Ignazio was destined to rule Casa Florio since birth, a fearless drive that pulses through his veins, pushing him to look beyond Sicily towards Rome, Europe and its courts, the naval domination of the Mediterranean, and eventually the purchase of the entire Archipelago of the Egadi to build his dazzling empire. But his heart is black as ice. To seize Casa Florio, he abandoned the love of his life—an act of treachery which still casts a dark shadow.
Barely twenty, his son Ignazziddu stands to inherit all that his father has built. Yet he is nothing like Ignazio. A nervous young man, he does not want to be shackled to his infamous name, to sacrifice himself for the family. Despite his fears, he embraces Ignazio’s legacy, and must face a world that changes too quickly, agitated by new, violent, and uncontrollable forces. Ignazziddu eventually realizes that it’s not enough to have Florio blood to become the imposing force his grandfather and father were. What is it they had that he lacks?
Beside father and son are two extraordinary women: Giovanna, Ignazio’s wife, hard and fragile as crystal, full of passion but hungry for love, and Franca, the wife of Ignazziddu, the most beautiful woman in Europe, whose golden existence is threatened by the blows of a cruel fate. It is these women who unforgettably animate The Triumph of the Lions.
The book has a slow pace probably because of the simple plot as well as the plethora of Italian words that I was not familiar with. I quickly got tired of looking up words in the dictionary. Since the story has just been translated into English, I have to wonder if there is an issue with the translation or with the plot. However, the translator should not have left so many of the words in Italian. A few of these words were explained in the next sentence but most were not. When the story moved to Ignazio seeing his French lover once again, we had to decipher the French sayings.
We have all heard the admonition to writers to "show not tell." In Lions there is alot of "tell," especially in the first half of the story. The characters were one dimensional until the final third of the story where we see Ignazziddu take over the family business. The reader sees Ignazziddu is not up to the challenge of running the family business from his actions. We see him spending too much money and that he is a womanizer. Having never been interested in the business while his father was alive, Ignazziddu learned nothing over the years that would have prepared him for running the company. In the end, we see the business faltering. The story ends with the birth of his first child. A girl. I am presuming that this means the end of the family. I don't know because the novel ended abruptly with her birth.
I am not sure how to rate the book. I was bored throughout most of it but the ending was good. There were serious problems with either the writing or the translation or both. I will give it a 2 star rating.
