Landleven

Always a pleasure, even if the topic—the crushing burdens and heart-rending price of poverty in late-19th century Sicily—is often depressing (or worse). This collection of stories includes several which remind me of his great novel, The House by the Medlar Tree (I Malavoglia). There is the

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story of a shameless woman who coerces her son-in-law into illicit affair (“She-Wolf”); of a young boy, forced to work in a mine to make a living, who is robbed not merely of his childhood but, ultimately, his life (“Nasty Foxfur”); a returning soldier who toys with the affections of local girls and unleashes a sea of passion and vengeance from the village (“ Cavalleria Rusticana”), made into a famous opera. Perhaps my favorite was “Jeli the Herdboy,” a depiction of a good, if penniless, young man whose luck in all parts of his life simply goes from bad to worse. Nearly every story ends in tragedy—at the least. What makes most of them so powerful (and it is only fair to say that at least four of the stories simply left me cold) is Verga’s ability to render nearly every character, major or minor, into an indelibly believable person.

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