Sicilian Submarine

In the last year I came across Sicily in a lot of books and movies.

The first book The Leopard is the story of a declining Sicilian royal family in the 1860s. This book is based during the Italian unification. Unbeknownst to me, Italy was controlled by French Bourbons, Spanish and the Austrian holy Roman Empire until the last 1800s. Italy as we know it today is a modern state. This came as a surprise to me when I was reading the book. The book though was a work of fiction, it depicts how corrupt the clergy was in Sicily and in general in Italy. The book was dry, terse nbut hard hitting.

The next book based in Sicily that I read was Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions: Mario Gidrdano: 9781908524690: Amazon.com: Books. Aunti Poldi is a hilarious retiree who moves from Munich to a small town in Sicily. There she runs against the local rich folks who have a crime to hide. Auntie Poldi with the help of her Sicilian family solves a murder mystery. The book uses the Sicilian landscape and culture to full effect - how the family fishmonger is a secret, how people go mushroom picking on Mt Etna and all the cold almond milk they drink.

Next I encountered the Sicily in the movie The Mafia Kills Only in Summer - Wikipedia. This is a comedy movie based in the Sicilian capital of Palermo about how the Mafia affected the day to day lives of the people well into the 90s.

Then I ended up watching the Mafia movie - The Godfather, in which a Sicilian immigrant to New York ends up being The Godfather. The movie is part based in Sicily and paints a leisurely rural picture of post war Sicily.

I am very surprised has a good chunk of my mindshare this past year.

(The title of the blog is derived from the essay The Submarine by Paul Graham)