Blindfolded Love

Farina, Salvatore, 1846-1918Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.1

Word count: 206K words
Chapters: 21

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Amore bendato by Salvatore FarinaAuthor: Farina, Salvatore, 1846-1918,Language: Italian, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Oct 2, 2006

Editor's review

Amore bendato (Blindfolded Love) is a novel by the Italian writer Salvatore Farina (1846–1918), belonging to the tradition of realist and popular narrative in post-unification Italy. Farina is known for his attention to character psychology and everyday ethics, and the title itself carries an allegorical charge: love, once blindfolded, can hardly discern its object or its own situation. The work revolves around misrecognition, hesitation and choice in emotional relationships; it does not rely on strong dramatic conflict but advances through finely drawn scenes and dialogue, rewarding quiet reading that reveals late nineteenth-century Italian ideas of family and gender. For Chinese readers it offers a window onto civic literature after the Risorgimento; the language is of moderate difficulty and the length manageable. As a public-domain ebook it is easy to obtain and suits either foreign-literature reading or Italian-language practice, though its narrative pace differs considerably from contemporary fiction and readers should adjust their expectations.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in late nineteenth-century Italian literature who wish to broaden their reading map
Learners of Italian who want to practise reading with a complete novel
Readers who enjoy psychological portraiture and family ethics rather than strong plot
Enthusiasts studying public-domain ebooks and European civic literature

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer fast-paced suspense or high-conflict plots
Beginners with no Italian and no reliable translation
Practical readers seeking contemporary relationship advice from the book

Reading tips

Read the opening chapters first to establish the characters and narrative pace, then decide whether to read through or select key chapters.
Keep an Italian dictionary or a parallel translation at hand; do not labour over every dialectal expression.
After each episode, note the characters' emotional shifts in a sentence or two to keep track of the main thread.
For language study, copy out dialogue chapter by chapter and imitate its sentence patterns in oral retelling.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

What level of Italian is needed to read this book?

The original is a late nineteenth-century Italian literary work with long sentences and some period phrasing; an intermediate reader with a dictionary can make steady progress. Beginners should first read a translation for the plot, then return to selected dialogue in the original to avoid being stalled by unfamiliar words.

How should the title Amore bendato be understood?

Literally it means 'blindfolded love' and carries an allegorical tone, signalling that blindness and misrecognition in love are among the work's themes. Watch for the misjudgements characters make about each other and their own situations; this is also a key to the book's structure.

How is the electronic edition best read?

A public-domain ebook lets you adjust font size on an e-reader or tablet; use software with dictionary lookup and note-taking so you can mark unfamiliar words and character clues as you go. As a public-domain text its layout may be plain, so add bookmarks to move through it chapter by chapter.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Farina, Salvatore, 1846-1918 Author

Salvatore Farina (1846–1918) was an Italian writer active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Public information about him is limited, and details of his life still require further verification. Four of his works are held in this collection, including Carta bollata, Due amori, Fante di picche, and Amore bendato. Their titles suggest that his writing often revolves around emotion, love, and everyday human affairs, with a gentle observation of real life. Farina's style tends toward accessible storytelling, with plain language and attention to character psychology and the unfolding of situations, and he had a certain influence among Italian readers of his time. Given the limited material available, his literary standing and later reception await a fuller account, but the works held here offer valuable textual evidence for understanding this author.