Talk:The Leopard

Quotation

"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)

Well, I found the source for "If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change." Translation by Archibald Colquhoun, Pantheon, 1960, p.40. (Library of Congress number 60-6794, this predates ISBNs. Same translation and pagination later re-issued as ISBN 0-394-74949-9, Random House, 1982.) Someone could have spared me 15 minutes by citing in the first place. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:15, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

I don't have an Italian-lanaguage copy handy to cite page number, but the original of the quotation is "Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga com'è bisogna che tutto cambi" according to this site that carefully compares the film to the book (I'll add that as an external link, great stuff. I still think the other translation is more felicitous, because it picks up the "tutto/tutto". Does anyone know where it comes from (other than being lots of places on the web)? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:42, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

• If we're going for a literal translation, it should be something like, "If we want everything to remain as it is, it is necessary that everything change," or, "... everything must change." It's a question of whether we want an accurate translation of the phrase or whether we want to include the quote as it most often appears in English versions of the novel. | Klaw 18:52, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
  • The first is certainly quite literal. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:32, September 10, 2005 (UTC)
  • Colquhoun's seems to be the only widely printed translation, FWIW. -- Jmabel | Talk
    • Well, Colquhoun's is clumsy, but I'm comfortable with using it given that it's the one a user is most likely to find in his copy of the book. (Not to mention the fact that if we go with something else, we'll have a steady stream of users changing the quotation in the article to match what's in their copies.) | Klaw 17:07, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
      • Yup. From what I've been able to read of it, Lampedusa's original is beautifully written. Colquhoun's translation isn't awful, but it sure could be better. But it's what we've got, let's use it. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:46, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Italian original: "Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga come e', bisogna che tutto cambi." Literal translation (as literal as I can): "If we want that everything remains the way it is, everything must change." It seems that nobody is interested in learning a bit of Italian these days.93.40.71.206 (talk) 14:42, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

English version of the title: a trivium

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

Nel romanzo Il gattopardo di Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, lo stemma di famiglia dei Tomasi è un serval; l'autore vi si riferisce con il termine generico "gattopardo", che indica i grossi gatti selvatici come il serval, il caracal o l'ocelot. Nel caso specifico, l'identificazione con il serval è piuttosto evidente, essendo tale felino l'unico "gattopardo" diffuso sulla costa mediterranea del Nordafrica (incluso il tratto di costa antistante Lampedusa).

which means

In the novel Il gattopardo by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, the Tomasi family crest is a serval; here, the author refers to the generic term "gattopardo", which indicates large wild cats like the serval, the caracal or the ocelot. In this case, identifying it with the serval is rather obvious, this feline being the only "gattopardo" present on the mediterranean coast of north Africa (including the section of coast facing Lampedusa).

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

But in Italian, il gatto is translating as the cat, and other part of the same word, il pardo, clearly is the leopard (see Italian-English dictionary)

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)

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)

The Ball

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)

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)

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)

First attempt at editing Wikipedia

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) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rjmorra (talk • contribs)

Democracy

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)

The Duke's eldest son, Paolo or Francesco Paolo?

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)

Depression and writing

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)

I see that MrDarcy who wrote this in the first draft of the present article (after distinguishing this from the film) is still at least somewhat active on Wikipedia, so he may have something to say about it. I'll give him a chance to respond before I edit anything. - Jmabel | Talk 22:02, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

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)

"Unpublishable"

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 The Last Leopard (Q120066204) 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)

Looks like it was added in this edit by User:Vega2 who last edited Wikipedia in 2021 and doesn't accept emails from other users. - Jmabel | Talk 23:38, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

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)