The English Centre of International PEN

A Tribute to 'The Leopard' 

"I'm sure plenty of women would go to hear Colin Firth read out of the phone book," remarked one of the many callers who were too late to get a ticket for last Thursday's sell-out A Tribute to The Leopard event at the Italian Cultural Institute. It was one of our most successful PEN events ever, and unfortunately we were unable to provide tickets to all those who requested them. Those who were successful, however, were treated to an evening to remember, a delight for both the intellect and senses. 

Despite the obvious crowd-pulling power of Mr Firth's readings the true star of the night was Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa himself. Lampedusa died almost 50 years ago leaving just one major work, his dazzling contribution to world literature, The Leopard. The novel describes the death throes of the Sicilian aristocracy against the background of Garibaldi's invasion, whilst encompassing the great and enduring themes of literature - personal relationships and how they are affected by societal changes. 

Both of the venerable speakers, David Gilmour, Lampedusa's biographer, and Edna O'Brien, novelist, remarked that no-one would be more surprised than the author to find himself being honoured in this way. Coming at the work and the author from their differing perspectives, both Gilmour and O'Brien nonetheless reached similar conclusions; that the book being celebrated was a true work of art, and would continue to speak to generations of readers to come. 

David Gilmour provided an illuminating portrait of Lampedusa and the circumstances surrounding the creation of the book. He talked of its unpopularity with contemporary critics, and the bitter-sweet circumstances of its creation - the author dying of lung cancer, having only just discovered his calling as a writer. Edna O'Brien talked eloquently and dramatically of her love for the novel, in particular the "thrilling minutiae" of daily life so beautifully presented in the book. 

These speakers were punctuated by Colin Firth's expertly delivered passages, which he had chosen for their pivotal moments in the story as well as the beauty of their language. After the discussion, all present partook of the Italian Cultural Institute's outstanding generosity and hospitality with a glass of wine in the reception room overlooking Belgrave Square. 

English PEN would like to express its sincerest thanks to all at the ICI for their hospitality and hard work, and to the wonderful panel who provided such a memorable and stimulating evening. 
 

                The Leopard
                The Garden and the Dead Soldier-excerpt.

                With a wildly excited Bendico (dog) bounding ahead of him he went 
                down the short flight of steps into the garden. Enclosed between 
                three walls and a side of the house, its seclusion gave it the air of 
                a cemetery, accentuated by the parallel little mounds bounding the 
                irrigation canals and looking like the graves of very tall, very thin 
                giants. Plants were growing in thick disorder on the reddish clay; 
                flowers sprouted in all directions, and the myrtle hedges seemed put 
                there to prevent movement rather than guide it. At the end a statue 
                of Flora speckled with yellow-black lichen exhibited her centuries-
                old charms with an air of resignation; on each side were benches 
                holding quilted cushions, also of gray marble; and in a corner the 
                gold of an acacia tree introduced a sudden note of gaiety. 

                Every sod seemed to exude a yearning for beauty soon muted by 
                languor. 
 

                But the garden, hemmed and almost squashed between these barriers, 
                was exhaling scents that were cloying, fleshy, and slightly putrid, 
                like the aromatic liquids distilled from the relics of certain 
                saints; the carnations superimposed their pungence on the formal 
                frangrance of roses and the oily emanations of magnolias drooping in 
                corners; and somewhere beneath it all was a faint smell of mint 
                mingling with a nursery whiff of acacia and a jammy one of myrtle; 
                from a grove beyond the wall came an erotic waft of early orange 
                blossom.
 

                It was a garden for the blind: a constant offense to the eyes, a 
                pleasure strong if somewhat crude to the nose. The Paul Neyron roses, 
                whose cuttings he had he had himself bought in Paris, had 
                degenerated; first stimulated and then enfeebled by the strong if 
                languid pull of Sicilian earth, burned by apocalyptic Julies, they 
                had changed into things like flesh- colored cabbages, obscene and 
                distilling a dense almost indecent, scent which no French 
                horticulturist would dared hope for. The Prince put one under his 
                nose and seemed to be sniffing the thigh of a dancer from the Opera. 
                Bendico, to whom it was also proferred, drew back in disgust and 
                hurried off in search of healthier sensations amid dead lizards and 
                manure. 

