Fabrizio Crobera, Prince of Salina

The novel's central character is a hereditary Sicilian aristocrat, a large man "who liked everything round him to be on his own scale except his wife." At the beginning of the novel, he is portrayed as essentially content - with his position, his family, his lifestyle, and the socio-political environment in which he lives. He has his little affairs, his occasional failings, and an escape - a mathematical fascination with astronomy and with the easily consistent predictability of the movement of the stars. Within his contentment, however, he has a realistic streak - specifically, he is troubled by a growing awareness of impending change. That change manifests in the novel, as it did in real life, in the historically-recorded, social revolution engineered by the rebel leader Garibaldi. As the narrative unfolds, this awareness both deepens and becomes less troubling, with the Prince, whose family...