The Silent Duchess Book

Through the story of a deaf and mute duchess, author Dacia Maraini describes the stultifying culture of Sicily in the early 1700's. There is a strong class system with nobles living well, but precariously. They control the lives of those below their rank and on a whim they can pluck someone from miserable poverty and "elevate" them to servitude.

Noble women, who are well dressed and well fed, are similarly moved around, but their fate is determined more by strategy than by whim. The sons are not always pleased with the match made by their parents, but beauty can help the ease a loveless marriage... in the beginning. In this culture, everyone is vulnerable, and no one is happy. Mosquitos and the disease are ever present.

The people are preoccupied with ceremony and rank. The culture looks inward: "To confront other minds, other ideas, is considered in principle an act of perfidy." (p.49). The Duchess is an exception, in her physical isolation, books are her communication. While she has a life of the mind, she cannot escape the culture. While she performs acts of kindness, she understands and uses the tools of control for those she outranks. She will not or cannot follow her heart.

This book is beautifully written. Characters and the tension they inject are poetically drawn, be they major characters such as Don Pietro, who in every scene exudes his technical status as "uncle husband" or minor characters such as that of Guiseppa of whom it is said to be "inconceivable" that she is not married at 23. Many scenes are exquisite depictions of time and place such as the complex upstairs/downstairs relationship of the Duchess and Fila who has been gifted to her, the funeral of Don Pietro and the business matters that follow it, how Marianna seeks a wife for Saro, and the picnic in the vineyard to name a few.

There is an Afterward by Anna Camaiti Hostert. But for the revelation of one plot element, this would have been better as a preface. Its information on author's background and Hostert's interpretation of how Sicily's 1700's inwardness and social structure impoverished the island can better inform the text if they are read first.

This is an excellent novel and I highly recommend it to those who appreciate historical fiction for what it says about place and time.