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The Leopard

by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

3.95 · rating details · 2,638 ratings · 326 reviews

Set in the 1860s, "The Leopard" tells the spellbinding story of a decadent, dying Sicilian aristocracy threatened by the approaching forces of democracy and revolution. The dramatic sweep and richness of observation, the seamless intertwining of public and private worlds, and the grasp of human frailty imbue" The Leopard" with its particular melancholy ...more

Paperback, 294 pages

Published November 6th 2007 by Pantheon Books (first published 1958)

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Jan 15, 2012

Elizabeth rated it

Shelves: 2012, in-italy, on-politics, reviewed, victorians-and-wannabes

Have you read The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy? A book by a pious Swiss Calvinist about one of the lushest, most extraordinary periods and places for art, ever. It's one of those great juxtapositions between the mores of the writer and the subject creating something new and fascinating. The author's time, cultural, beliefs, always shape a book (fiction or non-fiction) but I'm not always overwhelmed by the feeling of the writer's time. Sometimes you can't avoid it, like when the Moder...moreHave you read The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy? A book by a pious Swiss Calvinist about one of the lushest, most extraordinary periods and places for art, ever. It's one of those great juxtapositions between the mores of the writer and the subject creating something new and fascinating. The author's time, cultural, beliefs, always shape a book (fiction or non-fiction) but I'm not always overwhelmed by the feeling of the writer's time. Sometimes you can't avoid it, like when the Modernists wrote of the world before WWI. They knew what loss was coming and, whether deliberate or not, you can't help but feel it as you read their books. I couldn't get the feeling of Jacob Burckhardt, who wrote Civilization in 1860 when The Leopard is set, out of my mind while I was reading the later. It's probably because of all the descriptions of art, furniture, culture, that is gone, yet loved, and now viewed with very different eyes by the writer of a different time. I think it's also because of the sense of loss for the beauty, the appreciation for what was created, and also some not-so-hidden judgement on the corruption, the weakness of the society, the absurdity of it, as well.

I also thought of The Mikado. I saw the 1986 version on PBS, starring Eric Idle (yes, that Eric Idle). What's always stayed with me was the entrance of the Pooh-Bah:

Mikado Pooh-Bah

This is the Leopard of di Lampedusa's Sicily, writ large, on the British stage. The larger than life character that moves all before him. The image isn't particularly new. I was instantly annoyed by The Tudors (and rightly, as it turned out) despite my general love for Jonathan Rhys Meyers because, well, he's tiny. Henry VIII was a huge figure, in my mind, and seeing the slight man project majesty on an epic scale just wasn't enough for me. Sure, he's sexier for the modern audience, but he should be a satellite, a planet; he is not the sun.

I found this book a strange left-of-center mixture of examination between the sun and the satellites, the author being one of the satellites but also an explorer, coming in and out, (maybe a comet?). The center of the solar system was the Leopard, in his time and place (just touching that he is only at the center of the solar system, one among many at the beginning of the book), and then roving through this solar system, looking at its beauty and decay; it's planets, their moons, the lost among the asteroids, the other gaseous giant struggling against the gravitational pull at the center, distorting the orbits of the smaller, more distant planets, drawing some of them into his own orbit.

I get the feeling that there is always something both attractive and repellant about examining great periods or great men, particularly from the vantage point of explorer and scientist or art critic and historian, and it is just as fascinating to see the critic/historian/scientist's own bitterness, regret, awe, and respect come through as well. One can play up the corruption, the decay, the secrets behind doors, or hidden in corners of the garden. Or one can expose wonders, focus on the glittering stars and sparkling lights. I loved the combination in this book. I loved that the Leopard, like the Pooh-bah, was both an object of regard and derision. I loved how little those around him looked in his orbit.

I loved that and the feeling in the gardens and the palaces. Every landscape we were shown and ballroom we entered was lush, vivid, carefully sculpted, and, somehow, the sound and smell of each one came with it. What was the name of the story of the daughter trapped in the garden for others' safety? That came to mind and Keats' The Eve Of St. Agnes and the descriptions of Faerie, before and after the lost traveler has discovered that he can see beyond the glamour.

