Check the captions–I’ve added clues.  And here’s an additional photo for #3.

Reconstruction work makes it easier to see the beautiful form of this castle designed by a King.

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It has been quite a month.

• 19 people won a total of 22 books or DVDs in the “daily” drawings.
• 14 people started e-mail subscriptions to A Traveler’s Library.
• 2 people won Grand Prize Packages–And HERE THEY ARE:

January Grand Prize Winners

1.  Shawshank Redemption Package: Connie Ong, who blogs thoughtfully about her life at Unbirthday Escapades, is a movie fan and we hope she’ll get to take advantage of the free tour of the Ohio Reformatory where the movie Shawshank Redemption was filmed.

We thank the Mansfield, Ohio Convention and Visitor’s Bureau for providing a coffee mug, the tour tickets, and a movie poster. A Traveler’s Library added a carry bag (that was a gift from Mansfield) and a t-shirt that we bought while on a press tour sponsored by Mansfield.

2. A Pair of OKAb Shoes: Cathy Sweeney, who blogs about travel at her photo-filled blog Traveling With Sweeney, is picking a pair of these terrific shoes, that are just right for travel.

We thank the OKA b shoe company for their generous contribution of a pair of shoes of the winners choice.  You can see their wide selection at the OKA b web site.

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Destination: Ohio, 1842

Book: American Notes by Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

It would be quite unthinkable to let this month pass without paying homage to the 2nd centenary of one of our greatest and most popular writers–Charles Dickens, born February, 1812 (probably February 7). I’ve been dipping into some Dickens’ travel writing to supplement my scanty knowledge of his novels. (I did love Bleak House, and we all know The Christmas Carol, of course.) And the travel writing is lively, detailed, and very funny in places.

I could hardly believe my good fortune to come across this photograph recently when I was in Ohio:

Dickens Drank Here, Picture from Wyandot County Courthouse, Ohio

The Golden Lamb Inn, Lebanon, Ohio

I snapped the  picture above when I was on a completely different mission–following the Shawshank Trail, and in the course of that visit, went to Upper Sandusky, Ohio, where Dickens apparently stopped for a drink.  He did not have such good luck at The Golden Lamb in Lebanon Ohio, where, he complained in a letter to a friend,” they are teetotalers” and he could not get a brandy.  The Golden Lamb, by the way still serves dinner in Lebanon (including drinks in their tavern)  and I love stopping there.

Why am  talking about Ohio on the 200th birthday of this famous ENGLISH writer.  Well, you see, when he was barely 30 years old, Charles Dickens, already becoming a well-known author, took a trip to America. (PBS has info about a TV series on Dickens travels in America. He first traveled through many states, including Ohio.)  It was 1842 and travel to America was so popular among adventurous Europeans that (my Penguin Kindle edition of Dickens’ American Notes: For General Circulation informs me) there were more than 200 guidebooks that had  been written to the wild country. Not only was it fashionable to travel to America, but it was most fashionable to criticize the country–mainly for slavery, but also for its woeful journalism.  Dickens dived enthusiastically into both, and American Notes is more DeTocqueville with a sour face than “America on 5 pence a day”. The trip also led to the publication of  Martin Chuzzlewit.  He revisited America in 1867-1868, and appended many of his critical observations and remarks from his first trip, softening American Notes in the new edition.

Dickens, whose early life story was dreary to say the least, came naturally by his subject matter of poverty and abused women and children.  And, despite his enjoyment of entertainment and a drink, he was a serious young man who spent much of his trip to America campaigning for stricter copyright laws and inspecting prisons and welfare institutions. A few years later, after slaves were freed, he appended his book to allow that America could, after all, become a civilized country.

American Notes presents a  snapshot of what life looked like in the United States before the Civil War, and reminds us of how remote the far western reaches–like Ohio–still were. Dickens talked to some Wyandot Indians in Ohio a year before they were forced to leave the Ohio for Kansas. This quote is from American Notes.  Plan a road trip to Ohio, and you can visit the restored Johnston Farm and Indian Agency .

