Novel
The House by the Medlar Tree
I Malavoglia
Giovanni Verga · 1881
Opening lines
Un tempo i Malavoglia erano stati numerosi come i sassi della strada vecchia di Trezza; ce n’erano persino ad Ognina, e ad Aci Castello, tutti buona e brava gente di mare, proprio all’opposto di quel che sembrava dal nomignolo, come dev’essere.
There was a time when the Malavoglia had been as numerous as the stones on the old Trezza road; there were some even at Ognina and at Aci Castello, all good, honest seafaring folk, quite the opposite of what their nickname would suggest, as is only right.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from it.wikisource.org
Synopsis
In Aci Trezza, a fishing village near Catania, the Toscano family, nicknamed the Malavoglia, lives off its boat, the Provvidenza, under the authority of old patron 'Ntoni. When his grandson 'Ntoni leaves for military service, in 1863, the grandfather, to make up for the missing hands, buys on credit a cargo of lupins to resell. But the storm swallows the boat, the cargo and Bastianazzo, the patron's son, and leaves the family in debt.
Context
The novel appeared in 1881 and opened the cycle of the “Vanquished”, whose second volume, “Mastro-don Gesualdo”, appeared in 1889. The action begins in 1863, in a Sicily recently annexed to the Kingdom of Italy. Maurice Darmon produced the French translation at Gallimard, in Folio, in 1997; in English, the book appeared under the title “The House by the Medlar Tree”, translated notably by Raymond Rosenthal in 1964 and by Judith Landry in 1985.
Who it is for
A novel carried by the voices of the village, which demands some attention to its many characters and their nicknames.
Prizes and reception
In 1948 Luchino Visconti drew from it his film “La terre tremble”.