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Grazia Deledda

Reeds in the Wind Paperback – September 29, 2008

by Grazia Deledda (Author), Martha King (Author)

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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.

Print length

208 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Italica Press
Publication date

September 29, 2008
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.52 x 8.5 inches
ISBN-10

0934977631
ISBN-13

978-0934977630
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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.

Review

"Surely, in a time when the most obscure female novelist may be instantly catapulted to canonical status on the strength of her sex and previous obscurity, a writer of the emotional power of Grazia Deledda is overdue for literary resurrection.... It is easy to be transfixed...by the bluntness of Deledda's characters' emotions, the harshness of their lives, their rawness and violence, sometimes their downright weirdnessor as they say in the academy nowadays, "otherness."... Most of the strangeness in [Deledda's] books does not arise from local color. The strangeness that counts is that of the gnarled, interrupted passions of family life. Rarely are her stories wrapped in impressionist gauze, and for all the folkloric gaudiness, the family patterns are recognizable. Intense bonds are ready-made to break.... There is frequently a biblical quality to Deledda's prose.... It is hard not to feel, when reading her, that whatever the particularities of late l9th Century Sardinians, he! r readers are getting close to some pure ore of human emotion." -Todd Gitlin, Chicago Sunday Tribune -- Publisher Comments

Highly recommended for those interested in world-class literature,women's literature,the rapidly vanishing world of the European peasant. -- World Literature Today, Winter 2001

About the Author

Grazia Deledda was born in 1871 in Nuoro, Sardinia. She had a limited formal education, but was an avid reader. She published her first story in 1886 when she was fifteen, in a newspaper in Nuoro. Her stories continued to be published in one of the many fashion magazines of the late nineteenth century, Ultima Moda. Although the dismay of her family and friends distressed her, it also strengthened her resolve to succeed. In 1899 she left Nuoro and went to Cagliari, where she met and married Palmiro Madesani. A year later they moved to Rome, where Deledda lived a quiet life writing and caring for her husband and two sons until her death in 1936, at sixty-five. Deledda wrote thirty-three novels and many books of short stories, almost all of them set in Sardinia. Among her better-known novels are Elias Portolu, Canne al vento (forthcoming from Italica Press in 1998 as Reeds in the Wind), La madre, Annalena Bilsini, and Cosima (Italica Press, 1988), her posthumous autobiographical novel. Grazia Deledda became, in 1926, the first Italian woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Efix, the Pintor sisters' servant, had worked all day to shore up the primitive river embankment that he had slowly and laboriously built over the years. At nightfall he was contemplating his work from where he was sitting in front of his hut halfway up White Doves' Hill. A blue-green fringe of reeds rustled behind him. Silently stretching out before him down to the river sparkling in the twilight was the little farm that Efix considers more his than the owners': thirty years of possession and work had certainly made it his, and the two hedgerows of prickly pear that enclose it like two gray walls meandering from terrace to terrace, from the hill to the river, are like the boundaries of the world to him. In his survey the servant ignored the land on either side of the farm because it had once been Pintor property. Why dredge up the past? Useless regret. Better to think about the future and hope in God's help. And God promised a good year, or at least He had covered all the almond and peach trees in the valley with blossoms; and this valley, between two rows of white hills covered with spring vegetation, water, scrub, flowers, together with the distant blue mountains to the west and the blue sea to the east, gave the impression of a cradle billowing with green veils and blue ribbons, with the river murmuring monotonously like a sleepy child. But the days were already too hot and Efix was also thinking about the torrential rains that swell the bankless river and make it leap like an all-destroying monster. One could hope, but had to be watchful, like the reeds along the riverbank beating their leaves together with every breath of wind as though warning of danger. That was why he had worked all day and now, waiting for night, he wove a reed mat so as not to waste time and prayed that God make his work worthwhile. What good is a little embankment if God's will doesn't make it as formidable as a mountain? Seven reeds across a willow twig, and seven prayers to the Lord and to Our Lady of Rimedio, bless her. In the intense twilight blue her little church and the quiet circle of cabins around it down below lay like a centuries-old abandoned prehistoric village. At this hour, as the moon bloomed like a big rose in the bushes on the hill and euphorbia spread its perfume along the river, Efix's mistresses were also praying. Donna Ester, the oldest, bless her, was certainly remembering him, the sinner. This was enough to make him feel happy, compensated for his efforts. Footsteps in the distance made him look up. They sounded familiar. It was the light, swift stride of a boy, the stride of an angel hurrying with some happy or sad announcement. God's will be done. It's He who sends good and bad news; but Efix' heart began to pound, and his black cracked fingers trembled on the silvery reeds shining in the moonlight like threads of water. The footsteps were no longer heard. Nevertheless, Efix remained motionless, waiting. The moon rose before him, and evening voices told him the day had ended: a cuckoo's rhythmical cry, the early crickets' chirping, a bird calling; the reeds sighing and the ever more distinct voice of the river; but most of all a breathing, a mysterious panting that seemed to come from the earth itself. Yes, man's working day was done, but the fantastic life of elves, fairies, wandering spirits was beginning. Ghosts of the ancient Barons came down from the Castle ruins above Galte on Efix's left and ran along the river hunting wild boar and fox. Their guns gleamed in the short alder trees along the riverbed, and the faint sound of barking dogs in the distance was a sign of their passing. Efix could hear the sound that the panas - women who died in childbirth - made while washing their clothes down by the river, beating them with a dead man's shin bone, and he believed he saw the ammattadore (the elf with seven caps where he hid his treasure) jumping about under the almond woods, followed by vampires with steel tails. It was the elf that caused the branches and rocks to glitter under the moon. And along with the evil spirits were spirits of unbaptized babies - white spirits that flew through the air changing themselves into little silvery clouds behind the moon. And dwarfs and janas - the little fairies who stay in their small rock houses during the day weaving gold cloth on their golden looms - were dancing in the large phillyrea bushes, while giants looked out from the rocks on the moon-struck mountains, holding the bridles of enormous horses that only they can mount, squinting to see if down there within the expanse of evil euphorbia a dragon was lurking. Or if the legendary canana, living from the time of Christ, was slithering around on the sandy marshland. During moonlit nights especially this entire mysterious population animates the hills and valleys. Man has no right to disturb it with his presence, just as the spirits have respected him during the sun's course; therefore it's time to retire and close one's eyes under the protection of guardian angels. Efix made the sign of the cross and stood up, but he was still waiting for someone. Nevertheless he shoved the plank that served as a door across the entry way and leaned a big reed cross against it to keep spirits and temptation from entering his hut....

