The Leopard – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

2 Responses to The Leopard – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

1. Mr Red says:

   March 7, 2019 at 6:00 pm

   Wonderful classic, atmospheric, a real feeling for the historical context, elegiac and moving.

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2. Mr Green says:

   April 20, 2019 at 6:18 pm

   The full glory of some books can only be appreciated in middle age. (Conversely, some books – perhaps 100 Years of Solitude or even Auto da Fe? – are at their best when read by the young and impressionable.) It takes re-reading to be sure and that is something of a luxury when there are so many books that one has never read.
   I first read the Leopard when I was 25 and came to it with some sense of its prestige. I found it evocative and enjoyable but, at that stage, no more. A quarter of a century on, I can now appreciate its marvels. Its sense of history, of time past and of a world lost are now both obvious and achingly poignant. It is also superbly written (in Archibald Colquhoun’s classic translation); indeed, such is the wisdom and beauty of many of its sentences that they need to be re-read once, even twice. I wonder if this book will or could be even better in another 25 years? I may not be able to wait that long.

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