Summer Reading

“There isn’t anything to say about Venice (including this sentence) that hasn’t already been said.” This is a quote in a book about Venice by John Berendt, The City of Falling Angles, which is quoting two other people about Venice. I quote not to provide you, dear reader, with some prescient insight into Italy or Venice; at this time, I’m pretty convinced that our experience has been deeply personal, yet not entirely uncommon. No, I quote the quote that quoted the quip as a way of bringing up the subject of what I’ve been reading this summer.

A recent trip to Venice inspired a mass market paperback purchase of Berendt’s follow up to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Rachel had read it a year or so ago and proclaimed it to be “a good mix of history and gossip” and good summer reading. We had fallen under the spell of Vernice while we were there and so it was a fun read. Sometimes too much gossip and not enough history, but the parts that I was interested in I found myself totally engrossed.

For other reading on Italia I picked up La Bella Figura, by Beppi Sevegnini. The subtitle of this book is “A field Guide to Understanding the Italian Mind.” I had heard him on NPR a few months ago and he had some funny cultural insights. He’s a newspaper columnist for one of the larger papers here in Italy. He’s quite funny, very readable, and not entirely trustworthy. There’s probably a bit of truth to all of his observations, but not much to back them up with. Yet, I see what he’s talking about occasionally when I’m out walking the town. Still, another good summer read. Rachel and I are both reading this one simultaneously so it’s a hot commodity around the house.

While googling La Bella Figura, I stumbled across this:"The Italians", by Luigi Barzini. Looks similar and interesting, while maybe not as cheeky.

One more Italian thing before I move on. We are living at the corner of Via Canonica and Via del Inferno in the heart of Bologna's old Jewish ghetto which has now been enveloped by the University district. Dante attended the University of Bologna and even references the two towers around the corner from our flat in Canto ______ of the Divine Comedy. On the little Piazetta around another corner (the neighborhood is truly a labyrinth) there was this little street theater production that happened for about a week straight. The first night I stopped to watch, but it being in Italian I understood very little. What I did follow was that they guy who was supposedly leading a tour of the ghetto was interrupted by a "passer-by" who just happens to be Alighieri Dante. I figured that out by his 12th Century hat and shoes. For the next few nights I would pass the street theater but turn the corner and head home. I got into the habit of running into Dante waiting in the wings for his cue. I got in the habit of greeting him by name, or calling him Maestro. Considering how old this neighborhood is, I appreciated running into ole Dante night after night. It was cool.

So that got me thinking about The Divine Comedy, which I read many years ago and have occasion to talk to students about every now and then. I don't teach it but sometimes students choose to read it independently and when they do, they really want to talk about it. I picked the Penguin Classic edition with a new translation by Mark Musa, who incidentally is a Professor of French and Italian at Indiana University. I chose it simply because it had the least punctuation of any translation I had to choose from. The Library Journal described his translation like this: "Musa's translation is in fluent, colloquial verse that aims for the speed and rhythm of the original though not the form." It's the most readable version I've ever seen because it doesn't get bogged down with a lot of punctuation acrobatics. Stylistically, and in subject matter, it also reminds me of one of the best books that I've read this summer and possibly in years: Cormack McCarthy's The Road.

While The Divine Comedy imagines a poet's tour of hell and the path to salvation, The Road is a poetic description of a post-apocalyptic world full of horrors worthy of Dante's Inferno. Bleak as the world of The Road is, the idea of redemption is still alive in the form of promises. I have been a fan of McCarthy for years, count Blood Meridian as one of my favorite novels ever, and have been a little disappointed with some of his recent work. The Road is possibly as good as Blood Meridian. Astoundingly, it's an Oprah book. She even scored the only live televised interview with the famously reclusive author. You have to register with Oprah's book club to watch, but there are worst things in life. The Road is an surprising choice for Oprah not because he is an obscure, dense writer, but for those of us who know what McCarthy is capable of describing, it's hard to imagine the subject matter being palatable for the millions of Oprah viewers who are eagerly awaiting instructions. Or as the color commentary guys noted in the Tournament of books this year:

Kevin Guilfoile: Has anyone built a career the way McCarthy has built his? That respect is earned, man. Bleak and violent novel after novel after novel.

John Warner:It seems like only a matter of time until we see a Saturday Night Live skit with a baby being roasted over a fire.

