Fante di picche

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

3.2

Word count: 154K words
Chapters: 16

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.Fante di picche by Salvatore FarinaAuthor: Farina, Salvatore, 1846-1918,Language: Italian, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Nov 21, 2006

Editor's review

This book is a novella by the Italian author Salvatore Farina; its title means "Jack of Spades" and it belongs to late nineteenth-century Italian narrative literature. Farina is known for lightly sketching everyday human feelings and family relationships, and his works often carry gentle irony and sentimentality. The book is short, with plot driven by dialogue and scenes of daily life, making it a suitable introductory text for approaching modern Italian fiction. Its reading value lies in language and characterization: readers can observe how the author builds character and creates turns with limited scenes, and can also sense the atmosphere of Italian society at the time. As a public-domain e-book, the edition is mainly the original text, suiting readers willing to read slowly and attend to narrative technique. For language learning, it can be read closely paragraph by paragraph with a dictionary; for literary interest, it can be treated as a short excursion into modern Italian fiction.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literary readers who want an initial encounter with modern Italian fiction
Learners of Italian who want to practice reading with a short original text
Those interested in late nineteenth-century Italian family life and human feeling
Readers who enjoy light irony, slice-of-life narrative, and character dialogue

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer strong plots and fast-paced stories
Beginners with weak Italian who are unwilling to look up words
Academic researchers expecting detailed notes or introductions

Reading tips

Read through the whole book first to grasp the story's direction, then revisit key dialogues to see how characters are drawn.
Keep pen and paper to record unfamiliar Italian expressions, organizing them by scene while also learning the language.
After finishing, summarize the plot and character relationships in a few sentences to check whether you have grasped the narrative's key points.
If the author interests you, look for Italian novels from the same period for comparison and note differences in narrative style.

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 does "Fante di picche" mean?

It is Italian for the jack of spades in a deck of cards. The title itself carries a sense of card play and chance; its specific meaning in the story needs to be understood through reading the text, and the plot should not be guessed from the title alone.

Is this book suitable for learning Italian?

It can serve as reading material in the original, but it is a late nineteenth-century literary work whose language differs from contemporary spoken Italian, and public-domain e-books usually lack notes. An intermediate level or so is advisable; read closely paragraph by paragraph with a dictionary and organize new words by scene.

Do I need to know the author's background before reading?

Not necessarily. Reading the text first is enough to experience the story and characters. For deeper study, you can look up basic biographical information and the period of Salvatore Farina's writing after finishing, to help understand the Italian literary context, but this should not replace close reading of the text.

Comments

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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.