In Sicily
Norman Lewis
Language: English
Pages: 192
ISBN: 0312290489
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In Sicily reveals this fascination on every page. Throughout there is the Mafia, and Lewis's friendships with policemen, journalists and men of respect. But more, he writes of landscape and language, of his memories of his first father-in-law (professional gambler, descendant of princes and member of the Unione Siciliana), of Sicily's changing sexual mores, of the effects of African immigration, of Palermo and its ruined palaces - and of strange superstitions, of witches and bandits and murder.
almost of relief. People, in particular foreign tourists, went there to visit the Villa Palagonia, a strange, eerie building described by the Sicilian lady who had shown me round on a previous visit as giving her the shivers. It had been created two and a half centuries earlier, and the original villa was regarded as an outstanding example of Sicilian baroque architecture. But as the years passed and the third generation of the Gravina family began to exhibit the symptoms - evident in all their
of the kind usually favoured by protesters. A local road had become unusable after heavy rains, and it had been made clear that due to a lack of funds it would not be repaired. Dolci’s plan was to persuade the peasants to undertake the work on their own account. Sixty unemployed roadworkers began to drain off the water, clear the verges, and remove the rocks and earth left by landslides. With that a force of 250 police arrived, led by an inspector who was promoted to superintendent next day for
addicted. Poor families manage to squeeze themselves into the gaps in these gaunt and cracked, although once palatial, buildings. They put up shacks made from packing cases among the courtyards and one may find five girls sleeping in a shack fifteen feet square. Unfortunately these places stink like stables. Chief of Police Antonio Manganelli, calling again for tolerance and compassion, says that prostitution on a scale which hardly exists elsewhere in Europe is not curable. Nor, he adds, is it a
his approach, dragging a piglet on a lead. We had seen no farms in the area - what did people do for a living? I asked, and his smile widened. They grew vegetables, he said, including the longest zucchini in Sicily, which they exchanged for meat. They hoped to develop tourism. There were caves at the back of the village where cavemen once lived, and one of these contained a portion of fossilized bear. Were they ever troubled by the Mafia? I asked, and the man laughed at the idea. ‘We’re poor,’
is nowhere to eat. A bus goes to Palermo twice a week. The children walk four miles to Altofonte to school. Art and history are all very well, but we’re isolated. If we don’t do something soon even the children will go away.’ ‘What’s the remedy?’ Marcello asked. ‘Have you anything in mind?’ ‘Yes,’ the mayor said. ‘We have lived long in the past, and now we shall look to the future.’ He led the way down through a narrow passage and we came out on a ledge above the lake. This was so clear that