If anyone followed the Morning News Tournament of Books this year it came down to The Road vs. Absurbistan, by Gary Shteyngart. The Tournament happens in March, of course, and offers ficition in a sort of bracket tournament of awesomeness. The winner is awarded the coveted "Rooster" award, named after David Sedaris' brother. I'm about two-thirds of the way through Absurdistan right now, and while I'm really enjoying it, it took a while to get going. It's a fun read considering all the culture mashup things I've seen this summer. (Currently I'm writing this in on a public terminal at an internet point and long distance phone place where the dominant language is not Italian, it's Arabic.)

Another great novel that I read recently was Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell. I read Black Swan Green, his most recent book, as a possible classroom adoption for the school. I loved the book but the general consensus was that some of the language was a little too much for the community in which I teach. Feh. It was a great coming of age story and I was amped to read more. Cloud Atlas is like 6 novels all in one. David Mitchell is a talented writer who is able to nail voice almost better than anyone else writing today. Jason, the narrator of Black Swan Green, was one of the most authentic teenage voices I've read in a long time, and on top of that, it isn't even an older teenager: he's 13 for the entire length of the book. Cloud Atlas has 6 different voices and he nails each one. I highly recommend both of these books.

Finally, I plowed through Alan Furst's The Foreign Correspondent as soon as we got here. I bought it on impulse at the airport on the way out of Portland. I had been meaning to give Furst a go, but never had the time. It was a spy novel, or was it a novel about a journalist? Such a fine line when everyone is telling you secrets. Set in the Italian ex-pat community of Paris after the rise of the Fascists when Europe is poised to explode into another world war. It's thrilling, evocative, and a good book to start the trip.

I think that's it. As you could see from the photo at the top of the page, Rachel found an English version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I think that she would give it two-thumbs up. With some limited internet connectivity in our flat and a satellite dish that is scheduled for repair in September, we've both had a lot of time to read. It's been really nice. As the good people in my book club can attest, between work and grad school, my plate gets full of stuff that I have to plow through and don't get as much time to read for pleasure. We've been lucky because the English language bookstore is just around the corner (another corner) from our apartment. We brought a bunch of things with us but haven't had to rely on them entirely. Consequently, I think I'm going to be bringing home with me a very well travelled and thoroughly unread copy of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. If I don't read that book after humping it across Italy, I'm never going to read it.

La Polizia

La Polizia,

The Italians love their uniforms and considering the Italians’ contribution to world fashion, it’s no wonder. People in uniform in this country are both simultaneously sharp and scary. Cops in this county travel in packs of no less than three and it’s not uncommon to see five or more at one time. There are several layers of law enforcement around here. I quote from Bologna Inside (2^nd ed.) Everything You Need to Know to Make Bologna Home, by The International Women’s Forum of Bologna:

Memorize the following emergency numbers: 112 carabinieri (local police); 113 polizia (state police); If you want to report a disturbance such as noise, illegal activity or loitering, call the
vigili urbani (urban police) at 051.266626. If you call to report a loud party or other
minor public disturbance, the police may also stop by your house to hear your version of
events. The polizia municipale (city police) have an informative website in Italian for information on most safety issues.

So let’s see, that’s no less than four layers of law enforcement for the city alone. And don’t confuse La Polizia with the soldiers who are also around, or the specialty police forces like Guard di Financia. In fact, the only person who didn’t seem to get a uniform is the postman. I passed one the other day and thought he was just handing out menus for a local restaurant, but no, he was actually delivering the mail. I guess you don’t need much authority to do that.

Italians are so well dressed that you can imagine that their uniforms are pretty swank. They have fast looking pants with red stripes that tuck into their shiny boots, their shirts have lots of badges and labels on them, some of them get really cool looking hats. Their utility belts are often this white leather that makes such a clean line between the powder blue of their shirt and the black of their trousers, I can see why the fascists did so well here. Your basic peasant can class himself up quite a bit by slipping on a pair of jack-boots. If the Village People were Italian, disco would not be dead, of this I am sure.

