“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” So says The Leopard by Giuseppi Tomasi di Lampedusa, a short novel with epic scope: it tells the story of a family's decline from Sicilian aristocracy to eccentric possessors of a collection of worthless relics. Risorgimento—the 19th-century unification of Italy—changes the old world beyond recognition, and seemingly permanent social structures are rapidly washed away. The message that nothing is forever and that no-one's position is guaranteed is hardly original to The Leopard, but Lampedusa's book provides one of the more potent artistic reminders of this fact.

中文翻译：

---

新浪潮

“如果我们希望事物保持原样，那么事物就必须改变。” 因此，朱塞佩·汤玛西·迪·兰佩杜萨的《小豹》说，这是一部史诗般的短篇小说：它讲述了一个家庭从西西里贵族沦落为古怪的拥有无价值文物的人的故事。Risorgimento（意大利的19世纪统一国）改变了旧世界，使其面目全非，而且看似永久性的社会结构也迅速被洗劫一空。豹子几乎没有什么是永远不变的，无人能保证地位的信息，但兰佩杜萨的书为这一事实提供了最有力的艺术启示之一。