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Italica Press (September 29, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 208 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0934977631
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0934977630
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.1 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.52 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #672,966 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,330 in Classic American Literature
- #17,518 in Classic Literature & Fiction
- #34,781 in Literary Fiction (Books)

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Ruth Tretter

Sometimes I was a little bored reading because I didn't really identify with any of ...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 25, 2015

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I didn't get this book at first, but after thinking about it I have come up with a theory.

Sometimes I was a little bored reading because I didn't really identify with any of the characters. Even though their lives were undergoing dramas, somehow their pain and suffering didn't move me much.

After considering, I've decided that the author doesn't care much for her characters either. I read a review by a man fluent in Italian who had read the original novel. He comments that the title is a misrepresentation of the author's intended image. The Italian work uses the word cane - not reed. A reed is soft and flexible and bends softly when the wind blows. The characters in this book were more like canes, stiff, inflexible and I imagine they would stand rigidly against the wind rather than bending with it.

The Pintor family's financial and social situation had changed. Rather than changing their lives to make the most of their new circumstances, the sisters become shut in spinsters as they cling stubbornly to their previous status.

Efix also clings stubbornly to his servant title. I thought he would be portrayed as selfless, but how selfless is one when they are motivated by guilt? When people at the festivals threw coins that hit him in the chest Deledda describes his enjoying "the delight of matyrdom."

I could relate to Deladda's impressions of the natural world. The closest thing I have felt to religion has been sitting in the sun, feeling my fingers in the dirt in nature, feeling the thrum of life all around me. My brain tells me it was just probably my heart beat in my ears and perhaps I was overheated, but emotionally I felt that the rhythm was from the earth, a life force that all living creatures must share.

