BOOK REVIEW - "LA ZOLFATARA" BY IRENE DI LIBERTO

 THE SULPHUR MINE

At the beginning of the 20th century, in the imaginary Sicilian village of Castellatani, we meet Teresa, whose ambition is to become a school mistress. However, that is not what local tradition requires of her and she is pressurised into marrying Giovanni, a sulphur miner whom she grows to love.

We learn about local customs, the expectations that the villagers have of women and the suffering of the men and boys (the carusi) who work in the sulphur mine on the hill.

Teresa and Giovanni have two children, who grow up with more hope of fulfilling their ambitions than their parents had and eventually Teresa goes to work for a rich couple in Palermo. The contrast between the lives of rich and poor is brilliantly drawn but what was most striking for me was the very believable account of the cruelty and uncaring attitudes of the mine owner, his colleagues and enablers. 

As I come from Wales, where there have been many tragedies in the coal mining industry, this is a story that I can relate to. I literally could not put the book down, as I wanted to know what happened to Teresa and her children. There is a fair amount of Sicilian dialect in the text, but if you read Italian you will probably be able to work it out.

Now, as a language teacher, I will give you a tip: When you are reading in a foreign language, do not stop to look up words you do not know. You will need around a B2 level in the language to do this, but try to deduce meaning from the context. If you stop to look up every unfamiliar word, you will get fed up and hurl the book across the room. Please do not do that to this wonderful book! (I have studied four languages in my time on this earth, have a degree in two of them and have been a language teacher all my working life so maybe this old lady knows what she is talking about!)

La Zolfatara is the best book I have read in Italian this year and I learnt a lot about the sulphur mines. The last sulphur mine in Sicily closed in 1986.

DRAWING THE LINE

 On Friday in a shop in Modica - a chain, where I usually get good service - the shop assistants turned their attention first to a man who had arrived after me. I politely pointed this out but the young women serving and the man said he had arrived before me. I calmly said Ok, but that when the chain's head office emailed me for my opinion of my visit (as they always do) I would reply that it went badly.

In How to be Inimitable (1960) by the Hungarian author George Mikes - a book which is the forerunner of all humourous accounts of British eccentricity - he tells us, "If you want to be a true Briton, you must still be fond of queueing" and, although many things have changed in the land of my birth, I think this is still true. Therefore I wish I had thought to say that I come from a country where queue-jumping is about the most anti-social transgression you can commit so of course I would not have lied about my place in the line. In Britain murder, fraud and bank robbery are way down the list of serious crimes after queue-jumping! (Incidentally queue-jumping seems to happen a lot in perfumeries here.)

I remember that, at the beginning of my first trip to Italy (when I was 19) I had to go to a post office in order to send a telegram informing my parents of my safe arrival. (We didn't have the luxury of instant messaging and international phone calls were expensive and often took ages to connect.) There were a lot of people but nobody was queueing and no ticket system was in place, so not really knowing what to do, I just sat and watched everyone else for twenty minutes or so. Then a kindly-looking clerk beckoned me and I managed to send my telegram. Would anyone have the patience now?

My very old copy of How to be Inimitable.
 I still peruse it now and then, for the smiles.