“It is a settlement of the Wyandot Indians who inhabit this place. Among the company at breakfast was a mild old gentleman (John Johnston), who had been for many year employed by the United State Government in conducting negotiation with the Indians, and who had just concluded a treaty with these people by which they bound themselves, in consideration of a certain annual sum, to remove next year to some land provided for them, west of the Mississippi and a little way beyond St. Louis. He gave me a moving account of their strong attachment to the familiar scenes of their infancy, and in particular to the burial places of their kindred: and of the great reluctance to leave them. He had witnessed many such removals, and always with pain, though he knew that they departed for their own good. The question whether this tribe should go or stay had been discussed among them a day or two before, in a hut erected for the purpose, the logs of which still lay upon the before the inn. When the speaking was done, the ayes and noes were ranged on opposite sides, and every male adult voted in his turn. The moment the result was known, the minority (a large one) cheerfully yielded to the rest, and withdrew all kind of opposition. “

Two years later, Dickens went to Italy for a year (with stops in France and Switzerland). His daily dispatches, plus the fact that he was hosted on his trips makes him sound like today’s travel bloggers.  That trip resulted in Pictures from Italy, and I’ll talk about the delights of his views of Italy at a later time. The following year, the family went back to Switzerland to settle in for a year and he got back to writing novels and apparently never wrote up his travels there.

You can read the entire Dickens works for free in several places on line.

A note from Naxos Audio Books about more Dickens availability:

NAB has produced a series of Dickens podcasts. Simply download our special Dickens podcasts, which include introductions to and excerpts from the books, meet the readers of our Dickens series, or click on a cover for more information, booklet notes, reviews, audio samples, and to buy any title from the Naxos AudioBooks Download Shop.

You can also find out what Dickens 2012 events are taking place near you by visiting the Events Calendar at the official Dickens bicentenary website: www.dickens2012.org.

I read American Notes in the Penquin edition on my Free Kindle App for PC and the book cost less than a dollar. I have included links here to Amazon for your convenience, but you should know that I am an Amazon affiliate, so although it costs you no more to enter their store from A Traveler’s Library, I do make a few cents when you purchase anything. The photograph from the Johnston Indian Agency is mine, but the other photos are from Flickr, used with Creative Commons License. Click on those photos for more information.

What have you read by Dickens? Ever read his travel literature?

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

WHO??
Still sticking with the windows and doors theme — kinda. I was going to tell a little story about each of these places, but instead I decided to torment you. Who do you think lived in each of these places? You could read about all of these people some time in the last 3 years at A Traveler’s Library. (Sorry, I’m fresh out of prizes after that gigantic January Giveaway. It’s all for the glory of competing with other readers.) And just to keep you honest, I’m not letting you see comments with guesses/answers until next Monday.

He lived in exile on an island for a while, too. No, not Napoleon, but you're right that it is in France. A writer who loved Paris, and particularly a cathedral. One reader named him correctly.

Yep, that's me in the window, but I"m not the famous person who lived here. One reader knew what artist loved these gardens.

Trick question because although he designed it, he may not have actually ever lived in it. Called a Chateau but looks like a castle to me.

Same place as the one above. If he DID live there, this would have been the view. A well-known river. The river is the Seine, although you probably think of this Crusader as being English.

Architectural hints: Portico and "eyebrow" rescued from older houses in Ohio. Indian god over door indicates his earlier travels and a novel and movie he wrote. I've written about the author/farmer who lived here, and one reader remembered.

If you can identify the flowers, that will help. One reader from Texas named this house.

Most people mispronounce the name of the New England town this house is located in. One reader recognizes this Presidential birthplace.

Okay, enough torture for today.  Try to name all six famous people, and I’ll let you know how you did compared to the other people who tried. (If you are reading this in your e-mail, you’ll have to click on the title and go to the web to comment.)

This is my entry in Travel Photo Thursday.  To see photos from around the world, go to Budget Travelers’ Sandbox.  All photos are my property and I request that you not reuse them without express permission.  Thanks.