But, I didn't like the last chapter (Relics). There was a cruelty about it that twisted in me. It was like being left with the taste of the bitter herb instead of the remembered glory of a wine tasted earlier. I didn't need a sweet dessert -- like the confections so vividly described at the ball - but I wanted the ending to be about the Leopard, not a condemnation of his descendants. I understood it but as I read it I remembered the moments in the book that irritated me, the style choices that bothered me, the discontent of being lectured about politics in the mouth of the priest. Maybe di Lampedusa did that deliberately? I don't imagine so. I understand discontent. I could feel it throughout, rubbing at the author and the characters and me. I just don't know why that was allowed to turn to anger just at the very end with a harshness that belied the kindness shown to all the characters, with all their failings, earlier on. It left me confused and unhappy.(less)

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Jan 07, 2012

Eric rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: decadence, ficciones

What complaints I have about The Leopard are minutely stylistic; and because "to present any writer in translation is to present him bereft of his style," as Clarence Brown, one of Mandelstam’s English avatars, reminds us, I won’t dwell on the elaborate clunkiness and awkward extensions of Lampedusa’s metaphors, especially those applied to the inner emotional states of his characters. In Italian, this figurative language may be impossibly smooth. What I love in this novel is its morbid...moreWhat complaints I have about The Leopard are minutely stylistic; and because "to present any writer in translation is to present him bereft of his style," as Clarence Brown, one of Mandelstam’s English avatars, reminds us, I won’t dwell on the elaborate clunkiness and awkward extensions of Lampedusa’s metaphors, especially those applied to the inner emotional states of his characters. In Italian, this figurative language may be impossibly smooth. What I love in this novel is its morbid and pessimistic sensuality, its Gotho-Baudelairean heritage. The Prince’s garden, where his dog revels in “dead lizards and manure,” exhales a miasma of “cloying, fleshy, and slightly putrid” scents; the cuttings of roses, brought by the Prince from Paris, in Sicily’s climate and soil yield what look like “flesh-colored cabbages”—“The Prince put one under his nose and seemed to be sniffing the thigh of a dancer from the Opera.” Sicily having become a civic battleground between the Bourbon dynasty and nationalist rebels, some time passes before anyone is able to distinguish the odor of a decomposing soldier from the garden’s riot of other sweet stinks. The high point for me is when Tancredi, the Prince’s nephew, and his fiancé Angelica roam the fairy tale labyrinthine reaches of the dilapidated palace at Donnafugata. Having eluded their chaperones, and watched only by “a shepherdess glancing down consenting from some obliterated fresco,” the two one day enter a hidden door into an enigmatic suite of rooms—well, enigmatic to them—all floored with white marble sloping away toward gutters. Mirrors across the walls (some smashed), “wide, too wide” sofas (“showing nails with traces of silk that had been torn away”), and on the fireplaces “delicate little marble intaglios, naked figures in paroxysms”—“but mutilated by some furious hammer.” This libertine’s elegant dungeon, though defaced and sealed by horrified descendants, still yields up a bundle of small whips to the lovers’ snooping—and they discover still other whips, in the wing consecrated to the memory of a pious ancestor who flagellated his sinful flesh. I laughed so loud. This varied lineage of lashes—sign of “the human ‘always’” the Prince thinks of when an official boasts of the efficiency and modernity the new regime will bring to Sicily. The Salinas, when libertine, beat others; when pious, they beat themselves—the ancestral palace a “universe of extinct vices, forgotten virtues, and above all, perennial desire.” But I don’t mean to give the impression that The Leopard is a Surrealist shriek or Decadent’s delirium. The really febrile elements are held at an antiquarian distance, in the stately realist integrity of a historical novel that also concerns itself with democracy and nationalism, clerical disestablishment and the rise of the middle classes. The facts of Lampedusa’s external biography—an apparently idle Sicilian aristocrat, fantastically learned and homebound by his mother à la Borges, who read and waited and read some more, finally undertaking his only novel at age fifty-seven—perfectly answers the curious, compounded, involuted feel of The Leopard, its air of something dreamt in its particulars long before ordered as a narrative.

