The Italian answer to Joseph Roth’s decadence. I
wonder how I managed to get to my 27th birthday without having
either read the book or watched Visconti’s movie. Bad Italian!
The novel gives a wonderful (and strongly
autobiographical) picture of a nobility
that is powerless in the face of the great political changes of late 19th
century Italy. As Tancredi says “In order for everything to stay the same,
everything has to change” – but it just might not be enough. The death of Don
Fabrizio in a hotel room, far away from his palace hits notes of extraordinary
sadness. I was surprised to find myself so moved by a book that is about people
whom I am supposed to passionately dislike.
And no matter how beautiful the Angelica
portrayed by that author is, it can’t equal the perfection of Claudia Cardinale
in Visconti’s film.
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