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Book: White Truffles in Winter (a novel) by N. M. Kelby

This fictionalized biography of the great French chef, Auguste Escoffier– White Truffles in Winter  – is delicious, scandalous, lascivious, luscious…

The writing is lush. The author, N. M. Kelby,  paints the portrait of a man obsessed with luscious food and delicious women.  But not just any food–Escoffier prefers dishes prepared with special ingredients. And not just any women.  He marries and has children with a poet–Delphine Daffis, but they live apart for decades during which he carries on a love affair with actress Sarah Bernhardt. He sees her when she is not busy bedding various heads of state and other prominent citizens.  At the end, Auguste and Delphine come back together in Monte Carlo and that is where the book starts, as it tells the story of his life in flashbacks and contemplates his life. Underneath the romance and the food, White Truffles in Winter  explores living well,  aging, memory, and how to adequately show love.

Modern Monte Carlo

Auguste Escoffier himself narrates most of the novel and after hearing him enthuse about the poetry and sacredness of food, we begin to believe wholeheartedly in the power and the glory of a properly prepared meal. Today we credit Escoffier with inventing modern restaurant kitchen methods (dividing the work among specialized stations) and serving styles (as menus à la carte).

He wooed women with his cooking, he wrote cookbooks, and when he needed some luxurious extras, he ordered them on the hotel account and cooked the books. The details of this novel, set in Paris, London and Monte Carlo are not literally correct, but it reflects the basic outline of Escoffier’s life. As the author says, “The elegant savage found in these pages is who we all are when we address the plate.  The magician, the priest, the dreamer, the artist–it is our most hungry self.”

The “King of chefs and chef to kings”  moved from a Paris restaurant to the  Savoy in London and with his friend César Ritz, started the Carlton in London and Ritz Hotel in Paris, thus beginning the Ritz-Carlton tradition. Escoffier also headed the kitchen preparations for the Titanic and drew up the menus, but fortunately for him, let his crew sail without him.

Hotel Ritz, Paris, today

The delight of this novel lies in the dialogue and actions that are consistently believable no matter how remote the life of Mme. and M. Escoffier may be from our own reality.  Occasionally he touches down to earth–with memories of the horrible days of starvation during World War I, which the author intimates were the basis for his obsessions with food.  And with the recipe for Fried Chicken.  Don’t get me wrong, White Truffles is not a cookbook.  However Kelby describes many of Escoffier’s creations in such detail that you could recreate them in your kitchen (if only you had a few truffles on hand).

Auguste explains that fried chicken blends Scottish and African traditions. He learned to make it from Rufus Estes, a famous American black chef of the day who worked for Sarah Bernhardt .  Sarah calls Auguste’s  version, “Magic.” How different in spirit is his version from Paula Deen (who has her own problems these days.)( NOTE: I belatedly discovered that Kelby herself has something to say on the subject of Deen at her blog” At Escoffier’s Table)

Back to the fried chicken, Escoffier says:

Cut some boiled fowl into slices and marinate them in very good olive oil, the juice of a lemon and a handful of herbs fresh from the garden.  I enjoy tarragon, for a hint of licorice; lemon thyme, to bring forward the citrus note; and the slightest bit of lavender.  The fowl should marinate for at least three hours.  Flour. Fry. Garnish with fried parsley.

The cooking advice is not always so straightforward.  In explaining another poultry dish, Escoffier says, “…find a good-sized pullet.  You must be very careful with the size of the fatted chicen…You will know it when you see it.  Your heart will leap.”  This “good-sized pullet” is for a dish that “will require the maître d’hôtel, three waiters (at the very least) and a portable stovetop.”