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Mar 29, 2010

J rated it

Shelves: favorites

I. Nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Now, and in the hour of our death. Amen.

Thus begins Lampedusa’s masterpiece, his paean to death. Sensuous, insightful, subtle, The Leopard is a work of absolute beauty.

In 1860 Don Fabrizio, Prince of Salina, is watching the lifeblood seep from his world: the power and the prestige, the unquestioned honors are all fading away, being bled out by revolution. He simply watches it go. He is resigned to it as he is resigned to his own nature...more

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Jan 10, 2012

Whitaker rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: e-book, modern-canon, italy, 2012-read, recommended-unreservedly

It is no coincidence that The Leopard is bookended by two corpses: a decomposing one at the beginning, and an embalmed one at the end. The middle is filled with the story of a third corpse whose slow decomposition and putrefaction make up the meat of the novel. Rigour mortis first sets in, as traditions rigidify the body. It gets devoured internally, its body bloating, consumed by its own bacteria—the peasants that require the pacification and gifts demanded by noblesse oblige, the expensive pom...more

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Jan 22, 2011

Evan rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: sinister adults

Shelves: italian-literature, novels, favorites

The quintessence of melancholy, The Leopard, lets the reader try on the skin of the titular character: the last king in a declining aristocracy. It reminded me of Under the Volcano. I was pushed to empathize with the last leonine lord of Sicily as intimately as I did with the alcoholic diplomat in Under the Volcano, despite never having aspirations towards being crowned or pickled. Both novels deal with cornered people doing their best while their world turns to dust. The Leopard is beautiful, a...more

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Jan 03, 2012

Kelly rated it

Shelves: 19th-century, examined-lives, fiction, the-continent, worlds-lost-dead-and-dying

Hovering between 3 & 4 stars for this one. Will explain, review to come later.

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Sep 19, 2007

Spiros rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: new, chasingmytail, italy, cinerelated, staffpicks

"If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change" is the keynote paradox propounded by Tancredi Falconeri to his uncle, Prince Fabrizio Salina, as the young impoverished noble goes to join the Garibaldini, to fight for an independent Sicily and a unified Italy. Don Fabrizio is taken aback; he after all lives his life on a Copernican paradigm, with himself at the center of the universe. Tancredi is representative of a Darwinian world, with his ability to adapt to circu...more

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Apr 15, 2008

Bryant rated it

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Someone from Sicily once told me that Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s "The Leopard" is the "Gone with the Wind" of southern Italy. For that very comparison, I had foolishly avoided it. Now I see that while it indeed may be a “Gone with the Wind,” it is also a “Fathers and Sons,” a “Palace Walk” (Mahfouz’ Cairo Trilogy), a “Grapes of Wrath,” and a “King Lear,” only with a more rational leading man. It is also, quite appropriately, its own glorious thing, the only novel of a once-pr...more

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Dec 09, 2011

Roberta rated it

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Shelves: favorites

Elementi come il Principe protagonista, il nipote, fra i suoi diletti, che conquista la bella della situazione potrebbe far pensare al Gattopardo come una rivisitazione di passati romanzi principeschi.
Ma niente di tutto questo è il capolavoro di Tomasi di Lampedusa che considerato spesso come romanzo storico, ma snobbato da Elio Vittorini che ne rifiutò la pubblicazione, è adesso una delle pietre miliari della letteratura italiana.

Il protagonista, il Principe Fabrizio Salina è ...moreElementi come il Principe protagonista, il nipote, fra i suoi diletti, che conquista la bella della situazione potrebbe far pensare al Gattopardo come una rivisitazione di passati romanzi principeschi.
Ma niente di tutto questo è il capolavoro di Tomasi di Lampedusa che considerato spesso come romanzo storico, ma snobbato da Elio Vittorini che ne rifiutò la pubblicazione, è adesso una delle pietre miliari della letteratura italiana.

