The Italian version, the masculine alter-ego, of the feminine The Makioka Sisters. Tremendously different in style: rich, overwhelming, melancholic, deep, dusty, with a sense of gloom, grand, magnificent, but similar in spirit. This is an easier read than The Makioka Sisters for those more accustomed to the European way of writings, the Romantic, the somehow Art Nouveau style of expression. Nostalgic, asymmetric, with whiplashes twisting, tangling, spiraling, stark and strong like vintage cognac.