Scan barcode
A review by smtvash
The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
4.0
A very interesting read.
The Leopard is a story about how wealth, status, and the social constructs that surround "royalty" locks them in their own prison of wasted potential and the inopportunity to exist outside of that construct.
It's a novel that's stuck and incapable of moving on or embracing change.
First, the prose is very lush and intimate. It is clear that Lampedusa had a lot of endearment to his subject. What makes The Leopard interesting is that its a book that came from the leopard's mouth (so to speak).
The results almost feel like a eulogy to the world he came to love and saw transform before dying.
And this world, it's just rich, generational wealth, big mansions, balls, and leisure. And even then, all they're losing is status. As far as change and transformations go, The Leopard is a romantic account of the loss of status.
It's interesting to read the mindset, at least of this one author, essentially come to make peace with the experiences they had of a world that was leaving them behind.
The very leisure that they enjoyed, that inactive sense of politeness, gives way for most of the family to sit back and go gently into the good night. In their own corner of the world, just living their lives, doing their thing.
You know, like everyone else in the rest of the world.
I love stories about failure, I love stories about loss and a world turned upside down and transformed.
The Leopard is an interesting version of this tale, of one family's mindset locking into their own perceived misery.
The Leopard is a story about how wealth, status, and the social constructs that surround "royalty" locks them in their own prison of wasted potential and the inopportunity to exist outside of that construct.
It's a novel that's stuck and incapable of moving on or embracing change.
First, the prose is very lush and intimate. It is clear that Lampedusa had a lot of endearment to his subject. What makes The Leopard interesting is that its a book that came from the leopard's mouth (so to speak).
The results almost feel like a eulogy to the world he came to love and saw transform before dying.
And this world, it's just rich, generational wealth, big mansions, balls, and leisure. And even then, all they're losing is status. As far as change and transformations go, The Leopard is a romantic account of the loss of status.
It's interesting to read the mindset, at least of this one author, essentially come to make peace with the experiences they had of a world that was leaving them behind.
The very leisure that they enjoyed, that inactive sense of politeness, gives way for most of the family to sit back and go gently into the good night. In their own corner of the world, just living their lives, doing their thing.
You know, like everyone else in the rest of the world.
I love stories about failure, I love stories about loss and a world turned upside down and transformed.
The Leopard is an interesting version of this tale, of one family's mindset locking into their own perceived misery.