Il protagonista, il Principe Fabrizio Salina è un uomo complesso, tormentato da continui sensi di colpa (verso la moglie quando si incontra con Mariannina o per aver votato sì al plebiscito, nonostante ciò andasse contro la sua volontà) e da pensieri interiori che nessun’altro può comprendere se non lui stesso e il nipote, Tancredi di Falconeri (personaggio ambiguo ed affascinante, è il suo pupillo, colui che dovrebbe prendere il posto del figlio Paolo).
È nell’ottica del Principe infatti che comprendiamo pienamente tutte le vicende narrate nel romanzo e le loro conseguenze nella vita dei protagonisti. Grazie a Fabrizio viviamo i drammi di un’intera classe sociale vistasi improvvisamente mancare la terra sotto i piedi quando, effetto dell’arrivo dei garibaldini, la borghesia ha iniziato ad accaparrarsene il posto e il prestigio, quando iniziò insomma “il costante raffinarsi di una classe che nel corso di tre generazioni trasforma efficienti cafoni in gentiluomini indifesi” e, bisogna dirlo, incapaci di risollevare le sorti della Sicilia.
Non per niente vale arrivare a leggere (a circa metà della storia) il dialogo con Chevalley, punto fermo di tutto il romanzo che ha il merito di spiegare ampiamente la “sicilianità” da un punto di vista di Salina facile da condividere.
Rassegnazione e cinica realtà sono i sentimenti che lo portano a capire come i cambiamenti avvenuti nell’isola, nel corso di varie epoche, hanno adattato il popolo siciliano ai diversi invasori. Mancanti di intraprendenza, ma con un orgoglioso senso di superiorità (“Il sonno, caro Chevalley, il sonno è ciò che i Siciliani vogliono, ed essi odieranno sempre chi li vorrà svegliare, sia pure per portar loro i più bei regali”), i siciliani stessi hanno permesso che in Sicilia non vi fosse alcun progresso perché troppo facili prede di “un passato che ci attrae soltanto perché è morto”.

Mentre queste riflessioni restano oscure ai suoi interlocutori, Tancredi è l’unico a comprendere lo “zione”. Ne vede la bontà sotto la fierezza del Gattopardo e un saldo rapporto d’affetto lega i due. Forse, più perché Fabrizio vede riflesso se stesso nella personalità del nipote che per un sentimento d’orgoglio nei confronti di Tancredi.
Ma più avanti si va nella storia, più tormentato è l’animo del Principe tanto che nemmeno il giovane Falconeri può qualcosa. “Appartengo ad una generazione disgraziata, a cavallo fra i vecchi tempi ed i nuovi, e che si trova a disagio in tutti e due”, dice del tutto consapevole del radicale cambiamento della società.

C’è tuttavia una costante ironia nel Gattopardo, beffarda e intelligente, che l’autore utilizza schiettamente (sia esponendo la personalità spenta dei siciliani, che descrivendo i protagonisti della storia).
Se dai tutti i personaggi alla fine ne esce sempre qualcosa di negativo, l’unico a non dover essere recriminato è il caro cane Bendicò, amico fidato di Salina. Entra in scena, all’inizio, facendo irruzione nella sala dove si recita il rosario, e trova pace eterna, alla fine, “in un mucchietto di polvere livida”.
Per l’appunto, tema presente e assillante in tutta l’opera, resta quello della morte. Il Principe vi ritrova a pensarvi più volte e ogni volta con sempre più timore. Nella scena della biblioteca dei Ponteleone, o quando al ballo di questi ultimi Fabrizio osserva Angelica e Tancredi danzare come “attori ignari cui un regista fa recitare la parte di Giulietta e quella di Romeo nascondendo la cripta e il veleno, di già previsti nel copione”.
E la morte, la scomparsa, è ciò che aspetta gli aristocratici come il Principe che protagonista del passato, non trova più spazio nel presente.
“E da quel momento, invisibile, cominciò il declino del suo prestigio”.

