Review: Letters from London and Europe – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa was a Sicilian aristocrat who wrote only one novel, The Leopard (surely a 20th century classic, reviewed by me here), and even that was published one year after his death (he died in 1957).  However, The Leopard has now sold over three million copies, and is a set-text on many literature courses.  Clearly the Prince of Lampedusa, Duke of Palma did something right!

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa was a shy and reticent man who spoke little and people who knew him were surprised at how erudite he became in his writing.  He married a Latvian woman who he lived apart from for a large part of their marriage (in large part because of difficulties between his mother and his new wife), but with whom he had a rich and lengthy written correspondence (about 400 letters still survive).

In view of di Lampedusa’s history it is difficult to understand how he managed to write The Leopard, the story of what might be called a full-blooded alpha male of expansive appetites.  However, a useful short article in Best of Sicily magazine, shows that di Lampedusa gained a wide experience of life through his army service, his experience of political instability and subsequent travels.

We have Elisabetta Minervini and her colleagues at Alma Books to thank for this new volume of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s Letters from London and Europe, a labour of love indeed.  The Alma blog Bloggerel, reported in September that the book was,

a project that has kept me busy, and at times sleepless, over the past couple of months. It’s going to be a gem of a volume, full of unpublished texts and photographs, printed on Arctic paper to the highest standards

and there is no doubt that this volume has fulfilled every expectation, not least in the design and production values which are superb.  It will be essential reading for those who wish to know more about the author of The Leopard.

Most of the letters in this book are addressed to the Piccolo cousins, Casimiro and Lucio, and were written between 1925 and 1930, a period of time when Lampedusa travelled extensively in Britain and Europe.  In his introduction to the book, Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi writes, “they are composed in the same sparkling style as their conversation”.

The letters themselves show the same under-stated humour as Lampedusa brought to The Leopard. It quickly becomes evident that Lampedusa loved Britain and all things British, and he seems to be at his best when exploring London on foot and delving into the nooks and crannies of English towns, even appreciating the food (commenting for example on the Waverley Tart which he found in Edinburgh – composed of a light pâte brisée, dry cream, almond pasted, slices of candied apricot and rasins – is it still available I wonder?).

As a wealthy aristocrat, Lampedusa had access to the best hotels and clubs, but coming from Sicily he could not fail to be impressed by the best that London had to offer:

The omnibuses do not profane it (Pall Mall) with their menial wheels – few shops and all of them men’s shops: shotguns at a hundred pounds each; fishing rods and harpoons for whaling; various liquors; cigars ten shillings each . . .

He finds himself seated for lunch between Shaftesbury, the host, and the Duke of Marlborough, but when he looks at the clothes of his fellow diners and compares them to his own he wonders why his tailor “does not work instead as a blacksmith, for which he may well have a real bent”.

His travels through “Old England” seem to be rather more relaxing.  Avoiding the big cities, he travels to Cambridge and Lincoln (where he stays in a family hotel and is served “refined and rare dishes” (where on earth did this country gain its reputation for terrible cooking?).  The countryside is enchanting: “meadows with herds of cattle, lazy brimful rivers, gorgeous hills – a real pastoral scene from Sir Philip Sidney”.

Allow me to comment one more time on Lampedusa’s appreciation for English food.  Page 30 lists a whole catalogue of culinary delights including, “the lordly cheeses of Chester, rosy as onyx, or Stilton, green as aquamarine, or Cheddar, transparent and amber coloured.  Whole cheeses are brought to the table and the dilettante digs into the tasty recesses, rummages in them with a horn spoon and tries them out”.

In Stratford on Avon, Lampedusa is struck by the “remarkable and divine gentleness of the countryside”.  He has in the moonlight “gone through the woods along the swollen and yet peaceful river”, seeing, “silvery reflections on the waters, the rustling of squirrels among the leaves, the distant bleating of sheep”.  This is a man who fell in love with England and could have written the perfect travel brochure for a wealthy 1920s wanderer.

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

We travel with Lampedusa through France and Switzerland and can only envy him for the wealth and leisure that enabled him to do this in such style.  We read of Berlin, Stomersee and Marienburg and then of a journey across half of Latvia, leaving Berlin by train at 9.30 and arriving at Riga the following day at 7.00 (no a.m. or p.m is stated unfortunately).  I can’t miss the references to food – there are so many  – “certain Russian delicacies of duck, celery and puff pastry”.

He comments on the German innovation of radio and writes that shops selling this invention are about “as abundant in Germany as tobacconists with us”.  But radio has not replaced orchestras in the cafés:  “Every café has its orchestra, always good, often numerous; quite a few premises on several floors have two or three”. While culture abounds in Berlin, so does “indecency” – “nude magazines on sale at every corner! And they are not artistic”.

It is fascinating to travel with Lampedusa around 1920s Europe.  He takes an almost childlike delight in everything he sees, sharing his experiences enthusiastically with his readers.  Travel in that period had obviously become a very pleasant experience of the wealthy, with good quality transport, excellent hotels and superb restaurants.  Lampedusa’s experiences were by no means typical of the era for the reader knows what life was like for the less-favoured population during that troubled era.  We can perhaps forgive Lampedusa his failure to explore less appealing scenes a short way from his path in view of the difficulties of his own life and his towering achievement in bringing Don Fabrizio to life in The Leopard.

The book is illustrated by two sections of photographs, which supplement the text beautifully, including both photographs of the people referred to in the book together (with various photographs of Lampedusa) and also a number of photographs taken by Lampedusa himself of scenes such as Hampton Court, Picadilly Circus and St James Park.  A very useful 16 page biographical note at the end of the book provides more information about Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and the publication of The Leopard than I managed to find on the Internet.

The image of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa is taken from from Wikipedia – for copyright information click here

Other reviews:

Julian Barnes in The Guardian
Thomas Jones in The Daily Telegraph
Boyd Tonkin in The Independent