Reeds in the Wind [Paperback]

Grazia Deledda (Author), Martha King (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1998

The rugged landscape of Baronia on Sardinia sets the scene for this novel of crime, guilt and retribution. This novel presents the story of the Pintor sisters - from a family of noble landowners now in decline - their nephew Giacinto, and their servant Efix, who is trying to make up for a mysterious sin committed many years before. Around, below, and inside them the raging Mediterranean storms, the jagged mountains, the murmuring forests, and the gushing springs form a Greek chorus of witness to the tragic drama of this unforgiving land. Deledda tells her story with her characteristic love of the natural landscape and fascination with the folk culture of the island, with details about the famous religious festivals held in mountain encampments and the lore of the "dark beings who populate the Sardinian night, the fairies who live in rocks and caves, and the sprites with seven red caps who bother sleep." Introduction by the Sardinian ethnographer, Dolores Turchi.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Published in Italy in 1913 but never before translated into English, this richly atmospheric novel by Deledda (1871-1936), the second woman to receive the Nobel Prize for literature (1926), is a tale of penitence, salvation and a Christian-peasant notion of destiny. Deledda (Cosima; After the Divorce) traces the decline of the noble Pintor sisters, who live in Sardinia at the turn of the century. Proud but poor, the three sisters, Ruth, Ester and Nomi, are reduced to selling their farm's produce clandestinely from their own house. They would be totally bereft without their wise servant Efix, who has continued to work for them without pay because he is guilt-ridden over a long-ago sin. Giacinto, the son of the fourth, dead, Pintor sister, turns up and brings with him old bitter memories. Eventually, he unwittingly causes his aunts to sink further into poverty. Even in this flat translation, Deledda beautifully captures the rough, malaria-ridden Sardinian setting, where superstition vies with theology, folklore has a strong hold on the imagination and "the sound of the accordion fills the courtyard with moans and shouts." The novel bears some resemblance to Tomasi di Lampedusa's The Leopard in its depiction of the decline of a noble class, and to Carlo Levi's Christ Stopped at Eboli in its portrait of 20th-century peasants who still harbor medieval beliefs in sprites and witches. In a conversation with one of the Pintor sisters, Efix muses, "We are reeds, and fate is the wind." Deledda evocatively depicts the desperate plight of the peasants who hope for a heavenly redemption from their earthly hardships.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Italian

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Italica Press (September 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0934977631
• ISBN-13: 978-0934977630
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #105,756 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magic, entertaining and superbly written., July 28, 2002

By 

StrayDog (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reeds in the Wind (Paperback)

If you're in for a good book, don't miss this one. It took me only two days to read it but it feels as if I had been for a few months in 19th century Sardinia.
Let the author make you enjoy torrid afternoons and magic nights in a world so distant from today's but where the same human values on which today's western society is based are there fully exposed for us to see.
Top marks, it'll be difficult for me to get on and enjoy reading another book right away.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not her best but still worth reading, April 13, 2003

By 

Randy Keehn (Williston, ND United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Reeds in the Wind (Paperback)

This is the 5th book of Grazia Deladda that I have read and I don't believe that it lives up to her better works. The best book of hers that I read is "After the Divorce". That book made me want to read more and it has been hard to track down other works by her. Since discovering the wonders of modern technology, I have been able to order other of her works. Some like "The Mother and the Priest" gave me a message to ponder while others gave me more of an appreciation of life in Sardinia 75 years ago (which is more like life 175 years ago in other European locales). That flavor of life in her native island is always worth the price of admission to her books and "Reeds in the Wind" is no exception.

In this novella (all of her books are short) we see the story of a family of aging sisters who are so down on their luck that their nobility is in name only. We start the story by meeting the sister's servant, Efix. As the tale unfolds we see that he is the person who runs the operation. He does all the work, makes most of the arrangements, and smoothes many a feather. Well, things happen, people come and go, and we end up with an ending that lets us appreciate how an poor, unpaid servant saves the day for his masters (mistresses?). Along the way we again view a society and its' customs that would be otherwise unknown to us. It is poignant at the end when the sisters take care of Efix after he is no longer able to care for himself. The story of the servant managing the affairs of the sisters and the sisters caring for the servant gives a nice twist to a society that was obviously not used to such role reversals.

If it were possible, I would rate this book 3 1/2 by the 5 star grading system. That's not to say that this isn't a good book. Rather it's to say that I know that the author has done better.

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoughts from the Translator, February 28, 2000

By 

Martha King (Auburn, AL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reeds in the Wind (Paperback)

It seems paradoxical that Grazia Deledda could write such sexy novels, with characters driven by desire. She was born and raised in retro Sardinia, to become a faithful and devoted wife and mother. Short, plump, the antithesis of sexy, she wrote many volumes of short stories and novels with full-blooded themes, not to mention full-bodied. But subtly so. Her characters are very Sardinian-reticent in the expression of their desires that burn under the surface of the dialogue and action.