Roberta Conte
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May 01, 2009

Julia Boechat Machado rated it

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Shelves: books-i-own, italian-literature, constantly-re-reading, tingle-of-the-spine, 1950s, favorites

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 Leop...moreO 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/200...(less)

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Jan 28, 2009

James rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: edminster-group, favorites, historical-fiction, lincoln-park-group, read-and-reread, italian-lit

The Leopard, 1958, (filmed in 1963), is sometimes compared to Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind. It drew on the author's family history and described the reactions of a noble family to the social and political landscape following Sicily's appropriation by Garibaldi in 1860. Lampedusa published nothing during his lifetime except for three articles that appeared in an obscure Genoese periodical in the 1920s.
"The Prince was depressed: "All this shouldn't last; but it will, alwa...more

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Mar 15, 2008

Adam rated it

An intimate but detached, almost portraiture, of history of Sicily through the eyes of one of its fading aristos (and written by one). Immersing you into the bourgeois unification of Italy without loading you with information of the era, and telling the story through character interaction and garnered details. Showing the break down of the established order through a range of events from nouveau rich wearing evening dress to casual dress party to a disemboweled corpse in a garden. Beautiful pros...more

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Dec 02, 2008

Denis rated it

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Could well be Italy's greatest novel. Slightly different than Visconti's masterful movie version (which is more romantic), but as brilliant, perfect, and enthralling. The novel centers on the fate of a Sicilian aristocratic family, as seen mostly through the eyes of Prince Salina, who is a witness to the slow decomposition of his own way of life -and who is wise enough to accept it, and to know that something else lays ahead. A literary feast, without equals, and that recreates a vanished world ...more

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Nov 19, 2010

Andrea Tullio Canobbio rated it

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Di questo libro ho discusso una volta (ott. 2006) sul blog di «Maltese Narrazioni», sollecitato da una certa Rose. La mia opinione, in realtà, è abbastanza positiva, ma… ci sono due “ma”:</p>

1) il grande stile, abbastanza fastidioso (immagino che lo fosse anche nel ’58). È come una cappa dorata su tutto, dai mobili ai generi alimentari (vedi la descrizione del timballo).

2) il disfattismo; non mi piace, nella quarta parte, la liquidazione della proposta di Chevalley - il governo italiano no

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Mar 31, 2009

Peregrino rated it

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Shelves: 2009

Extraordinaria novela de Lampedusa. Leí que fue publicada a título póstumo, lo que me sorprende, dada su calidad.

Que cambie todo para que nada cambie. El autor nos describe los últimos momentos de la Italia borbónica, su ajetreada transición a la monarquía de Victor Manuel II, con Garibaldi en la sombra de la narración. Lo hace a través del Gatopardo, el príncipe Salina, y de su familia. Los personajes se nos hacen entrañables desde el primer momento. El autor nos sumerge en la vida ...more

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Sep 17, 2011

Rick rated it

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“If we want things to stay as they are,” observes one character, “things will have to change.” Written in the first decade of the second half of the twentieth century about events that happened a century before, The Leopard is a wonderful novel of how things change and how they don’t. The character quoted above is Tancredi, the nephew and favorite “son” of his generation of males to the novel’s protagonist, the Sicilian prince, Don Fabrizio. Tancredi has thrown in his hand (leveraging his uncle’...more“If we want things to stay as they are,” observes one character, “things will have to change.” Written in the first decade of the second half of the twentieth century about events that happened a century before, The Leopard is a wonderful novel of how things change and how they don’t. The character quoted above is Tancredi, the nephew and favorite “son” of his generation of males to the novel’s protagonist, the Sicilian prince, Don Fabrizio. Tancredi has thrown in his hand (leveraging his uncle’s support and reputation) with the forces for the unification of Italy, some pushing for a republic and some pushing for something more like a parliamentarian monarchy. The Prince watches all, muses like a 19th century Montaigne who doesn’t write but instead studies the stars and the social animal that is man. His personal priest is opposed to the charming Tancredi’s engagement in the forces of the tri-color. He sees bad things on the horizon for the Church. Don Fabrizio’s eldest son, not the adventurer that his cousin is, wants things to continue and resents the emergence of a wealthy and increasing influential merchant class.