The person in uniform who scares me the most is the train conductor. I’m rarely doing anything that would warrant the attention of anyone in uniform, except when I’m riding the rails. Conductors don’t have gun, but they do have this little hole puncher, which they wear in a holster on their belt like it’s a gun. When they approach you on the train you are seated and they are standing, which gives them the advantage. Then they ask you something in Italian, which you inevitably reply to in a way that tips your hand that you aren’t from around here. Then you hand them your ticket, which they don’t just look at and punch, but really look at. They look at the ticket, they look at you, they look at your ticket again. They raise one eyebrow. At this point, I’m usually pulling out my passport and wondering if I should slip a fifty Euro note in it. Then they pull out a pen (a pen!) and mark your ticket by hand, and finally they draw their hole puncher from their holster and punch your ticket, while simultaneously staring you in the eye, to make sure that you don’t morph into someone new as soon as he gives it the ok. The first few times it’s terrifying.

So in short, don’t mess with The Man no matter what costume he is wearing. He’s got the power and I am but a traveler in this land.

Note: It occurs to me that the current debate over school uniforms in America is misguided. Instead of having the students wear uniforms, maybe it should be the teachers. Except I’d want an Italian designer and some really fast looking pants.

Torino

After a full day of travel from Scanno, we arrived in Torino close to midnight. Exiting the train station the city felt alive and invigorating. But we were pooped out! Our cab ride to Hotel Alpi was straight from a scene in the movie Night on Earth. The cab driver, from all outward appearances at the curb, was a sweet lady in her early 60s. But put her behind the wheel of a car and she was hellfire. Whipping through lanes of traffic, smoking a cigarette all the while mumbling and cursing in both Italian and French. Coming from the sleepy town of Scanno, we were yanked back into the pace of a large city.

Arriving at the hotel we saw a street of nightclubs overflowing with people. We thought about joining them but once we were enveloped in the comfort of our hotel room, we decided that 1:00 am may not be the best time to plunge into this new city. Plus, the room was large and well air conditioned. Combine that with English language TV and a well-stocked mini-bar and we were staying put for the evening.

Torino (also known as Turin) is a bustling city in the Piedmont region, not far from France. People switch easily between both of these languages and the food and wine of the region reflect the melding of the two countries. Since Pat spent some time living in France he was excited to put his French language skills to work. And seeing how neither one of us had gotten further than a few basic questions and lots of superlatives in Italian, I was excited too.

One of the greatest things about this city is the porticos – covered arcades that allow you to stroll through the city in the shade.

And all of the Baroque architecture felt new compared to the ancient sites we’d seen for the past week. The Po River flows through the city and there are plenty of walkable bridges and the waterfront is lined with bars and restaurants. And there was quite a bit of activity on the water with rowing teams and people in kayaks.

Walking around on our first day we found the Palazzo Reale (the Royal Palace). The palace is undergoing massive restoration and can currently only be viewed if you go on a guided tour. We had just missed the last tour of the day but we returned the next day to take a peek. Since the tour was given in Italian, we both rented the audio guide and joined the group. For the next hour Pat and I strolled through this fantastic and ornate royal crib seeing quite a collection of art and architecture. It was awe-inspiring to see the precision in so many architectural items that were carved by hand. But these people definitely didn’t have rooms or furniture designed for relaxation.

Pat always likes to get a view of the city from above and we had a great opportunity to do that in Torino. We paid a visit to the Mole Antonelliana – it’s the monument symbol of the city. At one time the Mole was the tallest building in Europe. It’s now a museum of cinema, but they have installed an elevator that takes riders to the top. Like the Empire State Building there’s an observation deck that gives a panoramic view of the city.

One of our most memorable meals of the trip was at a restaurant in Torino called Porto di Savona. The waitress was great in guiding us through the regional specialties. From the antipasto misto freddo Piedmontese that included selections of pâté, seasoned raw beef and a selection of cheeses to the pasta dishes (gnocchi in gorgonzola sauce and house-made ravioli filled with beef and served with a lamb sauce) to our entrees (grilled steak and a Milanese dish) we felt like we made great regional menu choices.

Our second dinner in Torino will be remembered not so much for the food as it will for the zanzare attack. Zanzare may sound like some obscure regional terrorist group, but that’s actually the Italian word for mosquitoes. The most prevalent variety in Italy is the Asian Tiger Mosquito – an evil variety of bug that infests large parts of Italy every summer. While we were having a wonderful meal, the mosquitoes were literally eating me alive. When the waitress suggested dessert, Pat tried to bow out saying we needed to leave because I was getting lots of bug bites. Her response, “those aren’t bugs, they’re zanzare.” As if these little monsters belonged in a class of their own. She brought a bottle of the house mosquito repellent to our table (along with two cups of espresso) but I was already past the point of no return.

