Product Description
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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A nice surprise. A brilliant author was revealed to me.
FOr readers interested in history of common people in Sardinia. A masterpiece. It opens a window on a forgottenhuman universe. Well deserved Nobel prize. Product received in excellent condition.

Not her best but still worth reading
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.

Magic, entertaining and superbly written.
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.

A flavorful and evocative rendering of an old Italian past.
Reeds in the Wind is a resounding success, for it is a literary work of art that is suffused with Sardinian folk culture, unwavering faith in Catholicism and vivid lore of the "dark beings who populate the Sardinian night..." Grazia Deledda's novel, set in the harsh, homely, bromidic Sardinian Galte (actually Galtelli) of Baronia, describes the arid, solitary landscape, where the sun continuously emits a slanting, hot coppery ray of light upon the reddened earth, and the melancholy panorama is adorned only by dilapidated huts and a cemetery abounding with dust and bones; hence, the attention of the reader is immediately focused not on the torpidity of the environment, but rather, on the inhabitants of it: Effix, Giacinto, Grixenda, Don Predu, Pottoi, Zuannantoni, Milese, Kallina and the three spinster sisters: Ruth, Ester and Noemi Pintor. The electric liveliness, the pulse, that normally spreads up and out in cosmopolitan cities is quite palpable. The lust and vibrancy of municipal life can be oozed out at the ends of a clenched fist, for the urbanity is the life blood that keeps people sane, but that is not the case in this territory, because it is the antipode of urbane. It is a vacuous hole that takes more than it gives, and tradition is the cudgel that keeps the residents at bay, preventing most of them from ever leaving and striving for growth, love and happiness. It is a land where the dead are not simply dominant, they are the rulers: P.3: "Effix 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 silvery clouds behind the moon. And dwarfs and janas-the little faries who stay in their small rock houses during the day weaving gold cloth on their golden looms-where dancing in the large phillyrea bushes, while giants looked out from the rocks on the moonstruck 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 cananea, living from the time of Christ, was slithering around on the sandy marshland." A fourth Pintor sister-Donna Lia-does escape the drudgery of mediocrity, marrying and having a child later named Giacinto who later visits his aunts. But to them, that is anything but pleasing: P.19: "...it seems like you aren't happy about Don Giacinto." "Do I have to sing? He's not the Messiah!" That unpleasant tone swims across the bulk of the novel; it is a tone of harsh indifference. Donna Lia committed the ultimate sin by leaving the Pintor House; thus, her whole being becomes a sin and so too does her offspring, despite Giacinto's later desires to rectify past wrongs; he becomes an omen-bad luck. In life, in order for there to be a sense of unity and forgivness, somebody has to make the first move: P.79: "...If children can love one another, why must we old people hate each other? The remedy is in us." But that is easier said than done. Traditionalism is strongly adhered to, and if faith can not heal the wanton needs and frivolity of those who feel they must escape because of the throttling suffocation that they are enduring, then the battle of good and evil becomes bigger and bigger: P.154: "Yes, once there was a king who had his people worship trees and animals, and even fire. God was offended and made the king's servants turn so bad they plotted to kill their master. And so they did. Yes, he made them worship a golden God. That is why there is so much love for money in the world, and even relatives kill relatives for money." But Effix, who is the servant to the Pintor women, is not a servant in the traditional sense; he is a servant of God, a human angel who tries to heal old wounds, mistrust, suffering. His varied tasks in this novel are not easy ones, but he rises to the complexities of human nature and later ascends to the glory of God. The characters in Reeds in the Wind truly embody human frailties and fatalism in, oddly, a lyrical but brusque manner. Suffering is human nature, and so, aren't we all Reeds in the Wind, pushed down by evil only to rise again?

Thoughts from the Translator
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 novelswith full-blooded themes, not to mention full-bodied. But subtly so. Hercharacters are very Sardinian-reticent in the expression of their desiresthat burn under the surface of the dialogue and action. ... Read more

Product Description
Originally published in 1905.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

Product Description
Scripta Humanistica. 1990. 102 p.
In this most authoritative study of Nobel Prize winner, Grazia Deledda, Professor Aste sheds new light on the life and work of the famed Sardinian writer. A scrupulous analysis of the socio-linguistic, cultural, literary and philosophical dimensions of Deledda and Sardinian traditions makes this the best and most complete work ever written on Deledda. ... Read more

Product Description
Cosima is the autobiographical novel of a womanwriter growing up in Sardinia at the turn of the century. Written bythe second woman and second Italian to win the Nobel Prize forLiterature. Paperback, third printing, 153 pp. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Joyful Italian childhood
This is a beautifully written literary novel about a young girl growing up in Sardinia at the end of the 1800s.Cosima is Grazia Deladda's middle name.The imaginary and fantasy whims of childhood are well described.Social history of Sardinia is in the background of this novel.Sheepherders and writers are among the characters along with Cosima's family.Cosima succeeds as a writer while her family is pushing for an appropriate marriage. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

Product Description
A translation of Grazia Deledda's first novel, an autobiographically based portrayal if an Italian woman coming to terms with breast cancer at the cusp of the twentieth century. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Peace be with You
I am a devoted reader of Grazia Deledda, the Sardinian Nobel Prize-winning author.Her ability to write of the unique Sardinian culture circa 1900 and to do so from a woman's perspective is the core of her talent and her appeal.My devotion began with the first of her books that I read, "After the Divorce".To date, I have not come across another Deledda book that meets the artistic level of "After the Divorce" but "The Church of Solitude" comes closest of the six other Deledda books that I have read.