This passage from page 2 seemed to sum up my experience:

"The moon rose before him, and evening voices told him the day had ended: a cuckoo's rhythmical cry, the early crickets' chirping, a bird calling; the reeds sighing and the ever more distinct voice of the river; but most of all a breathing, mysterious panting that seemed to come from the earth itself."

I believe that Deledda paints her characters as petty, because she feels a greater connection to nature than to humans. I am left with the impression that her characters are rodents scurrying to hoard a harvest in the fall; tiny creatures preocupied with their own dramas while the earth continues to turn, the stars continue to shine, unmoved.

This passage from page 155 supports my theory:

"All the freshness of the evening, all the harmony of the serene distance, and the stars smiling at the flowers and the flowers smiling at the stars, and the proud joy of handsome young shepherds, and the repressed passion of women in red bodices, and all the melancholy of the poor who live waiting for leftovers from the tables of the rich, and the distant sorrows and hopes, and the past, the lost country, love, sin, remorse, prayer, the hymn of the pilgrim who travels far not knowing where he'll spend the night, but feels he is guided by God, and the green solitude of the little farm down there, the odor of euphorbia, Grixenda's laughter and tears, Noemi's laughter and tears, Efix's laughter and tears, the whole world's laughter and tears, trembled and vibrated in the notes of the nightingale above in the solitary tree that seemed higher than the mountains, with its top touching the sky and the tip of the highest leaf stuck in a star."

It seems to me she is reminding us that we all laugh, we all cry, but it really doesn't matter to the nightingale. We are small beings all connected to the great big web of life on earth. Reminiscent of how looking down from a mountain top, or out into the expanse of the ocean makes you feel small and insignificant in a comforting way.

6 people found this helpful

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Randy Keehn

Not her best but still worth reading

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 14, 2003

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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.

8 people found this helpful

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jwalcott

Helpful when reading the Italian version

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 21, 2012

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I loved the Italian version, but wanted to be certain that I had gleaned all of the plotline and the symbolic references, so bought the English version. It was very helpful, and I am happy to say that I probably did not in actuality need it. The translation was very close to the original and helpful particularly for some very complex grammatical structures that I had a little difficulty with in the Italian versiion.

One person found this helpful

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Dr. Gloriana St Clair

reminiscent of Crime and Punishment

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 30, 2013

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The author was the second woman to receive the Nobel Prize in literature. While the descriptions of her native Sardinia are wonderful, and probably even more wonderful in Italian, the story itself was somewhat simplistic.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 12, 2015

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It could drag at times.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 15, 2016

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Chose to read this novel for a class and thoroughly enjoyed it, excellent descriptions of the characters' world, appearance, and personalities.

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Josee Michaud

A nice surprise. A brilliant author was revealed to me.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 28, 2009

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FOr readers interested in history of common people in Sardinia. A masterpiece. It opens a window on a forgotten human universe. Well deserved Nobel prize. Product received in excellent condition.

3 people found this helpful

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Doretta Meshiea

interesting as she won the Nobel Prize

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 28, 2014

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A dreamlike, old fashioned story of a servant's life enter twinned with his patronesses. Superstition,and catholic ways, tableau of Sardinian scenery and tragic pilgrimage of lives lived as reeds in the wind of fate. Students of literature and Sardinia would benefit reading it.

3 people found this helpful

Booklady

Wonderful

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 30, 2014

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A really beautiful (and very moving) novel which gives a real flavour of Sardinia.

2 people found this helpful

beadsworth

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 24, 2016

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Love this book.

S'Abba Druche

Authentically grim

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 21, 2012

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An interesting tale of Sardinian life of the late 19th and early 20th century revolving around family duty, class, gender, belief and fate. Fairly downbeat, grim even, but authentic. The opposite of a lighthearted beach read. Good if you want a picture of the old ways.

6 people found this helpful

James Whitmore

Interesting, a bit dated

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on April 17, 2019

Verified Purchase

Worth a read as a novel from the first female literature Nobel laureate, and for its specificity of setting (Sardinia in the early-20th century). The story is not as easy to digest for contemporary readers, reliant as it is on religious morality, not helped by a fairly flat translation. However there is a lot of startling imagery that is quite worth digging in to.

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