The author has absorbed and reflects Escoffier’s fascination with everything about food.  ”Food is never as simple as one thinks it is.  It is much more dangerous–seducing completely,” he says. In the  novel’s description of settings–in this bygone era that only the super rich might come close to experiencing in the 21st century–the words are also electric.  When Escoffier goes to Belle Île to meet Sarah Bernhardt (ah, yes, the same wonderful island visited in  P.O. Box Love ) :

“…he could see what a painter en plein aire would see, what Monet had seen as he desperately held his canvas so that the insistent wind would not hurl his easel into the sea–the blue with shutters of green, all set in sharp relief against the bones of jagged steep cliffs, the gray-green sea and the coal smoke sky.  The colors were so intense he nearly wept.”

The publishers, W. W. Norton and Company, have equaled the lushness of N. M. Kelby’s writing with fine scrolling graphics at chapter heads, a sensuous cover picture and a jacket cover that feels as soft and smooth as skin.

One last food reference from White Truffles in Winter. As he feeds a “perfect scallop” to Delphine early in their marriage:

“Close your eyes,” he had said to her. “food demands complete submission.” “Do you taste the sea?”

Delphine did. Not just the salt of the sea but the very air of the moment that the shell was pulled from the sand. “A storm, perhaps. There is a dark edge to the sweetness of the meat.  What do you taste?”

“The hand of God”

Reading Escoffier:

Ma Cuisine A cookbook for people who already know how to cook, despite being titled for the housewife. No cooking temperatures and times, for example.

Auguste Escoffier: Memories of My Life This is his version of his life and it is the book he is writing during the novel, White Truffles in Winter.

Disclaimers: Links from book titles to Amazon are for your convenience, but they are affiliate links, which means that anything you buy while you are there earns a bit for A Traveler’s Library. Please do help us out that way! Thanks.  The photos here come from Flickr with Creative Commons license and you can learn more by clicking on each photo.

And what are your own feelings about food? Have you had experiences where food transported you–where it became much more than simple fuel for the body?

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Destinations: Milan, New York City and Brittany in France

Book: P.O. Box Love: A Novel of Letters (originally 2009, but NEW in English– February 2012) by Paola Calvetti

I reviewed this delicious new romance in e-book format, and as I read P.O. Box Love, I used the bookmark function on my Sony reader to mark favorite passages (there were so many!) and to make a list of people for whom I want to buy the book (there were so many!) If you get the impression that I am recommending this gem to lovers of travel and lovers of literature, you have guessed correctly

The Belle Ile Love Nest

If you have ever been tempted to look up an old girlfriend or boyfriend, you will sympathize with Frederico. If you have doubts about revealing yourself to someone from your past, you’ll understand Emma. Did you ever have the urge to open a bookstore? You’ll love Dreams & Desires, Emma’s bookstore in Milan that specializes in romance. Paola Calvetti, the Italian author, agreed to answer some questions for readers of A Traveler’s Library, and in my first question, I get at one of the reasons this book stands apart. P.O. Box Love blows apart the assumption that romance ends at 35 or so.

A Traveler’s Library:  How did the protagonists’ age change your task as a romance writer? 

Menhir Jean, Belle Ile, Brittany

PC: The way I found Belle Île was really strange and… tied to the destiny of the book. I was in Concarneau; it was a cloudy afternoon and I was visiting its historical monuments, having a cup of tea and wandering in the alleyways. I happened to enter an ancient bookstore run by an old bookseller selling second-hand books. I asked him “do you have any books about Breton legends or rather a love legend?” “Of course”, he answered, the great story of Jean and Jeanne!”

There are literary quotations in abundance throughout P.O. Box Love. Emma ironically quotes Virginia Woolf,” how very little natural gift words have for being useful.” A sign on the wall of the store says “The only advice you can give someone about reading is not to accept any advice…” But we asked advice anyhow– for books that inspire travel.   Paola echoed the beliefs of A Traveler’s Library.

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

The Ohio State Reformatory

Exciting news, particularly for Shawshank Redemption fans.  The Mansfield Ohio Convention and Visitor’s Bureau has decided to sweeten the pot with additional Shawshank prizes. You can shop for Shawshank souvenirs and your purchases will help save the movie’s famous Oak tree.