"The Church of Solitude" tells the story of a relatively young (28 years old) rural Sardinian woman who has had a mastectomy.Her doctor tells her to take it easy; no emotional involvement, peace and quiet, no overworking, and to expect the disease to return in about 10 years.The author gives us a vivid picture of a completely demoralized woman trying to deal with this reality.She returns home confused about how to approach with the rest of her life.She gets some advice from her priest (focus on serving others) while she is also dealing with the very real desires within her.The book does a good job of examining the conflicting messages of the doctor, the priest, and her own emotions.Oddly, as her self-esteem declines, the number of suitors increases (she has invested well).The competition of her suitors leads to a mystery that helps add an additional level of interest to the book.In a subtley presented way, the heroine, Concezione, is able to realize a direction that will enable her to accommodate the doctor, the priest, and herself.

"The Church of Solitude" was translated by E. Ann Matter and, while I can't comment on the translation, I do appreciate her inclusion of a good biography of the author and some literary observations as well.

I came away from "The Church of Solitude" with an appreciation that God's healing powers don't bring health as much as they bring peace.Health doesn't necessarily heal a troubled mind the way peace can cure an attitude about a troubled body.Grazia Deledda does an excellent job in bringing this out and it is the essential beauty of "The Church of Solitude" ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Temptation and sin
Elias Portolu is a Sardinian peasant who has done time in jail, in Italy. One day he returns to the island, a few weeks before his brother gets married. Trouble begins when Elias starts to fall in love with his brother's fiancee. Being a loyal brother, he resists the temptation, and when it gets stronger, Elias leaves his home and goes to another village. But, as Goethe proved in "Elective affinities", love is not something we can control or decide, and so the story proceeds...

Grazia Deledda, a Nobel-Prize winner, has written a novel of great tension. No good nor bad guys here: just human beings with difficult lives, in possession of moral values as well as human weaknesses. Worth reading. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a timely and extensive biography of a writer who, in the early twentieth century, achieved such status in the literary world that publishers in Italy vied for her novels, and editors felt honoured to publish her short stories and 'sketches'. Now, almost seventy years after her death, her novels continue to be reprinted and translated, and critical appreciation of her work continues to grow. Her works still live and have the power to move her readers. ... Read more

Product Description

Grazia Deledda (1871-1936) was the author of many influential novels and remains one of the most significant Italian women writers of her time. However, critics tend to pigeonhole her works into convenient literary categories and to ignore the uniqueness of her style and voice. Grazia Deledda's Dance of Modernity offers a timely and thought-provoking interpretation of this Nobel laureate, examining her work in the context of European philosophical and literary modernity.

Margherita Heyer-Caput takes a philosophical and philological approach in order to provide a reassessment of Deledda's position in the literary canon. At the same time, she raises the larger issue of the status of allegedly 'regional' or 'minor' literatures within the context of Italian modernity. Dealing with four novels representative of Deledda's vast corpus, Heyer-Caput addresses and dismantles elements of regionalismo, verismo, and decadentismo, labels with which Deledda's works are regularly associated. This is the first volume to introduce some of Deledda's overlooked texts to an Anglophone audience. It invites readers to overturn established critical categories and to question margin-centre hierarchies both in the broad context of literary modernity and the narrower frame of Deledda's writing.

Grazia Deledda's Dance of Modernity is a highly original and innovative interpretation of Deledda's narrative in philosophical perspective, which also includes the study of textual variations and considers cultural history in Italy during the early twentieth century. It is a much-needed examination of an important writer and how she managed to construct her own literary and gender identity in the context of modernity.

Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
Grazia Deledda has been variously categorised as Romantic, Realist, Symbolist or Decadent. This book aims to show the writer and her work in a fresh light, emphasising the extraordinary nature of her achievement given her unpromising beginnings. It offers insight into her work from the perspectives of modernism, feminism and post-colonialism. ... Read more

Product Description
A biography of a Sardinian woman who determinedly rose above the restrictions of her environment to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1926. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

She made it ...!
A biography of a Sardinian woman who determinedly rose above the restrictions of her environment to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1926. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
With an Introduction by D.H. Lawrence. (Awarded the Nobel Prize 1928). An unusual book, both in its story and its setting in a remote Sardinian hill village, half civilised and superstitious. The action of the story takes place so rapidly and the actual drama is so interwoven with the mental conflict, and all so forced by circumstances, that it is almost Greek in its simple and inevitable tragedy. ... Read more