Others counsel death before a failure of duty or courage but Don Abbondio is all-too-human in his fear. He also sets Don Abbondio’s self-interest against the customs of the day, where the rich and powerful could get their way and could punish those who opposed them with impunity. However, Manzoni spends many pages describing his inner conflicts and fears, with some occasional guilt and shame. In a book full of conversions, with many portraits of benevolent religious figures, he remains a rather unsympathetic one. He’s a coward who is mostly concerned with his own self-preservation. The other characters are more interesting however – one being Don Abbondio. Renzo and Lucia stay pretty much the same throughout the book and are simple characters – Lucia is often found crying, fainting and praying and Renzo is frequently hot-headed and naïve. Renzo has a promising job, Lucia’s mother likes him – everything seems fine until the parish priest, Don Abbondio, is threatened to prevent him from marrying them. Sometimes the descriptions of political wrangling gets a little dense (and I wished my copy, by Penguin, had more notes) but overall this is a fantastic read.Lucia and Renzo are simple peasants, happily engaged and living in a small village near the town of Lecco. The omniscient narrator presents the story as his modernization of a true tale and this gives rise to some comic bits – like the opening forward, which starts out old-fashioned, pompous and flowery before the narrator cuts it off and says he’ll tell the story in straightforward language.
However, the genius of the piece is in Manzoni’s lovingly described and lengthy portraits of the side characters, his epic depictions of historical events in the 1620’s and the nicely done background setting of an unjust society. The main plot follows two young lovers, Lucia and Renzo, who are prevented from marrying by the despotic local nobleman, Don Rodrigo. Italian historical novel – is a thoroughly entertaining and wonderfully detailed story.
0 kommentar(er)