Now the Shawshank package includes:

• A fan t-shirt
• A carry bag
• Two Tickets to the Ohio State Reformatory where the movie was filmed
• A coffee mug
• A movie poster

Total estimated Value: $78.00

AND

Oka b Shoes

Another winner will get his or her choice of OKA b shoes, which range in price from $20 to $40. And they DO have men’s styles!!

ENTER before Feburary 1

• by commenting,
• tweeting @pen4hire,
• mentioning Vera Marie Badertscher on Google+ or,
• best bet–subscribe by e-mail to A Traveler’s Library.

If you already subscribe, just tell me that in an e-mail (if you have not done so already). Everyone is eligible for one of these prizes–even if you have won a daily prize. All entries throughout the month of January will be counted. See complete rules here.

See Who Won

January Winners so far are listed here.

Well this is embarassing!

I listed the wrong prize to go with the Friday post. I have now corrected the prize listing, and you have until 3:00 a.m. Monday morning to take action.

This is the next to last daily prize. Monday is the final daily prize.

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

APOLOGIES–I listed the wrong giveaway book for today.Have now corrected the mistake. Enter by Monday, Jan. 30 for this prize and chance at Grand Prizes. See below for details.

Destination: Sicily

Book: The Honoured Society: The Sicilian Mafia Observed, by Norman Lewis (Original-1964 with postscript added in 1984; reviewed edition 2003.)

If you were playing word-association, Sicily-Mafia might be your first reaction.  The Honoured Society  seems to me to be a perfect addition to a library of travel literature– if you read it along with Seeking Sicily– to understand that region of Italy. You will find many of the same themes in the two books.

Norman Lewis is best known as an outstanding travel writer. (See my review of Naples ’44). But his first wife was Swiss-Sicilian, and her father, an exile from Sicily, belonged to the Mafia. Thus began Lewis’ interest in the honoured society. His book benefits from personal experience and meticulous research in addition to Lewis’ skills as a wordsmith. Think how much he enhances the following paragraph, which could have been a dry list of facts.

“In this world one occasionally stumbles upon a place which, in the physical presence, and the atmosphere it distills, manages somehow to match its reputation for sinister happenings.  Such a town is Corleone.  A Total of 153 murders took place between 1944 and 1948 alone.” (This in a town of 18,000.)

Like John Keahey, in Seeking Sicily, Lewis traces the characteristics of Sicilian history back through its many conquerors.

Like Keahey, Lewis says, “Sicily is not Italy.”  He goes on, “nor–with the exception of the spas, the palms, and the mimosas of its eastern seaboard–is it even recognizably a Mediterranean country.”

Although the Mafia’s first appearance may not be clearly marked in a timeline of history, there is no question that the Spanish Inquisition, while Sicily sat under the thumb of Spain, played a large part. Since the Inquisition not only punished, but confiscated property, the aristocrats enthusiastically joined the Inquisition, both to enrich themselves and to protect their property. For 300 years, in the 15th-18th centuries, property was taken in this way.  The Mafia became the protector of the poor by the only avenue open to them–vendetta.

Part of the delight of reading Lewis lies in his ability to make amazing and detailed connections. He traces the fatalism and vendettas of the Sicilian culture back to African tribal rituals and to the desert tribes of Arab lands. Remember the horse’s head at the beginning of  The Godfather? African tribal rituals included depositing of a beheaded dog or sheep on an enemies doorstep.

“Without realizing it, they have killed each other as far back as anybody can remember, and still kill each other, not so much out of bloodthirsty sentiment, but from economic necessity.  There has never been enough to go around, so the vendetta becomes a device for keeping down the population.”

The Mafia’s survival has depended upon an agility in adapting to economic circumstances.  In the early days, serious money could be made in manufacturing phony religious relics and selling the seats in church and devotional candles. But land was the real base of operations.Feudal systems survived in Sicily long after the Middle Ages died in the rest of Europe. The land-holding aristocracy utilized the Mafia as protectors of the land and enforcers and later to ensure votes for conservative politicians. A rupture developed when the land-holders decide it is in their best interest to support Mussolini who set out to destroy the Mafia.

