law, the nouveau riche Don Calogero, with equanimity:

"Many problems that had seemed insoluble to the Prince were resolved in a trice by Don Calogero […] he moved through the jungle of life with the confidence of an elephant which advances in a straight line, rooting up trees and trampling down lairs, without even noticing scratches of thorns and moans from the crushed."

So many of the descriptions of the Prince, his courtesy, his lust, his confidence and complexity; the elaborate food served and those who devour it at his palace; the personalities of the characters, the servile but intelligent priest, the stalwart hunting companion, the whining wife, the proud, pious daughters, all seem to represent some aspect of Sicily or depict facets of the Sicilian character. As the Prince says of his country when offered a position in the government,

"For more than twenty-five centuries we’ve been bearing the weight of a superb and heterogeneous civilization, all from outside, none made by ourselves, none that of we could call our own. […] I don’t say that in complaint; it’s our fault.
This violence of landscape, this cruelty of climate, this continual tension in everything, and these monuments, even, of the past, magnificent yet incomprehensible because not built by us and yet standing around like lovely mute ghosts; all those rulers who landed by main force from every direction, who were at once obeyed, soon detested, and always misunderstood, their only expressions works of art we couldn’t understand and taxes which we understood only too well and which they spent elsewhere: all these things have formed our character, which is thus conditioned by events outside our control as well as by a terrifying insularity of mind."
As the book moves forward to the ball and the Prince observes those around him, he acknowledges the excess of his class, the inbreeding observed in the silly women at the party exclaiming “Maria.” He is calm and resolute. It is a well-drawn portrait of a complex man at a crucial time in Sicilian history. ( )

Hard not to get angry as Jesse and his co-author skewer the best leaders and intentions of the two major political parties in America. Despite the facts and figures the examples of piracy, theft, fraud and greed is fast paced reading that stirs grips the internal organs. Several times I had to cry out from the pain inflicted by Jesse's words.

I've never wanted to hate and/or hurt so many people at once. And yet the gross pile of dirty rags that wiped the gloss of all of my political heroes was a symbol to me of how narrow minded and blind I am will to be to keep my internal peace.

Maybe to begin with, and this is just one of my takeaways from the farce that Jesse creates is ban all lobbyists from existence in American politics. The new trust busters need to be lobbyist busters and any politician who takes more than a buck from any single entity should be thrown in jail. And that's just for starters!

This fin-de-siecle novel was a bit too slow-paced for my taste but beautifully written. Most of the novel takes place in early 1860's Sicily as Garibaldi and his Red Shirts are attempting (and succeeding) to make the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies part of a united Italy. The Leopard is the Prince of Salina; he and his family are experiencing the passing of the traditions & social structure with which they were raised. ( )

O Leopardo (também conhecido como O Gattopardo) é o único romance escrito pelo príncipe de Lampedusa, que, aliás, escreveu o livro quando já tinha mais de sessenta anos. Além disso ele escreveu alguns contos e ensaios sobre Stendhal, literatura francesa do Cinquecento, literatura inglesa e outros assuntos. Uma coleção de suas cartas também foi publicada no ano passado. Lampedusa não é um escritor prolífico, e só foi publicado postumamente, após algumas tentativas mal sucedidas de publicar O Leopardo.
A trajetória de Lampedusa é muito peculiar, e é uma sorte para nós que seu único romance seja, em certa medida, autobiográfico. O Leopardo é considerado um romance histórico, e se passa na época das invasões napoleônicas. Além disso, foi muito elogiado por sua combinação de realismo e decadentismo. A decadência da Sicília e da aristocracia é expressa pelo príncipe em dois momentos excelentes: “In Sicilia non importa far male o far bene: il peccato che noi siciliani non perdoniamo mai è semplicemente quello di 'fare'. Siamo vecchi, Chevalley, vecchissimi. Sono venticinque secoli almeno che portiamo sulle spalle il peso di magnifiche civiltà eterogenee, tutte venute da fuori, nessuna germogliata da noi stessi, nessuna a cui noi abbiamo dato il 'la'; noi siamo dei bianchi quanto lo è lei Chevalley, e quanto la regina d'Inghilterra; eppure da duemilacinquecento anni siamo colonia. Non lo dico per lagnarmi: è colpa nostra. Ma siamo stanchi e svuotati lo stesso." (pp. 161-162)” e “Noi fummo i Gattopardi, i Leoni: chi ci sostituirà saranno gli sciacalletti, le iene; e tutti quanti, gattopardi, sciacalli e pecore, continueremo a crederci il sale della terra.”, e se adequa tão bem à Sicília de 1950 quanto àquela do ottocento. Assim como a frase mais célebre do livro, e a que melhor traduz seu espírito: “Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga come è, bisogna che tutto cambi..”
Li primeiramente na criminosa edição da editora Abril, que atribuiu a tradução de Rui Cabeçadas a Leonardo Codignoto, famoso nos meios editorias brasileiros por não existir, motivo pelo qual editoras podem lhe atribuir as mais diversas traduções sem incômodo de pagar um centavo. Saiu uma reportagem sobre isso no globo, que foi reproduzida no site Não Gosto de Plágio, da jornalista Denise Bottman:
http://naogostodeplagio.blogspot.com/2008/04/o-globo-muito-em-comum_26.html ( )

A true classic. A wistful but unvarnished memento of a lost era. Impressive translation that evokes language of another era.