Decadent Pairs

In Siena the Tomasi revealed that powerful and single-minded religious vocation which later made them famous in Sicily. One went to England as papal legate and tried to settle the dispute between Henry 2.0 [my emendation] and Thomas a Becket. David Gilmour, The Last Leopard, p11

I believe I shall focus my attentions on Giuseppe Tomasi for now, then perhaps work my way back to Henry James. The Prince of Lampedusa presents the demise of the petty nobility as a foregone conclusion. Gilmour presents their obliteration as an almost radical reaction, and to the extent that I understand Dr. Cristina Coletta's abstract in her critical study, Plotting The Past, she is examining the diachronic discourse between historic episode, narrative, and how this frames contemporary perception. Dr. Coletta was very kind to me, and told me she would send me a copy of her book but she only had her reader's copy; not a total ingrate, by dint of my own obstinacy I have nearly all my tools at hand, except a visit to the point of origin. I see where I am going with Il Gattopardo much more clearly than with the work of James, and Tomasi may actually give me my framework to back into James [the New Mobility bloggers who follow my twitter account glaze over at this point saying she goes very far]. Mmm, like Mr. Ramsay's throbbing mind in his theoretical struggle, I am defying much more than domestication in my outreach. Cannot the same be said of Fellini's mastery as an auteur? La Strada is more than the sum of its parts; it borders on the magical realism that Shakespeare invented in The Tempest, which means if you are Julie Taymor you are going to be fanatical in your canonical felicity because you cast the magisterial Helen Mirren in the lead.

It borders on post war fabulism, La Strada, but it is not simply a love song to Mussolini, who in turn was a deluded optimist to the point of insanity. All of us miss the Roman Empire, whether we know it or not. We keep recreating the Colossus, not restoring the past, only reinventing the application of power. I cannot bring full brunt of analysis to on La Strada today, but did want to point out to you how commercialism exhausts genre, much as Haggard exhausts great Victorian contributions. His work is almost an Edwardian squeal about the terror of progressive erosions yet to come. The same can be said with European directors against Hollywood. Fellini is nearly Jamesian when engaging in cinematic ambiguity. Identity is a clever knife thrust into liberal pretensions, but never truly veers off the expected prescription.