Барыс (Il Gattopardo) романы

1958 novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
the novel

The Leopard ( il ˌɡattoˈpardo) is a novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa that chronicles the changes in Sicilian life and society during the Risorgimento. Published posthumously in 1958 by Feltrinelli, after two rejections by the leading Italian publishing houses Mondadori and Einaudi, it became the top selling novel in Italian history and is considered one of the most important novels in modern Italian literature. In 1959, it won Italy's highest award for fiction, the Strega Prize. In 2012, The Guardian named it as one of "the 10 best historical novels". The novel was made into an award winning 1963 film of the same name, directed by Luchino Visconti and starring Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon. Tomasi was the last in a line of minor princes in Sicily. He had long contemplated writing a historical novel based on his great grandfather, Don Giulio Fabrizio Tomasi, another Prince of Lampedusa. The Lampedusa Palace in Palermo, like the palace in the novel, was bombed during the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943.

Although Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa was a prolific reader, until the last few years of his life he had written almost nothing for publication. He first conceived the book that became The Leopard in the 1930s, but did not follow through on the idea at that time. In 1954 Tomasi traveled with his cousin Lucio Piccolo, another late in life author, to a literary conference in San Pellegrino Terme. Piccolo had been invited on the basis of his recently published poetry, and brought Tomasi as a guest. Also attending were Eugenio Montale,

By June 1955 he completed a version of the first chapter, conforming to his original intent of a story set in a single 24 hour period in 1860. At this time, few people around him were aware that he was writing: he had always spent large amounts of time alone; those periods were now spent at his writing desk. He finally showed a four chapter work in progress to close associates in early 1956, corresponding roughly to the first, second, seventh, and eight chapters of the eventual novel. In May 1956, Tomasi sent a four chapter typescript to Mondadori in Milan. That summer he wrote two more chapters (drafts of the third and fourth in the final version) and in October he sent these to Mondadori as well. In early 1957 he wrote two more chapters (the eventual fifth and sixth), revised those he had already written, and sent typescripts to several people. With Tomasi's permission, his student Francesco Orlando sent a copy to literary agent it, daughter of Benedetto Croce, leaving the author anonymous. Another recipient, bookseller and publisher Fausto Flaccovio, liked the book but was not in the business of publishing fiction; he suggested sending it to Elio Vittorini, unsurprisingly this rather traditional novel did not appeal to modernist Vittorini, who found it "rather old fashioned" and "essayish". Eventually, the copy sent to Croce bore fruit, but not in Tomasi's lifetime. In 1957 he was diagnosed with lung cancer; he died on 23 July 1957 in Rome. Il Gattopardo was quickly recognized as a great work of Italian literature. In 1959 Tomasi di Lampedusa was posthumously awarded the prestigious Strega Prize for the novel.

Most of the novel is set during the time of the Risorgimento, specifically during the period when Giuseppe Garibaldi, the leader of the famous Redshirts, swept through Sicily with his proletariat army known as The Thousand. As the novel opens in May 1860, Garibaldi's Redshirts have landed on the Sicilian coast and are pressing inland; they will soon overthrow the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and incorporate it into the unified Italian Kingdom under Victor Emmanuel. The plot focuses upon the aristocratic Salina family, which is headed by Prince Fabrizio. Don Fabrizio is the patriarch of the family as well as the keeper of its strict code of conduct and Roman Catholic ritual. Prince Fabrizio finds marriage with his overly puritanical wife to be physically unsatisfying, and thus keeps a series of mistresses and courtesans as well as indulging in his hobby of amateur astronomy. He is drawn to his nephew Prince Tancredi Falconeri whom he sees as having noble qualities. This affection is somewhat diminished when he discovers that Tancredi has joined Garibaldi's Redshirts. On a trip to the Salina estate in the town of Donnafugata the Prince learns that the mayor, Don Calogero Sedara, has become wealthy through dodgy business transactions and political influence and that his wealth now rivals that of the Salinas. When Sedara introduces his extraordinarily beautiful daughter, Angelica, Tancredi is smitten with her, to the dismay of the Prince's daughter Concetta, who loves Tancredi. Although aware of his daughter's feelings, the Prince accepts the inevitable and helps arrange Tancredi's betrothal to Angelica. The two pass a blissfully innocent period of engagement. Fabrizio is offered the position of a Senator in the new Italian state but turns it down. Angelica is introduced to Palermo society at a sumptuous ball and despite her background slips easily into the role of future countess. The narrative then jumps forward by two decades and finds Prince Fabrizio on his deathbed, surrounded by family. The Prince considers that he will be the last true prince of the Salinas, the last leopard. A final chapter takes place in 1910 when Concetta, now seventy, is living in the family home with two of her sisters.

The novel served as the basis for a film directed by Luchino Visconti. Starring Burt Lancaster, it won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. 20th Century Fox cut the film dramatically for its original 1963 release, but in 1983 Visconti's vision was re released with English subtitles and the famous ballroom scene restored to its full 45 minute running time. The novel was adapted for radio by Michael Hastings and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2008. The radio play starred Tom Hiddleston as Tancredi, Hayley Atwell as Angelica, Stanley Townsend as Don Fabrizio, and Julie Legrand as Princess Stella.

"If we want everything to stay as it is, everything has to change." (spoken by Tancredi) The Italian text is "Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga com'è bisogna che tutto cambi." "We were the Leopards, the Lions, those who'll take our place will be little jackals, hyenas; and the whole lot of us, Leopards, jackals, and sheep, we'll all go on thinking ourselves the salt of the earth." (spoken by Don Fabrizio) The Italian text is "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."