                But the heavy scents of the garden brought on a gloomy train of 
                thought for the Prince:

                "It smells all right here now; but a month ago…"

                He remembered the nausea diffused throughout the entire villa by 
                certain sweetish odors before their cause was traced: the corpse of a 
                young soldier of the Fifth regiment of Sharpshooters who had been 
                wounded in a skirmish with the rebels at san Lorenzo and come up 
                there to die, all alone under a lemon tree. They had found him lying 
                face downward on the thick clover, his face covered in blood and 
                vomit, his nails dug into the soil, crawling with ants; a pile of 
                purplish intestines had formed a puddle under his bandoleer. Russo, 
                the agent, had discovered this object, turned it over, covered its 
                face with his red kerchief, thrust the guts back into the gaping 
                stomach with some twigs, and then covered the wound with the blue 
                flaps of the cloak; spitting continuously with disgust, meanwhile, 
                not right on, but very near the body. And all this with meticulous 
                care. "Those swine stink even when they're dead." It had been the 
                only epitaph to that derelict death. 

                After other soldiers, looking bemused, had taken the body away (and 
                yes, dragged it along by the shoulders to the cart so that the 
                puppet's stuffing fell out again) a DeProfundis, for the soul of the 
                unknown youth was added to the evening Rosary; and now that the 
                conscience of the ladies of the house seemed placated, the subject 
                was never mentioned again. 
 

                The Prince went and scratched a little lichen off the feet of the 
                Flora and then began to stroll up and down; the lowering sun threw an 
                immense shadow of him over the gravelike flower beds. 
 

                No, the dead man had not been mentioned again; and anyway soldiers 
                presumably become soldiers for exactly that, to die in defense of 
                their King. But the image of that gutted corpse often recurred, as if 
                asking to be given peace in the only possible way the Prince could 
                give it: by justifying that last agony on grounds of general 
                necessity. And then, around, would rise other even less attractive 
                ghosts. Dying for somebody or smoothing, that was perfectly normal, 
                of course; but the person dying should know, or at least feel sure, 
                that someone knows for whom or for what he is dying; the disfigured 
                face was asking just that; and that was where the haze began. 

                "He died for the King, of course, my Dear Fabrizio, obviously," would 
                have been the answer of his brother-in-law Malvica, had the Prince 
                asked him, and Malvica was always the chosen spokesman of most of 
                their friends. "For the King, who stands for order, continuity, 
                decency, honor, right; for the King, who is sole defender of the 
                Church, sole bulwark against the disposal of property, `The Sect's 
                ultimate aim' Fine words, these, pointing to all that lay dearest and 
                deepest in the Prince's heart. But there was something that didn't 
                quite ring true, even so. The King, all right. He knew the King well, 
                or rather the one who had just died; the present one was only a 
                seminarian dressed up as a General. 

                And the old King had really not been worth much. "But you're not 
                reasoning, my dear Fabrizio," Malvica would reply; "one particular 
                sovereign may not be up to it, yet the idea of monarchy is till the 
                same."

                That was true too; but kings who personify an idea should not, 
                cannot, fall below a certain level for generations; if they do, my 
                dear brother-in-law, the idea suffers too.
 

                He was sitting on a bench, inertly watching the devastation wrought 
                by Bendico in the flower beds; every now and again the dog would turn 
                innocent eyes toward him as if asking for praise at labor done: 
                fourteen carnations broken off, half a hedge torn apart, an 
                irrigation canal blocked. How human! "Good! Bendico, come here." And 
                the animal hurried up and put its earthly nostrils into his hand, 
                anxious to show that it had forgiven this silly interruption of a 
                fine job of work
 

You talking to me - not 

Brooding Bridget Jones star Colin Firth whether on screen or out on the town is hardly noted for his hearty garrulity. Not that he's got an awful lot more to say for himself at home, either at least when it comes to chatting with the family of his Italian wife, Livy Giuggioli.

At the London premiere of his new film, Hope Springs, on Monday, Firth told Spy he's developed a mental block when it comes to speaking his missus' mother tongue. 

"I studied Italian properly for a year or so, but I've reached a plateau. If I was awarding myself grades, it would be a B-plus for effort and a C-minus for achievement. I do practise on my in-laws fairly regularly, but they've 
just come to understand that I'm simply no good at conversation - Italian conversation, that is."