New allies popped up with World War II. Because the Mafia were anti-Mussolini, the United States army enlisted them to help defeat the Italians. Imported American gangster Lucky Luciano was given authority, and the brotherhood’s business practices turned to controlling the black market  (with American support) and, after the war, to Luciano’s favorite business–heroin. The traditional Mafia leaders in Italy would not support his other business–prostitution. That was not honourable in their eyes.

I was amazed to learn that after the war when Sicily struggled with the question of their relationship to a newly independent Italy, the Mafia leaders favored becoming the 49th state of the United States. (Hawaii and Alaska had not yet joined the U. S.)

The Mafia power through alliances that had lasted for centuries began to crack in the 1960′s and the postscripts to the book describe the rather pessimistic scene in the early 1980′s.  Today, according to John Keahey, in Seeking Sicily,  the Mafia has been reduced from a powerful organization that dominates Sicily to more or less independent outlaws, no longer supported by church, state and journalists. However, a website called Mafia Today recently ran an article stating that the Sicilian Mafia is the most successful business in Italy today in the face of economic disaster for  legitimate business. It seems it will never end. At least the Mafia wars no longer threaten travelers and it is once more safe to book your travel to Sicily.

I hope you’ve enjoyed our week in Sicily.  If you’d like to read some contemporary travel experiences on the island, check Hecktic Travels blog for their series on Sicily; Travel Solo for top things to do in Sicily and Joe’s Trippin’ about Southern Sicily.

More reading on Sicily:

 I Siciliana by Adrian Cole–travels with the Mafia in Sicily.

The same author writes about Norman Lewis in Italy and Spain in Tender Beginner: A Twentieth Century Witness. He says of Lewis’ relationship to Sicily:

“…a life-long attachment to the island, its people and its problems, and in the tradition of the greatest of writers, what is left after the descriptions and the anecdotes and the details is a sense not just of place, but more importantly of the human relationships which underwrite the whole endeavor of being a traveler, and dependent on the generosity of strangers. “

Is Mafia the first thing YOU think of when you hear Sicily? Would it concern you enough that you might not travel to Sicily?

The Giveaway prize today goes to one person who comments, subscribes, tweets or mentions us on Google+. It is a copy of On the Road to Babadag: Travels in the Other Europe by Andzej Stasiuk, a stylish travel book about middle Europe.  (You can comment on this post or on an earlier post. Just do it before Monday, January 30, 3:00 a.m. MST. This is your next to last chance to win. See complete rules here.)

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Window View, Venice

In the city of Venice, where so much is hidden behind doors and glimpses at life inside a window seem a stolen pleasure, I caught this woman enjoying her view of  the neighborhood Piazza.

Other photos simply capture the peeling plaster, streaked paint and rusting metal caused by centuries of rising and falling water. Doorways in Venice can be Moorish, modern, Baroque, Renaissance, Victorian or any style man has dreamed up–but somehow they form a coherent whole that is unmistakably Venice.  I end with perhaps the most famous doorway in Venice.

Windows and doors along a Venice canal.

Venice, Ghetto, weather-beaten door

Window in Venice Ghetto

Venice- Graceful Decay

Window in Venice, Canareggio

A little girl watches other children playing outside her building. Venice

Door to San Marcos Cathedral, Venice

These photos are my contribution to Travel Photo Thursday.  To see more travel photos from around the world, go to Budget Traveler’s Sandbox.

Staying with the theme of Italy–if not Sicily–our pictures today were from Venice and our prize represents Tuscany.  D. H. Lawrence’s Etruscan Places: Travels Through Forgotten Italy, was one of my favorites which I reviewed here. Today’s prize goes to one person who comments, subscribes, tweets or mentions us on Google+ (You can comment on this post or on an earlier post. Just do it before Friday, January 27, 3:00 a.m. MST. If you already subscribe by e-mail and want an extra entry every day as a subscriber, be sure to tell me that in the comments. See complete rules here.)