Tancredi is poor, his father one of the nobility who had wasted its wealth and lost its property, but his uncle’s virtual adoption and his energy and personal charm make him a romantic figure on the rise to many in Sicily and the fragmented peninsula. For a while it seems he is destined to marry his cousin, Concetta, the Prince’s favored daughter. But along comes Angelica, the stunningly beautiful daughter of the very rich new man, Don Calegero. The Prince knows that in the new order that is coming his nephew will need two things to fulfill his potential: the name and reputation he has from his family and the wealth that the family, even within the Prince’s estates, no longer has. The Leopard is the family symbol and it will disappear in the emerging modern world unless, as Tancredi observed, things change in a way to sustain the family’s position. Part of what makes this novel so extraordinary is that things are more complex and nuanced that Tancredi’s paradox. Put another way, nearly everyone is both right and wrong about the significance of what is happening to their way of life.

Giuseppe di Lampedusa was himself a prince and this novel published near the end of his life was about two times at once, the 1860s and the 1940s-60s. The time of the Prince and the time of the prince. Another part of what makes it extraordinary is that despite its nuances and complexities it is a simple tale of a family in its time simply told. Less than three hundred pages, the novel is crisp and economical. It is sharply observed, free of the nostalgia one might expect from someone writing of a time when his kind had it so much better than they will in future. Di Lampedusa may have been privileged but he was a privileged realist who wrote an affecting, insightful novel that provocatively presents a unique person and time and place in a way that makes them universal.(less)

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Aug 13, 2011

David rated it

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Shelves: read-in-2011

Another classic I can cross off my "to read before I die" list. It's one of those books that has a definite low-key charm throughout and that ends up affecting you to an unexpected degree by the end. It tells the story of the decline of an aristocratic Sicilian family following Garibaldi's unification of Italy in 1860. The entire narrative spans half a century, but the vast majority of the action takes place in the months immediately surrounding the dissolution of the Bourbon monarchy ...moreAnother classic I can cross off my "to read before I die" list. It's one of those books that has a definite low-key charm throughout and that ends up affecting you to an unexpected degree by the end. It tells the story of the decline of an aristocratic Sicilian family following Garibaldi's unification of Italy in 1860. The entire narrative spans half a century, but the vast majority of the action takes place in the months immediately surrounding the dissolution of the Bourbon monarchy of Sicily and Naples, focusing on the fortunes of Prince Fabrizio, the leopard of the title, and his family.

The story is essentially Lampedusa's reimagining of his own family history, with the central figure of Prince Fabrizio corresponding to his great-grandfather. Upon its publication, the book managed to give offence across the entire political spectrum -- the Prince's skeptical ruminations on his fellow aristocrats, the clergy, the champions of the Risorgimento, and the Sicilian peasantry may have cut a little too close to the bone for comfort. Despite, or perhaps because of, the controversy it provoked, "The Leopard" went on to become (one of?) the top-selling novels in Italian history. The 1963 film based on the book, with Burt Lancaster in the title role, directed by Luchino Visconti also met with critical acclaim. Sadly, the author died of lung cancer in 1957, before the book was accepted for publication (he had received two rejections, with one editor declaring the manuscript to be "unpublishable").

