The Leopard

Fülszöveg

This great historical novel, written by a Sicilian prince who died in 1957 thinking his work would never be published, has already been almost universally acknowledged as a masterpiece — a work certain to take its place among the classics of world literature.
Set in the vivid and austere grandeur of Sicily, The Leopard pictures a traditional way of life at the point of decline. Based on the author's great grandfather, the hero is Don Fabrizio, Prince of Salina. He is the "leopard"— so named from the proud beast emblazoned on the Lampedusa family coat of arms — a magnificent, striking man, with penchants for hunting and astronomy. A tolerant despot, he rules over thousands of acres of land and hundreds of human beings, among them his own family. But at the moment of Don Fabrizio's prime, Garibaldi lands in Sicily on the way to overthrow the Bourbon monarchy in Naples, and power passes from the feudal landowners to the new bourgeoisie. Don Fabrizio is too intelligent to resist the... Tovább

Fülszöveg

This great historical novel, written by a Sicilian prince who died in 1957 thinking his work would never be published, has already been almost universally acknowledged as a masterpiece — a work certain to take its place among the classics of world literature.
Set in the vivid and austere grandeur of Sicily, The Leopard pictures a traditional way of life at the point of decline. Based on the author's great grandfather, the hero is Don Fabrizio, Prince of Salina. He is the "leopard"— so named from the proud beast emblazoned on the Lampedusa family coat of arms — a magnificent, striking man, with penchants for hunting and astronomy. A tolerant despot, he rules over thousands of acres of land and hundreds of human beings, among them his own family. But at the moment of Don Fabrizio's prime, Garibaldi lands in Sicily on the way to overthrow the Bourbon monarchy in Naples, and power passes from the feudal landowners to the new bourgeoisie. Don Fabrizio is too intelligent to resist the inevitable, but too attached to the past to join the present, which he prefers to flee by symbolically contemplating his beloved stars. However his favorite nephew, the charming and cynical Tancredi, chooses the new way of life and woos an ambitious and lovely daughter of the rising middle class. With a beautifully combined sense of poignancy and irony, and deep psychological insight, Lampedusa brilliantly portrays the actions and meditations of Don Fabrizio in a series of episodes that inexorably lead to death and the total distintegration of a way of life. Though the theme of The Leopard is elegiac, the writing is entertainment of the highest order. A highly civilized man of the world calls on his abilities as philosopher, historian, poet and psychologist to sum up, at the end of his life, his own vision of the human condition in a work of unforgettable reality. Vissza