For Christmas, I received a digital slide converter, which means that I have access to many of my photos that previously were hidden in boxes.  Are you tired of windows? Want a change of subject? or do you want some more doors and windows?

All photos are my property. Please respect my copyright and do not copy without express permission.

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

The Governor's Palace, Palermo, Sicily

Movie: The Leopard (1963), Starring Bert Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon

John Keahey,the author of Seeking Sicily, calls the book, The Leopard, (not to be confused with Jo Nesbo’s latest mystery by the same name) a blockbuster and essential reading to understand Sicily. Although I’d like to read the book (1956) some day, I cheated and watched the movie, made in 1963.

You see, I’ll watch just about any movie with Burt Lancaster  (1913-1994). I love the way he moves. I love his sense of power and the feeling you get that he has a secret. From his sexy days on the beach with Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity, to his  dramatic role in Come Back Little Sheba , to his old man role on the boardwalk of Atlantic City , he was a gem of a movie star. This article lists the incredible Lancaster films, in case you’ve missed them. And, getting back to the subject at hand–Lancaster plays the Prince who represents the sinking aristocrat based on the book author’s own grandfather.

I also ordered up The Leopard  from Netflix because of Keahey’s recommendation of The Leopard and because I love movies that convey the history of a place I want to visit. I love movies with beautiful scenery and an authentic portrayal of a culture. And from what I read, it appears that the movie is fairly true to the book. The book relates the story of the mid-1800′s in Sicily, a time of upheaval for the aristocracy, who had been loyal to the Bourbon royalty. However, the movement for a united Italy headed by Garibaldi appealed to them until they decided they would be better off under an Italian King than a democratic Italy, and went with the first King of a United Italy.

The settings are grand–palaces on ancestral estates in Southwest Sicily. And the narrow hilly streets of the towns are appealing, but I could not help feeling that movie was almost too true to the original New York Times travel article, I realized just how good a guide to Sicily the movie actually is.

I could not help feeling that the movie stuck too close to the book. Most of the film moves along at a stately pace, but the last 40 minutes takes place at a ball where all is character development, and nothing moves the plot forward. My feeling is not shared by a lot of eminent critics and you can read what Roger Ebert had to say about The Leopard in 2003.

The political tugs and pulls on the Prince and the buffoonish Mayor (although not made clear in the movie, he’s a Mafia member, and a fairly typical one according to the author we discuss on Friday) definitely are fascinating. You will come away from this book, or the movie understanding a good deal more about the historic politics of Sicily than you knew before.

In the conversation most representative of the Sicilian character, the Prince is asked to run for the Senate in the newly unified Italy. He refuses, explaining that

“Too many things have been done without Sicilians being consulted for you to be able now–to ask a member of the old governing class to help develop things and carry them through...” Sicilians, he says, only want to sleep.  “…they will always hate anyone who tries to wake them, even in order to bring the most wonderful gifts; and I must say, between ourselves, I have  strong doubts whether the new Kingdom will have many gifts for us in its luggage.”

Yes, despite the fact that it may seem a bit slow for the modern audience, the film is still gorgeous and enticing to the traveler to Sicily. I’d say add it to your traveler’s library, unless you’d rather read the book.

Have you been to Sicily?  Did you get a feeling of the complexity of their history?

The Giveaway prize today goes to one person who comments, subscribes, tweets or mentions us on Google+. It is a copy of Lights, Camera, Travel, a Lonely Planet collection of essays by people in the movie industry about places where they filmed. It is an interesting and varied collection. The “varied” is why I have not reviewed it. I prefer books all about one destination. (You can comment on this post or on an earlier post. Just do it before Thursday Jan.26, 3:00 a.m. MST. If you already subscribe by e-mail and want an extra entry as a subscriber, be sure to tell me that in the comments. See complete rules here.)

Disclaimer: The photo at the top comes from Flickr and is used under Creative Commons license. Please click on the photo to learn more about the photographer. The movie trailer comes from You Tube.

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