Talk:The Leopard

message: "For things to remain the same, everything must change" (spoken by Tancredi) was changed (anonymously and without citation) to "For things to remain the same, things will have to change." I have neither the Italian original nor the published English translation at hand, but the former seems more apt. Neither cites a specific source. This should be followed up and sourced. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:15, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
* Quick web search on '"For things to remain the same" +Tancredi -Wikipedia' overwhelmingly gives the old version. I will revert for now, but this should still be sourced. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:17, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
:*It doesn't make that much difference, as neither version is a very literal translation of the Italian original, which would be, I believe, something like "if we want everything to remain the same, everything must change". The repetition of "tutto" makes the original stronger than either English version. The safe way would be to stick to the most respected English translation of the book, it seems. RodC 01:58, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Quotation

message: According to my dictionary a gattopardo isn’t a leopard at all. It’s a serval (or less likely in this case) an American ocelot. I suppose The Serval wouldn’t have been as catchy a title. 
Interestingly, while the WP article states that the beast is are now very rare north of the Sahara, the map on that page of its current range does show indicate a colony on the African coast not that far from Lampedusa.
Now, does that change my feelings about the book? Well…yes, I think it does, a bit. —This unsigned comment was added by Ian Spackman (talk • contribs) 21 March 2006.
:According to http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leptailurus_serval, the Italian for Serval is serval or servalo. That article has a section about this book, which says
:
:which means
:
:So it's a generic term, but clearly refers to a serval in this title. Now, in the English article, there's a note saying
:
:This is guesswork, and basing such guesses on deconstructing the word is unsound. I've therefore deleted that footnote. --Stfg (talk) 21:30, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Two remarks. Firstly, "gattopardo" is an old fashioned name for serval, a heraldic term, more than a scientific one; and few Italians know which animal the "gattopardo" really is.Secondly, "pardo" is not only the leopard (lion+pardus), but every spotted feline, for instance also the "ghepardo" (English "cheetah", French "guépard"). So, a literal English translation would be "catpard": it would express what  the Italian word sounds like: a mysterious name, made up with two well-known words, something archaic and old-fashioned, whose meaning had faded away, like aristocracy. Lele giannoni (talk) 21:40, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  English version of the title: a trivium 

message: What is meant by "They thought themselves eternal," narration writes, "but a bomb manufactured in Pittsburgh Penn[sylvania] was to prove the contrary in 1943." Does "they" refer to the palace (rooms) or the people (young men, older men, girls)? I don't really understand it. Mallerd (talk) 18:51, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I have failed to find this sentence in the ball chapter (Colquhoun's translation); perhaps it has strayed from somewhere else in the book. The author's palace was destroyed during the Allied invasion of Sicily so perhaps Palermo was bombed at that time.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 11:50, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I recall this line from when I read the novel many years ago.  It does occur in the Ball.  The "They" in question are the gods and goddesses depicted in the frescoes of the ceiling showing scenes from mythology.  The bomb dropped during the war would have wrought such damage to the room that the frescoes were obliterated.  In my opinion, an alert reader would have no trouble understanding it in context, but if clarification is indeed needed, you could always replace "They" with a parenthetical (The mythological gods and goddesses). --Anonymous  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.47.174.65 (talk) 20:31, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Ball 

message: I propose to make some changes to The_Leopard. I want to add a reference to the Themes section; delete the current Characters in the Leopard Section; and add the Locations, Historical Characters, and Fictional Characters sections found in User:Rjmorra/LeopardEdits. Any problems with this?
Rjmorra 21:13, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  First attempt at editing Wikipedia 

message: I think the reference to "democracy" is excessive. In fact the regime introduced by the House of Savoy with the Albertine Statute was a parlamentarian rule, typical of XIXth century liberalism, when the right of vote was given only to a little minority, the bourgeoisie. Therefore, I think the world "liberalism" would be better.  Lele giannoni (talk) 21:13, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Democracy

message: I checked my translated copy of the novel, and it seems like Paolo the Duke of Querceta is the Prince of Salina's eldest son and heir, and that Francesco Paolo is another, younger son of the Prince. Is this the case in the original Italian version? The character list here gives Francesco Paolo as the name of the Prince's heir. 72.76.50.11 (talk) 04:52, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Duke's eldest son, Paolo or Francesco Paolo?  

message: The article currently reads, in part, "But after the Lampedusa palace near Palermo was bombed and pillaged during the Allied invasion of Sicily, Tomasi sank into a lengthy depression. To combat his feelings he  began to write Il Gattopardo." There is no citation for this. Given that the palace was bombed in 1943 and he began the novel over a decade later, this seems to me to be absolutely incorrect. - Jmabel | Talk 21:56, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: It's been about a week, with no response, so I've replaced this in the article. - Jmabel | Talk 02:51, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Depression and writing 

message: From the article: "Even the first attempt at its publishing failed when Lampedusa was told by an Italian editor that 'his novel is unpublishable.'" This is vague, uncited, and I think almost certainly wrong. Since it doesn't say what editor or publisher, it's a bit hard to refute, but according to David Gilmour's  he submitted it two two publishers (and, through Francesco Orlando, one agent) in his lifetime. The agent ultimately placed the book with a publisher so she could not have said this. If the first publisher with whom he tried to place it, Mondadori, said it was "unpublishable" it would only have been that they thought it was unfinished: he had sent them a draft that was roughly half the length of the current book, followed later by two more chapters. Gilmour quotes their rejection letter as turning it down
with intense regret…The book has interested us a lot, and has had more than one reading. Nevertheless, the opinions of our advisers, though favorable, were not without reservations, and for that reason, bearing in mind our current burdensome commitments, we have come to the decision that it is not possible for us to publish the book.
Further correspondence clarified that they would consider a revised version, though Tomasi never sent them one. (Gilmour 1988, p.141)
The other publisher he sent it to was Elio Vittorini, for Eunadi. Gilmour writes:
…his explanatory letter…found the novel "very serious and honest"…although its tone and language were "rather old-fashioned": its principle problem, though, was that it was "essayish" and unbalanced. Vittorini then gave some examples of its essayishness and ended up by saying he could accept no more novels for Einuadi's Gettoni series for at least four years. (Gilmour 1988, p.151)
Again, that is a long way from "unpublishable." So where does that come from? - Jmabel | Talk 23:31, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: It's been a week without any response so I've removed the phrase I objected to. - Jmabel | Talk 02:54, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Unpublishable"