The Stone Boudoir: Travels through the Hidden Village of Sicily

Memoir became all the rage in the ‘90s and continues to take up more literary breathing space than it generally deserves. While good memoirs have been published, overall, the genre suffers from a single primary flaw: Too many writers confuse their life stories with themselves. Memoirists (indeed, any writer) who place themselves smack-dab in the center of their work create uninspired, and uninspiring, narratives.

One memoir that does not suffer from the failings of self is Theresa Maggio’s The Stone Boudoir (recently released in paperback), a refreshing, illuminating story related in simple, heart-rendered prose.

Maggio, whose parents emigrated from Sicily, and who has been traversing the Sicilian landscape since the early ‘70s, published Mattanza several years ago. It was the story of an annual tuna harvest practiced in an eons-old, ritualized fashion by one Sicilian village. After successfully taking on a village, Maggio found the courage to take on all of Sicily. Richer than Mattanza, Stone Boudoir as a memoir must rank amongst the best, if nothing else, because Maggio stood to the side and let Sicily reveal its story.

She did all the right things. First, and most important, she learned the spoken language, even some Sicilian dialect (very difficult), an absolute prerequisite for understanding another culture. Beyond spoken language, Maggio spent years on the island, letting its earth and stone seep into her soul. She lived in villages and cities, traveled to islands, rode trains, buses, cars, motorbikes, bicycles, and donkeys. She spoke with and befriended the high, the low, and everything in between, with equanimity. She searched and reflected with her ears, her eyes, her heart, and in doing so, the simple, earnest lives of Sicilians emerged triumphant over all the evils that have been forced upon them.

We all know about Bad Sicily. Tainted by corruption, sullied by the Mafia, neglected by the Italian government, and laced with poverty nearly unheard of in Western Europe, Sicily has seen her share of trouble.

Standing in resolute contradiction, however, to all the bad press, Sicily is one of the most engaging, historically fascinating, geographically diverse, hospitable places on the planet. It is home to Etna, an extremely active volcano that, all told, makes up nearly one-third of eastern Sicily’s landmass, and is responsible for its lush landscape.

Palermo, the much-reviled capital, is one of Europe’s great treasures — comparable to Rome, London, Paris, Prague, Budapest, or Vienna. Tourist mobs head for Sicily’s beaches and sunny islands, but rarely give cities like Palermo the attention they deserve, in large part, because they lose their way.

Eschewing the Disney aesthetic that dominates so much European tourism these days, Palermo is not tourist friendly. Why should it be? Like the virgin so prized in Sicilian culture, it saves itself for the one who is willing to put up with her quirks, her fits, her winding ways. But what a prize she is — for the admirer willing to take her on her own terms.

To the list of attractive-but-not-easily-accessible, might be added the industry-choked but splendidly Baroque Catania, the mystical Norman subtleties of Monreale, villages nearly prehistoric, where some of the population still inhabit bronze-age caves, the antique charm of Syracuse, or the splendor that was classical Greece at Selinunte.

Writers, too, must share some of the blame for Sicily’s poor image. Many have written, and quite engagingly, on Sicily’s woes. It’s always easier to find fault, though, than to do the digging that will pull up treasure. And, up until Stone Boudoir, few contemporary writers have chosen to focus on Sicilian treasures, which appear to be nearly endless.

Food: Dolce — divine cannolo, cassata, cassateddi, ‘mpanatigghi, velvety marzipan — cheeses crafted by time and care, chewy bread fired in wood ovens, wine harvested from vines planted so far back, no one remembers the year, and sweet olive oil with a softness found nowhere else in the Mediterranean. La Cucina Siciliano, just as much as the languages and architecture, reflect Sicily’s cultural mix. Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Arab, Norman, Schwab, and Jew — Sicily is the embodiment of Mediterranean cosmopolitanism, a cultural legacy the industrial age has nearly obliterated.

Maggio did well to stay out of the way of Sicily. Like Michelangelo, who believed his sculptures already existed, and that he, the artist, was only an instrument that released them from their stone, Maggio chose to act as but an instrument for releasing the splendor of Sicily to her readers.

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