Although the fortunes of the Sicilian aristocracy might not seem like a particularly promising subject to engage the reader's interest, "The Leopard" is unexpectedly captivating. It works for a couple of reasons -- the main character is drawn with great affection, but also with depth and subtlety -- you enjoy spending time in his head. There's a slightly melancholy tone throughout the work that also adds to the book's appeal. It's easy to understand why "The Leopard" has become a minor classic. I enjoyed it far more than I had expected to. (less)

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Jan 10, 2011

Julia rated it

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So beautiful . . . so melancholy . . . so full of life, love, death, and grand images. On my desert island book list, this would certainly find a place in my top five tomes to bring with me. And to think I used to write it off as just some book that inspired a certain old black & white movie that my dad likes. I'm so glad that I took a moment to get it off his bookshelf, flip through the text, and become entranced by the prose. The author's expert ability to tell a volume of information thro...more

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Aug 30, 2010

Julia rated it

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I was torn about giving this 2 stars or 3, truly, it is probably a 2 star book, but I kind of liked it, so I was tempted to give it 3, but in the end, well, it is more of a 2. Here is the thing, it is a "classic" and it is translated, so you have to cut it some slack for those things - as far as old books go, it has all the classic stuff - long suffering jilted love, etc., which made it more interesting as time went on, but it was really rough going in the beginning. If you are going...more

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Apr 19, 2010

Bettie rated it

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Recommends it for: Radio 3 listeners

Shelves: spring-2010, fraudio, historical-fiction, italian-root, translation, classic, published-1958, play-dramatisation

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Apr 19, 2010

Laura rated it

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Recommends it for: Bettie

Shelves: audio-books, italian-literature, read-2010

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Jun 02, 2009

R. rated it

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This is, first and foremost, a beautifully written story. What Dickens achieves by his wonderful descriptions of the grim, dilapidation of an over-crowded and underfed Victorian London, Lampedusa attains by invoking the sun-drenched hills of Sicily. But whereas Dickens excels as setting his scenes visually, Lampadusa works all the senses, using touch, taste and smell, especially smell, to conjure up incredibly powerful and sensual scenes of Sicily during the Risorgimento. The consumption of a m...more

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Oct 08, 2011

Pfanner rated it

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Shelves: literatura-italiana

Durante toda su lectura uno tiene constantemente la sensación de que Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa estaba en estado de gracia cuando escribía el libro. Esto se suma a otra sensación igualmente persistente, y que obsesionaba tanto a Flaubert: que el autor usa la palabra exacta en cada momento, nunca otra. La escritura perfecta. Es como estar frente a un reloj abierto, frente a su maquinaria exacta de tornillos minúsculos, ejes, resortes, espirales, ruedas... Es difícil no sentirse completamente a...more

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Sep 22, 2011

Phil rated it

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Shelves: literature

I was in my mid-teens when this novel appeared, and because it was an acclaimed best-seller I tried reading it. But what did I know, let alone understand about Sicily in 1860, its nobility, the House of Bourbon, the Risorgimento, etc.? I gave up without completing it. Yet I knew and remembered its "classic" status.

Not too many weeks ago its cinematic treatment was shown on a cable television channel. Made in Italy in the early 1960son the heels of its success, it had an int...moreI was in my mid-teens when this novel appeared, and because it was an acclaimed best-seller I tried reading it. But what did I know, let alone understand about Sicily in 1860, its nobility, the House of Bourbon, the Risorgimento, etc.? I gave up without completing it. Yet I knew and remembered its "classic" status.

Not too many weeks ago its cinematic treatment was shown on a cable television channel. Made in Italy in the early 1960son the heels of its success, it had an international all-star cast that included Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, and Claudia Cardinale.

I settled in for the three and one-half hour marathon. Overwhelmed and delighted by the movie, I knew I had to read the novel.

A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words and the words Tomasi di Lampedusa used conjured up the world of a Sicily at the edge of major change, an imperious prince of an old noble family who saw that major changes were coming against which he was powerless.

The novel completed by Tomasi li Lampedusa, the eleventh Prince of Lampedusa,shortly before his death, and the prince he portrayed was supposedly based on his grandfather, the ninth prince.

When the novel appeared, the intellectual litterati condemned it as old-fashioned and a throw-back to 19th century sagas. But the book hit a responsive chord in the Italian public, which one hundred years after the Risorgimento were ignorant of their past, and perhaps already a little fed up with post-World War II materialism.

