Nostalgia

Deledda, Grazia, 1871-1936Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.8

Word count: 447K words
Chapters: 45

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.Nostalgia by Grazia DeleddaAuthor: Deledda, Grazia, 1871-1936,Language: English, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Jan 6, 2017

Editor's review

Nostalgia is a novel by the Italian writer Grazia Deledda, set in the Sardinian countryside and tracing a young woman's struggle between old attachments and her present circumstances. Deledda places her characters' inner lives within a landscape of barren land, patriarchal family structures and religious atmosphere; her narrative avoids dramatic turns, building tension slowly through finely observed everyday detail. Readers gain a view of the social fabric of rural southern Italy and a sense of an individual's hesitation and compromise under traditional constraints. The book works well as an introduction to Deledda and to Italian verismo, and suits readers who prefer a slow pace, strong atmosphere and inner lives over plot. A caveat: the novel moves slowly and its plot advances through mood and scene, so readers seeking strong storytelling may find it flat.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy Italian literature and the verismo style
Those interested in Sardinian rural society and women's circumstances
Slow readers who prefer psychological portraiture and atmosphere
Those curious about Deledda but who have not yet read one of her novels

Not a good fit for

Readers of popular fiction who want tight plotting and strong conflict
Nonfiction readers looking for extensive historical background
Readers impatient with slow narrative and rural subjects

Reading tips

Read a few pages first to settle into the narrative rhythm, then proceed chapter by chapter without rushing the plot.
Pay attention to how descriptions of setting correspond to the characters' inner states; this is key to understanding the book.
Supplement with background on rural southern Italy after Italian unification to deepen your sense of the characters' situation.
After finishing, revisit the opening chapters to see how the shifts in mood and the narrative setup echo each other.

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 is this book mainly about?

Set in the Sardinian countryside, the novel centers on a young woman's emotional life and choices, tracing her hesitation between past memories and present circumstances. The focus is less on events than on psychology, family relations and the pressure of rural tradition, in Deledda's characteristic psychological realist mode.

Can I understand it without a background in Italian literature?

Yes. The novel does not depend on specialized knowledge, and the relationships and emotional conflicts are fairly direct. For a deeper reading, some familiarity with the social structure and gender norms of rural southern Italy in the late nineteenth century helps explain why the characters repeatedly yield to tradition.

Is it a good entry point compared with Deledda's other works?

It works well as one. It is moderate in length and focused in theme, and it shows Deledda's attention to rural society and women's psychology. If it interests you, continue with her better-known works and compare how her narrative methods and themes carry over.

Comments

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About the author

Deledda, Grazia, 1871-1936 Author

Grazia Deledda (1871–1936) was an Italian writer, with five works held in this collection. Her novels are largely set in the villages and small towns of Sardinia and often explore themes of marital breakdown, departure from one's homeland, and conflicts between religion and emotion, written in a plain style rich in local colour. Representative works include After the Divorce: A Romance, Nostalgia, Dopo il divorzio, Καλαμιές στον άνεμο, and The Woman & the Priest; Dopo il divorzio and After the Divorce are the original title and its English translation of the same work. The collection classifies her under “inspirational growth,” reflecting her narratives of characters seeking self-development and making moral choices in adversity. Public information is limited, so biographical details and honours are not elaborated here; the focus is on her delicate portrayal of the tension between individual destiny and social ethics.