Santi Buscemi, professor of English, has translated a second book by Luigi Capuana, \u201cThe Marquis of Roccaverdina\u201d (1903). \u201cIn my view it is his masterpiece,\u201d Professor Buscemi said. \u201cIt is the story of a wealthy marquis in Sicily in the late 19th century. He has an affair with a servant woman with whom he is madly in love, but he is convinced by his family that he cannot marry her because of their class differences. He comes up with an idea to have the foreman of his estate marry her, but they have to live together as brother and sister \u2013 not as husband and wife.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis does not turn out well,\u201d Professor Buscemi says with a smile.<\/p>\n
Indeed. Marchese suspects that the foreman does not live up to the agreement, so he kills the man. These events precede the novel, which exposes the Marquis\u2019 jealousy and guilt. \u201cHe now lives with remorse and pain,\u201d Professor Buscemi said. \u201cIt is an incredible work, lyrical, involving and introspective.\u201d This is the second book of Capuana (1839-1915) that Professor Buscemi has translated. The first was \u201cC\u2019era una volta,\u201d a collection of fairy tales under the English title \u201cSicilian Tales.\u201d Both were published by Dante University Press. \u201cCapuana is the father of Italian naturalism, even though he disavowed that title as he got older,\u201d Buscemi said. \u201cNaturalists believe we have little free will; that outside forces such as biology, heredity, economics, politics and social standing control our behavior. \u201cIn some ways this book relates to that,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it also reflects Capuana\u2019s belief in human psychology as a motivating factor, and he does a masterful job of depicting the agony of a human soul.\u201d<\/p>\n
He sent his first book to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who replied that his father had done significant research on Capuana, and he invited Professor Buscemi and his wife Elaine to visit him at the court. The trip was March 14. \u201cHe was so gracious and so kind to us,\u201d Professor Buscemi said. \u201cHe was unbelievably amiable. It was like sitting with your neighbor and having a cup of coffee. He had sent me a copy of his father\u2019s dissertation and the first thing he asked was \u2018Did it help?\u2019 I told him it did, very much. His father had a dry sense of humor and poked fun at Capuana and other authors of his era. Justice Scalia told me \u2018You\u2019d have loved to meet my father.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cAt one point, he turned to Elaine and said, \u2018What do you think about the new pope?\u2019 and we talked a little bit about politics. It was a great visit. He was very friendly and warm.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Santi Buscemi, professor of English, has translated a second book by Luigi Capuana, \u201cThe Marquis of Roccaverdina\u201d (1903). \u201cIn my view it is his masterpiece,\u201d Professor Buscemi said. \u201cIt is the story of a wealthy marquis in Sicily in the late 19th century. He has an affair with a servant woman with whom he is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":850,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-854","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/mcc-publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/mcc-publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/mcc-publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/mcc-publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/mcc-publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/mcc-publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/854\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/mcc-publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/mcc-publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}