Where the movie did not stint on detail, there were so many that are made clearer in the text. For example, after the Plebiscite, the Prince is invited by some officials to partake of some refreshment. On a tray are red, white, and green liqueurs (not such a subtle political statement). In the novel the Prince purposely chooses the white, his tacit approval of the House of Bourbon. And the novel describes the petit-fours as fly-speckled, which the movie did not.

A final note. The leopard of the title (gattopardo, in Italian; literally, "spotted cat"), the emblem of the princely Salina family is not actually a leopard, but a wild ocicat that once roamed Sicily was was driven to extinction in the 19th century; not unlike the Prince himself, whose class was also doomed to extinction by the New Italy.

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Nov 13, 2011

Andrea Ciecierski rated it

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Shelves: read-fiction

I have seen this book on vafrious writers' "my favorites" list for a while, and I have finally picked up a copy and read it.

This is a wonderful novel set in Sicily during the unification of Italy. While knowing the political situation is important, the novel is about the Prince, The Leopard: who he is, how he adapts to the changing political situation, his way of being.

This is a thoughtful novel, very well paced and well-written. The words (and hard for me to k...more

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Nov 20, 2010

Mommalibrarian rated it

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Shelves: historical-fiction

Very prettily written. I expect it is a knock-out in the original Italian. p. 33-34 On Palermo, Sicily "above them rose squat domes in flabby curves like breasts emptied of milk."

Time: Garabaldi's army has just conquered Sicily. Although the island has been conquered by foreign countries many times it has retained its character. The book tries time and again to define and describe the Sicilian mind-set. It must be too foreign as I cannot say I understood it. p.128 "...more

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Nov 28, 2009

pinknantucket rated it

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Shelves: ms-readathon-2006

What can you say about a book that is an acknowledged masterpiece? It is beautiful, terribly sad, frequently amusing (in a sly kind of way)…not a book to read if you’re looking for an upper, though. Apparently it also made a lovely film, but I haven’t seen it so I can’t add my two bits on that.

The Leopard tells the story of the dying days of the Sicilian nobility, during and after the 1860 revolution, led by Garibaldi, that resulted in a unified Italy under King Victor Emmanuel. The ...more

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Feb 10, 2012

Faith Bradham rated it

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Shelves: general-literature, historical-fiction

Oh dearie, I'm afraid I had a bit of a hard time with this one. However, I'm going to blame most of my difficulties on the translation (how beautiful would it be if I knew every language ever), since I find it hard to believe that an author of such prestige could use the passive voice so rampantly. Besides the passivity, I had troubles with the extremely over the top and ornate language... and this is coming from me, reader of Henry James and Thomas Hardy, so you know it's got to be pretty bad. ...more

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Aug 08, 2011

Pavel rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: cinema, classics

What's an usual order for this? Famous Lucino Visconti film with Alain Delon, Burt Lancaster and Claudia Cardinale and then di Lampedusa's book? Or the book comes first? For me it was like that: I watched the film maybe 15 years ago and don't remember anything. Now after I've read the book I'm gonna re-watch the film.

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa wasn't a professional writer, he was an aristocrat who died and left this novel at his desk.

Prince Don Fabrizio Salina is losin...more

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Dec 19, 2010

Karen Brooks rated it

· review of another edition

A poetic and beautiful novel that follows the fortunes and changes besetting the noble Salina family in Sicily in the 1800s. Told mainly through the eyes of the Prince, we are admitted into the last period where nobles held power simply because of their birth. Against a background of sweeping political and social change we follow the lives of the Prince's family, especially his beloved nephew, Tancredi, and the young middle class woman who enters his life. Evocatively told and filled with wisdom...more

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About Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Giuseppe Tomasi, 11th Prince of Lampedusa was a Sicilian writer. He is most famous for his only novel, Il Gattopardo which is set in Sicily during the Risorgimento. A taciturn and solitary man, he passed a great deal of his time reading and meditating, and used to say of himself, "I was a boy who liked solitude, who preferred the company of things to that of people."

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Licy E Il Gattopardo: Lettere D'amore Di Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa

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