The Leopard

(by G. T. di Lampedusa)

The times, they are a-changing.  But the Prince of Lampedusa, understands that “everything needs to change, so everything can stay the same.”

Fragments aside, this is the only book the author, himself a Sicilian Prince, had in him and it is a jewel.  Clear, unhurried, conventional in structure, it shows all the hallowed power of the novel in evoking time, place and mild regret for things that pass.

 

Its nostalgic pessimism skewers Italian politics and history, without being political or historical, which turned-off publishers in the author’s lifetime, and seemed to enrage the partisan literati at the time of its posthumous publication.  [See also the magnificent film version by Visconti.]