The Leopard and Gone with the Wind both begin with a wealthy and privileged family reciting the rosary and proceeds to trace the decline of their way of life against a background of major historic change. Both books were very successfully made into major motion pictures, or as the Italians would say “un film”.
And there the resemblance ends. The Leopard covers an extensive canvas in great detail, but in scare 200 pages, and makes Gone with the Wind look overlong, sentimental, trite and overdramatic.
Set in Sicily, The Leopard covers the 1860s, with two chapters as epilogues, marking the end of a feudal way of life. The main protagonist is the prince himself and his consciousness is the main focus for much of the book but there is a whole wealth of characters shown vividly often in a few details. The visual aspect is strong, both in domestic details and landscape. This is no doubt why Visconti found it an excellent basis for his beautiful film but this is a good example of why a book and a film should be judged separately. It is a long film of a short book but in fact fails to use the material in three chapters. There is nothing in the film of the prince’s death and the later life of his family nor the chapter describing the visit of the family chaplain to his home village, which provides and insight into Sicilian life at a lower social level.
It is a wonderful book. While being an elegy for a past way of life (and a criticism what replaced it) the book recognises why that way of life must change. There is a gentle and compassionate irony towards all and every page filled with gently startling detail of the physical world and people’s inner life.