Amazon.com Review
Dacia Maraini is something of a national treasure in Italy. The author of more than 50 books, a director of stage and screen, and an outspoken feminist, Maraini has never been afraid of controversy.
The Silent Duchess won prestigious awards in Italy upon its publication there in 1990, and has since been translated into 14 languages. It tells the story of Marianna Ucria, an 18th-century noblewoman who is both deaf and mute following a mysterious childhood trauma. Though outwardly Marianna's life follows the same trajectory as most women's of her class and time--an arranged marriage and endless childbearing--her inner life is quite unique. Within the silent world she occupies, Marianna pursues a vigorous life of the mind; in fact, silence becomes a weapon she wields to defend her deepest, truest self against society's suppression of women's creativity and will. From the first, horrifying images of a child's hanging, through Marianna's forced marriage to her elderly uncle, and finally to her recollection of the trauma that scarred her,
The Silent Duchess takes the reader on a remarkable journey through the mores and manners of 18th-century Sicily and into the mind of its enigmatic, courageous heroine.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
The publication in America of Maraini's The Silent Duchess, originally issued in Italy as La hunga vita di Marianna Ucria (1990), is cause for rejoicing. Episodic and essentially plotless, but propelled by an inner tension, this unusual historical novel about the splendid but squalid Sicilian aristocracy of the early 18th century comes closer to belles lettres than a conventional novel. As a result of being sexually abused as a young child, the duchess Marianna (in real life, an ancestor of the author) has lost both voice and hearing and communicates with others by writing notes. A free spirit, she contrives to educate and liberate herself through reading while living in a society that totally subjugates women. (Sicilian aristocrats were so idle and poor, though wealthy in unproductive land, that all members of the family were sacrificed to the eldest son and heir.) The only choices for women of her rank are either an arranged marriage (Marianna's father marries her at 13 to her uncle, who is also her abuser) or betrothal to Christ and life in a convent (the choice of Marianna's daughter, Felice). As Camaiti-Hostert writes in her afterword, this novel is "the story of a life seen, smelled, tasted, and touched"; like a silent movie, the narrative unfolds without sound, but in Maraini's deft hands, this silence becomes a powerful metaphor for the plight of a young woman growing up in an impoverished but proud, unenlightened but self-righteous patriarchy. (Nov.) FYI : The Silent Duchess won Italy's 1990 Premio Campiello and England's 1992 Independent Foreign Fiction Award. It has been translated into 14 languages.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
