Letters from London and Europe by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa: book review

Letters from London and Europe (English edition 2006) is a series of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s correspondences, originally in French and Italian, from 1925 to 1930.

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1896-1957) was an Italian writer, famous for his only novel, Il Gattopardo – The Leopard (1956, published posthumously in 1958), and the 1963 film of the book directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, and Claudia Cardinale.

His letters were written, while travelling for summer holidays on his own in his early 30s, predominantly to two brothers, Casimiro (1984-1970) and Lucio Piccolo (1901-1969), and their sister Agata Giovanna (1891-1974).

There are 29 letters: one in July 1925; 17 from July-November 1927; six from June-August 1928; two in May 1929; and three in August 1930. In the Appendix are assorted postcards and miscellaneous correspondence.

The edition commences with a letter from Paris in July 1925. It is a magnificent beginning. ‘I have seen Raniero the Magician play mah-jong, I have seen the swans which cleave the velvety waters of the Lake of Love in Bruges; I have seen Picadilly at midday and Montmarte at midnight; I have seen Michelangelo’s Moses and I have heard Masnata talk about antiquity; I have breakfasted more than once with Pirandello and I have conversed with Raimondo Arenella; I have seen the beauty of the Princess Yolanda and the ugliness of her husband …’

From 1927, as he travels the English countryside, he writes in the third person, as Monster, and almost always on hotel letterhead: ‘Now the Monster realizes why England, popularly believed to be preoccupied with selling coal and launching battleships, has produced the most sublime poets of European literature.’

He writes about porcelain (tea cups and saucers) and English food, especially cheese: ‘… sinking a greedy spoon into the supplies of the lordly cheeses of Chester, rosy as onyx, or Stilton, green as aquamarine, or Cheddar, transparent and amber-coloured.’ He writes of staying in the Falstaff room of the Shakespeare Hotel in Stratford-upon-Avon.

It is his descriptions of films and movie theatres that are most interesting. Films in 1927 ‘were accompanied by ingenious instruments that imitate noises, especially effective for stormy seas and rain.’ The first feature film in the world in which people spoke (a talkie) was the Jazz Singer in October 1927. Giuseppe does not see it, but he sees Movietone, a talkie, in 1928 in England: ‘I do not understand why they do not speak more about this, since it provides the answer to cinematography with speech. This is the only way films are produced from real life. And the military reviews with their music in motion, the rhythm of the steps, the roar of the cannon, the sound of the commands and the applause of the crowd are rendered quite perfectly … But the most beautiful of all is a scene on the Welsh coast in which the throbbing of the sea, the crashing of the foam, the whistle of the wind and the cries of the innumerable seagulls were rendered admirably. It is of course a system for the simultaneous recording of sounds and pictures on one machine.’

He describes the heat of an English summer in July 1928 – a heatwave of 10 days. ‘The sun shines for sixteen hours a day … of course many fine Englishmen are dying, whether from the heat or from surprise is not known.’ In Berlin in August 1930 ‘the Monster has mastered some noble and very useful arts – typewriting and dancing.’ In one restaurant he finds spaghetti on the menu: ‘The Monster has eaten excellent spaghetti with ham in a Lithuanian restaurant between Riga and the Soviet frontier. Spaghetti is now international: Laus nobis! [Latin for Thanks to us !].

He notes the rising popularity of the radio in 1930, once used only by aristocrats and now heard by almost everyone, but ‘it’s also worth observing that Radio has in no way replaced orchestras in the cafes.’

The letters are entertaining, interesting, amusing, and historical, showing his extreme attention to detail and to the senses: touch, taste, hearing, speech, and smell. He is observant of landscapes, hotels, people, food, and animals – even a cat crossing a busy London street. His letters show his vast knowledge of English literature, especially Shakespeare, Dickens, and the Romantic poets, and his fascination with the English countryside. Above all, they are testament to his creative style and literary talent, and the forerunners to his critically acclaimed and universally recognized novel, The Leopard – an international bestseller.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).