The Leopard

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același document din 24 mai 1957, Lampedusa pomenise și de manuscrisul romanului: „Doresc să se facă tot posibilul pentru ca Ghepardul să fie publicat (manuscrisul bun este cel aflat într-un singur caiet gros scris de mîna); bineînțeles, asta nu înseamnă că trebuie să fie publicat pe cheltuiala moștenitorilor mei; aș considera-o o mare umilință". Dumitrescu, Margareta (2001). Sulla parte 6. del Gattopardo: la fortuna di Lampedusa in Romania[ On Part 6 of The Leopard : the fortune of Lampedusa in Romania] (in Italian). Bucharest; Catania: Fundației Culturale Române; G. Maimone. OCLC 51067822. Theroux, Paul (2011). The Tao of Travel: Enlightenments from Lives on the Road. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p.144. ISBN 978-0547549194 . Retrieved 21 June 2014. Twenty-five years later, the Prince is dying. He reflects on his family: none of his offspring, he decides, will truly carry on the Salina legacy. Such a legacy resides in tradition and memory, and his children’s and grandson’s experiences have become blandly middle-class—suggesting that Garibaldi has won after all. After receiving the last rites, the Prince tries to calculate how much of his life has consisted of true happiness, and the mental effort causes him to have a stroke. A short time later, as his weeping family gathers at his bedside, the Prince has a vision of death as a beautiful young woman who gently leads him away.

With supple and ornate language, the book has an introspective storyline and alludes to the works of Shakespeare, Sterne, Tolstoy, Baudelaire, Keats, Proust and Stendhal. The narration is characterised by stylistic shifts that reflect both Prince Salina’s varying points of view and the unnamed but all-knowing narrator’s perceptions of history. As I was trying to collect some of my deep impressions on this novel, I felt that the main character can be easily conveyed – for his personality, behaviour and temperament, under all these various, but different types of exotic, amazing wild cats: hunting leopard, cheetah, guepard, ocelot, etc – I anyway read a Romanian translation that titles it “Ghepard-ul” – so the closest to it seems to be the “Guepard”, in a horizontal meaning :) An aspect of Giuseppe di Lampedusa's writing I really enjoyed was the way he gives life to inanimate objects, so I was on the look-out for other examples besides the ones in that extraordinary first paragraph:To me the book swells up in a lot of human illusions, passions, everything that brings and links together money, status, power, expectations for wealth growth to gain control more and more over the ruling society, though traditions and stability in leading life are giving way. For the sake of appearances, we are told and re-told, in all kinds of interesting episodes throughout the novel that the land (Sicily) and its people are not fundamentally affected by change, because even if it changes what is changing, the change makes things to be the same, still. There seems a bit of paradox, initially, but there is a clear truth in it, too. The new grows out of the old, but also the new is the old, in a new old presentation. Stacco: quattro anni dopo Bassani accetta l’incarico di curare una collana per l’editore Feltrinelli dedicata alla letteratura italiana contemporanea (chiamata appunto “I Contemporanei”). Riceve il dattiloscritto di autore ignoto spedito da una sua amica, Elena Croce, figlia di Benedetto. Fa ricerche e scopre che l’autore è morto di rapidissima malattia l’anno prima: e soprattutto scopre che l’autore è proprio quel signore che ha conosciuto a San Pellegrino Terme nel 1954.

In Tomasi di Lampedusa's elegant language one can taste the scorched landscapes, the Sicilian vitality, humor and melancholy. The novel was adapted into an epic film by Luchino Visconti which is a sumptuous feast of whirling ball scenes and magnificent scenery. a b Alù, Giorgia (22 June 2020). "Guide to the Classics: The Leopard". The Conversation . Retrieved 29 August 2023. The book is full of light irony and it is written in a charming manner. The author’s observations are precise and sharp.

Meditations on history and humanity

Noi fummo i Gattopardi, i Leoni; quelli che ci sostituiranno saranno gli sciacalletti, le iene; e tutti quanti Gattopardi, sciacalli e pecore continueremo a crederci il sale della terra. The writing is deft and glorious. I am still mesmerized by the richness of Lampedusa’s prose and the individualness of his characters. Each of his characters contribute to the plot and the sending of his message: that nothing in this world is permanent; even kings cannot be saved by their golds. However, the fall of the noble Salinas family did not stop when its prince, Don Fabrizio Corbera died in 1883. The last chapter called Relics extends the story to the prince’s three old and gray daughters that reminded me of the generation of the Buendia family that last appeared in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Even this falling action has its own theme: that what our forefathers did have some impact or influence to who we are now: as a nation, a community, a family or even as individuals.

I put up a blog on Goodreads entitled The Leopard Series: Leopard's Rage and hope you enjoy it! I talk about when I started writing the leopard series, the different types of leopards I've included and how it's evolved over time!

I completed Leopard's Run and though it won't be out for several months I'm excited for its release. I loved and think Evangeline and Alonzo/Fyodor were an incredible couple, so I'm happy that we'll get to see them again!