Publication
Canongate Books Ltd (2004), 224 pages
Original publication date
1941
Collections
Genres
Description
Vividly capturing the heat, sounds and smells of southern Italy, Conversations in Sicily astounds with its modernity, lyricism and originality. Driven by a sense of total disconnection, the narrator embarks on a journey from northern Italy to Sicily, the home he has not seen in some fifteen years. Through the conversations of the islanders and a reunion with his mother, he gradually begins to feel reconnected. But to what kind of world? Written during Mussolini's time in power, Conversations in Sicily is one of the great novels of anti-fascism.
User reviews
LibraryThing member ostrom
A spare, quirky, entertaining book.
LibraryThing member William345
Thoroughly enjoyable. Every ten pages or so resolve themselves in little narrative paradoxes that reminded me of Zen koans. It's not hard to see why Hemingway was attracted to it. Moreover, it filled out the Sicilian landscape for me that I was already used to from Sciascia, Pirandello and Verga.
LibraryThing member P_S_Patrick
A strange quasi-memoir set in 1930s Italy, during its Fascist years. It ostensibly tells the tale of a son going back to briefly visit his mother in Sicily, after being away for 15 years. What prompts this is his receiving a letter from his father, informing him that he has left her and gone away
Melancholy, symbolist, poetic, frank, philosophical, world-weary, rejoicing – it is all of these things alternately then simultaneously, throughout. The characters our protagonist meets are the most human of caricatures, exaggerated perhaps in their individuality in the re-telling, but fundamentally solid flesh and minds and hearts still beneath that. There is little explicit mention of politics, but it lies as an undercurrent – a deep running concern over the suffering of humanity, its simple pleasures, personal quirks, and traditional ways of life.
It is a paean to everything humanity was and felt, a cathartic setting down and unburdening (is that possible) of the conflicting feelings of a soul at once tormented and enchanted by the world.
Show More
with another woman. Melancholy, symbolist, poetic, frank, philosophical, world-weary, rejoicing – it is all of these things alternately then simultaneously, throughout. The characters our protagonist meets are the most human of caricatures, exaggerated perhaps in their individuality in the re-telling, but fundamentally solid flesh and minds and hearts still beneath that. There is little explicit mention of politics, but it lies as an undercurrent – a deep running concern over the suffering of humanity, its simple pleasures, personal quirks, and traditional ways of life.
It is a paean to everything humanity was and felt, a cathartic setting down and unburdening (is that possible) of the conflicting feelings of a soul at once tormented and enchanted by the world.
Show Less
Language
Original language
Italian
ISBN
1841954500 / 9781841954509
Physical description
224 p.; 5 inches
Pages
224