- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Flamingo; New edition edition (29 Nov 1993)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0006545963
- ISBN-13: 978-0006545965
- Product Dimensions: 19.3 x 13 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 790,427 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Silent Duchess
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Set in the mid-18th century, this novel tells of the noble Ucria family, seen through the eyes of the deaf-mute Duchess Marianna. Married at 13 to her uncle, Marianna searches for fulfilment in a society in which women face either endless childbearing or a life of renunciation within a convent.
From the Back Cover
'The Silent Duchess' won the Premio Campiello, Italy's most prestigious literary prize, selling over a quarter of a million copies. The novel is also a winner of the monthly 'Independent' Award for Foreign Fiction.
'Set in eighteenth-century Italy the story of our heroine, Marianna, and of her family is a fascinating one which manages totally to overpower the reader with its narrative urgency. Maraini brilliantly conveys the mixture of luxury and squalor in which the Sicilian aristocracy lived, and with great skill, communicates every detail through the eyes and nostrils of her Silent Duchess.'
FRANCIS KING, 'Evening Standard'
'Few other novelists have so forcefully expressed the sense that the age they describe is a shaping force in the conduct of their characters. 'The Silent Duchess' has the richness of a saga, and Maraini weaves striking scenes into the narrative with an ease, both memorable and inevitable.'
JOSEPH FARRELL, 'Independent'
''The Silent Duchess' succeeds through its accretion of details. A vivid and hushed account, Maraini's portrayal of the Duchess Marianna's life is blanketed in a strange beauty, like the snow-muffled landscape of winter.'
NICCI GERRARD, 'Observer'
'Dacia Maraini is an artist of considerable power. 'The Silent Duchess' is a novel that would have delighted Nabokov. It is brimming with detail, vividly presented in a style that is abrupt, spiky, and yet luxuriant. Every page presents one with the unexpected. It arouses intense feeling, it provokes thought.'
ALLAN MASSIE, 'Scotsman'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
It took me a while to get into this book - I thought that maybe the English translation wasn't doing it any favours. However, I stuck with it and can say that in the end I really enjoyed it and was sad to finish - it drew me in. If you want high drama and excitement then this book probably isn't for you, but if you like a slow-burning historical novel with fascinating details about places and interesting characters then I would recommend it.
0 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
My wife purchased this item for her kindle e reader. As always, the download was quick and easy, and this then makes it portable for reading on trains and her flights across europe.
Excellent facility is the Amazon Kindle, something I do not think she could travel without these days.
Excellent facility is the Amazon Kindle, something I do not think she could travel without these days.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
7 reviews
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful
This is a rich, beautiful, original novel
29 Nov 1998
Format:Hardcover
Dacia Maraini is celebrated in italy, where her books are bestsellers and win important prizes, but she hasn't yet caught on in the United States, where translated fiction gets slighted and there's room for only two or three writers from each foreign country. I hope the Silent Duchess changes that. It's an extraordinary book -- a historical novel set in 18th century Sicily, whose heroine, Marianna Ucria, the deaf and dumb aristocrat of the title, manages, in small and subtle ways, to become an independent spirit despite a forced marriage to her uncle at age 13. The writing is piquant and evocative-- Sicily has never seemed so intense and alive--sights, smells, food). This is a book with everything you'd find in a historical potboiler-- sex, love, violence, family, incest, spectacle, tragedy. But it's a serious word of art, moving, sensuous, thought-provoking. One of the best novels I've read all year!
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Maraini's Silent Duchess sank deep into my subconcious mind
3 Oct 1998
Format:Hardcover
I was attracted by the romantic presentation of eighteenth century life in Sicily, reminiscent of The Leopard.......however this leopardess has her own den. I'm still sorting the pieces of what could have been a pot-boiler with the nuances which made this book cling to me. In very small experiences akin to the heroine, I have spent some days in silence and am astounded at the view I have of my world and my colleagues. As was depicted by Maraini, people filled in the blanks for the Duchess (or for me) without considering or verifying assent or denial. As the story forms and is given to us (that is my description of the subtle powers of the author), the Duchess changes. We are almost not aware, and then we see that that was the story all along. Change isn't the right word, that's too dramatic. It's more like she 'comes to be'. The unpackaged ending is so hopeful, and so unconstrained. I'm tired of being told what I should be, in life and in print. I'm already an overachiever with freedoms Mariana never dreamed of. Oh, thank you Dacia. I'm going back for more.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
a silent little gem
30 Oct 2002
Format:Paperback
I had to read this book for a literature class, and I completely adored it. If you know even a little bit about the social situation of women in the 18th century, you'll soon understand what a remarkable character the Duchess Marianna Ucria is. Although I had figured out, really early into the novel what the 'childhood trauma' was, I was pleased to see that it wasn't a book about coming to terms with trauma (yawn, yawn). Instead The Silent Duchess is more a novel about silences, both physical and metaphorical, it gives a voice to women who have been ignored by both society and history.
Dacia Maraini has created a gem of a book, which deal with many women's issues, some of which still exist today, but does so in a way that's not off-putting. Thought provoking, not boring.
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