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.

SUMMER'S LEASE

And summer's lease hath all too long a date, as the bard did not say and as I think everyone would agree here. As most of you will have seen or read, we have been sweltering in extremely high temperatures, even for Sicily (39°C as I write and that is considerably cooler than last week) for almost three months now and even in the evenings, there has been little respite.

There have also been wildfires, as elsewhere in Europe, but in July a fire seemed to have been started deliberately in the hills around Modica. These hills slope down to the backs of very beautiful old houses in the Old Town and towards other inhabited areas and obviously the situation was very frightening for people living nearby. My area was not affected but you could see and smell the smoke. Thank goodness for the skills of so many groups and organisations, among them the Corpo Forestale della Regione Siciliana, the Corpo Nazionale Vigili di Fuoco, the Gruppo Comunale Protezione Civile Modica and Canadair.  As far as I know, one person was arrested on suspicion of arson but was later released.

As if all that were not enough, Etna has certainly been making her anger felt recently and last week there was ash everywhere on my balcony and around the entrance to my building. She has calmed down a bit now, I am pleased to say.

However, there are some compensations:

Enjoy the rest of the summer, everyone!

CATCHING UP WITH OUR FAVOURITE JEWELLERS

Salvatore's shop, Gemma

Gabriele's shop, Temporè Orologi

We have met the enterprising Aprile brothers, Salvatore and Gabriele, before on this blog but now it is time to catch up with them because they have both set up new ventures which I think you will want to know about:

Salvo, you were previously working with your parents in their jewellery shop and Gabriele, you had your watchmaker's shop in a very handy location for those of us needing an urgent repair or a battery and I imagine there was plenty of footfall in both shops, so what made you two move?

We decided to move to the new location three years ago because we had an opportunity to acquire a new property there. (Gabriele's previous premises were rented.) We wanted to create a new service hub for watch services and purchase, plus gemology services, some of which are in development. Not everyone knows that the form of a currently owned piece of jewellery can be changed; the stone of a ring can become that of a brooch, for example. The advantages are that the new stores are in a central shopping location, the via Sacro Cuore in Modica, which is well known and where many businesses are successful. We are optimistic! 

Gabriele, have your business ambitions changed? We know that eclipses have inspired you. Do they continue to do so?

Yes, of course. I'm passionate about science and time management. In our beautiful world, we all travel every day - every minute and second, like a watch timer but maybe we don't think about it.

How long did it take you to set up the new shops?

Salvo: Two years because of construction time and supply issues. But now we're here!

Salvo, you have your own jewellery line now, don't you?

Yes, I do and my designs were featured at an event taking place in Milan during the city's famous Fashion Week this year.

That's fantastic! I wish you both every success and I'm sure all the readers of this post do too. 

Salvo: Thank you. Stay tuned because the new website is coming soon!

Here are some photos from Salvatore and Gabriele's grand opening event, which took place on 1st December last year. (Unfortunately I missed it because I was in hospital, but as you can imagine, my heart and thoughts were with the brothers that evening!)

Cutting the ribbon, 1.12.25. 
The lady on the right is the Mayor of Modica.

Cincin!

Salvo is happy.

Link to Gabriele's website

Addresses and opening hours:

Gemma

1/1 via Sacro Cuore, Modica, RG.

9 am to 1 pm; 4 pm to 8 pm. Monday mornings by appointment.

Temporè

Piazza Libertà 6, Modica, RG.

9 am to 1 pm; 4 pm to 8 pm. Closed Monday mornings.

IT'S BEEN A WHILE...

Yes, it's been a long and involuntary hiatus, for reasons which I'll explain further down the post because I'd like to start by mentioning last Sunday's International Women's Day, La Giornata della Donna. Susanna Duffy in Melbourne invited me to speak on her very interesting radio programme Left After Breakfast on Melbourne 3CR radio and this is what I said:

"It's 9 a.m. in beautiful, Baroque Modica and in a few minutes I'm going to a nearby bar where I know there'll be bright yellow mimosa-inspired cakes because the mimosa blossom is the symbol of International Women's Day – la Giornata Internazionale della Donna – in Italy.

This was the idea of Teresa Mattei, a World War 2 partisan and one of the Mothers of the Italian Constitution – that is, she was a member of the Assemblea Costituente which drew up the Constitution after the war. She thought that mimosa would be a great symbol of International Women's Day for the simple reason that the flowers are in season here in early March and can be obtained easily at little or no cost. Little bouquets of them are being sold right now in the streets and people do buy them for the women in their lives. It's quite a joyous day here with free entry for women to all State cultural sites.

Teresa Mattei died in 2013 at the age of 92. The mimosa blooms for you today, Teresita, as it does for all women.

Buona Giornata della Donna - Happy International Women's Day."

Mimosa-inspired cheesecake

at the Cicara Caffeteria, Modica.

But what had I been up to in the months before that? Not much, really as in November I underwent knee replacement surgery. I spent five weeks in hospital, where I must say the physiotherapy was wonderful but the worst part was being away from my dog Bertie-Pierrine. She was well looked after in kennels and they were kind enough to send me photos every day but I missed her so much!

One day the doctors said I could have a visit from her, provided it was outside and not for long. I got better pretty quickly after that!

And then, two days before Christmas we both came home and it was fantastic!

I'll leave you with a true story of something that happened in the hospital - it might make you smile:

Battle of the Bra

This morning a kindly male nurse is preparing me for physio. All is going reasonably well until we come to the matter of my bra, which, not being a queen who has a dresser at her command, I put on in my usual way, back to front to do up the fasteners, with the intention of then turning it around. 

"No!" says he, trying to pull my bra from my hands. "It's the wrong way round!"

"I know", say I.

"But how are you going to wear it like that?" he asks, still trying to wrench it from me.

(My dignity you have taken; my bra you shall never have.)

"Like this", I reply, deftly sliding the garment into its correct position and manoeuvring my tits into it.

Scratching his head, the nurse looks at me as an Egyptian might have looked at Moses when God parted the Red Sea. (I am left in great puzzlement as to this man's home life. Does his wife never do up her own bra?)

Then we moved on to the socks...