Giovanni Verga’s masterful portrayal of Sicilian fishermenin the late nineteenth century is the story of an ancient society in which bothegalitarianism and hierarchy coexist, partly because everyone is on the brinkof poverty to some extent. It is also a society undergoing irreversible changeas the free market encroaches and brings with it not more equality but morehierarchy based on dubious practices which replace an ingrained and functional moralitywith a moral vacuum. The process has not been completed and the book could beconsidered a warning to future generations. However this is not a judgemental novel and it follows theprecepts of verismo, the Italianversion of realism influenced by French naturalism but also distinctive,particularly in Verga’s case. The author also adopted the innovative practiceof free indirect discourse but often skilfully turned it into a choral voicerepresenting the values of the society he depicts. Sicily has often attracted outside attention, but mostly itssociety and complexities have been misrepresented. This English version of The Malavoglias is not only amagnificent classic unjustly ignored in the Anglosphere but also anextraordinary and detached examination of a particular society suffering amoral malaise not so different from our own, although ours is a malaise ofdeclining affluence. It therefore has as much to say about the human conditiontoday as it had to the very different society depicted in these pages, whichwas going in the opposite direction.
