Gian Burrasca: an Italian graded reader at level A1

Glossary

burla · prank, hoax ((sin. scherzo, beffa))

Uno scherzo fatto a qualcuno, di solito alle sue spalle.

A joke played on someone, often behind their back.

Heavier than a joke: a burla always has someone at the receiving end. Giannino's begin as small copyings and hidings and grow, one by one, into things that break lives: a fiancé driven out, an election lost.

complotto · plot, conspiracy ((sin. cospirazione, trama))

Il mettersi d'accordo di nascosto per fare qualcosa contro qualcuno.

A secret agreement between people to act against someone.

At the college Giannino is no longer alone: with Tito, Maurizio and Carlo he becomes part of a band, and every prank is now a plot. It is the first time in the book he has allies: and Vamba is right that four boys against the rector are far more frightening than one boy alone.

disubbidire · to disobey ((sin. trasgredire, non ubbidire))

Non fare quello che dicono i genitori o i grandi.

Not to do what the grown-ups say.

Giannino disobeys, but almost never out of malice: he disobeys because nobody has ever explained why he ought to obey. It is his only weapon as a child against a world that gives him orders instead of reasons.

divisa · uniform ((sin. uniforme, vestito))

Il vestito uguale per tutti quelli che stanno insieme, come i soldati.

The same clothes worn by everyone in a group, as soldiers do.

At the college Giannino hates the uniform because it makes him look like everyone else. It is the first time his own clothes have been taken from him, and it is the first piece of himself he loses: a uniform, the book quietly says, wipes a child out, and what is left is a number, in the dormitory, in the refectory, in class.

dote · dowry ((sin. corredo, assegno))

I soldi o le cose che una sposa porta con sé nel matrimonio.

The money or goods a family gives to a daughter who marries.

In 1907 Italy no woman married without one. The three Stoppani sisters wait for a dowry the way one waits for permission to live, and Aunt Bettina is the possible dowry. Giannino drives the aunt away with a prank: and unknowingly cancels three marriages. It is the book's first great scrape.

eredità · inheritance ((sin. patrimonio, lascito))

I soldi e le cose che restano ai figli quando un parente muore.

The money and things left to the children when a parent dies.

The whole Stoppani family lives waiting for Aunt Bettina's inheritance: to talk about the aunt is to talk about when she will die, and Giannino grasps this as a child. The book says something hard: in Ottocento bourgeois families the death of an old woman was good news, and nobody said so aloud.

The glossary contains 25 entries in all