I woke up the next morning in misery, counting at least 30 bites on my legs, ankles and feet. The itching (and new bites) would follow me to the next city and I must have purchased every type of bug repellent I could find along with a huge supply of antihistamines one pharmacist prescribed. In addition to menu Italian, I had become fluent in pharmaceutical Italian!

When we were planning our trip, we knew we needed to find a city conducive to a long term stay. It had to be a city close to other places of interest (for day trips and weekend travel). Torino was a city we considered because it’s proximity to so many other countries. After a few short days, we agreed it’s a city worth spending several weeks in during our future travels. I’ll just have to pack lots of bug spray!

Scanno

The plan was to stay in Abruzzo for a week or so. We weren’t sure how long Sulmona would play out, so we looked around for another city to visit. Abruzzo is a very mountainous region that contains the single greatest area of National Parks in all of Europe. There is minimal train access but a very extensive network of buses that goes throughout. We weren’t going to be equipped for a proper trip to a National Park, but then again, we weren’t really sure what a National Park in Italy would actually be like. From my first trip to Europe I knew from experience that, as an American, my expectations were much higher than what the continent could deliver. Too many people, too much history. Our park system in American is truly one of our greatest treasures.

What we found is that the Abruzzo region is such a mountainous region and parts of it are so remote that there really are some world-class parks and wilderness areas. Our bus ride to Scanno, the remote mountain town that we decided to visit for a few days, made it clear that Italy has some territory that, if not still wild, is truly remote and undeveloped. There are a series of little mountain towns that populate its peaks and valleys, a landscape that look more like West Virginia than Oregon, and these towns are old. The medieval center to Scanno was built over 1000 years ago. The little towns that we passed through on our way there were at least as old. To an Americani who as a fifth grader celebrated the 25^th anniversary of the city he lived in, it takes some work to fathom.

Scanno has fashioned itself as a bit of a resort destination, but just barely. There is a lake, which we visited; there is a ski resort, which was closed (one of the attractions that had lured us was that you could ride the lift and hike the ridge – again, closed), and that was about it. Yet, after all we’ve done so far, Scanno holds a special place for us. It was a stony island in a sea of green that had been there for centuries. From the main piazza you could look out and see no other towns, lights, development, or other sign of civilization. Only forest. I can only imagine the isolation that people there lived through, the lack of information of the outside world, when they built the tiny little corridors of the city center. The solidarity the inhabitants must have found amongst each other. The way that knowledge was passed down from person to person. Somehow this place endured for centuries. It can only be since the advent of the automobile that people were able to get in and out with any sort of relative ease. I can’t even imagine how long it took for them to get telephone service. The isolation of this place was driven home when it was time to check out of our hotel. The communication with the banks was down. No credit cards were being run, no ATM machines were working. Luckily we were flush with cash and the buses were on time.

One of my favorite memories of the trip so far was when Rachel woke me up one night and showed me the Big Dipper framed in the window of our hotel room. The windows were those typical Italian windows which you keep shuttered all day long to keep the heat our and then throw open at night to let the air in. No screens, a few bugs, but that Big Dipper was so close I felt like it could have scooped us out of our bed and let is sleep in its ladle.

What else happened in Scanno? Rachel got me a poster of a wolf and a bear. I had been making small talk for the past few days with the good people of Sulmona about their wild animals. It’s a great conversation piece if you don’t speak the language to ask people about the biggest, baddest animals they have in their neck of the woods and then have them tell you stories about them. Even if you don’t know much Italian, you can imagine what animals do, and people have stories. I met a kid who was in a car that hit a wild boar just two weeks before. The boar was fine, but the car was damaged really badly. So I’d been asking all sorts of silly questions about bears and wolves and boars (oh my!) for the past few days. Rachel told the lady in the tourist office that her husband really likes wolves and would love a poster. I got one of a bear too. They are really cool. I’m going to hang it over my bed.

I’m sure that when we return to Italy we will make Abruzzo a definite destination, even if Rachel didn’t have family that lived there. It’s scenery is stunning, there is lots to do in the great outdoors, it’s not overrun with tourists (or Italians for that matter), and you don’t feel like if you aren’t staring at some fresco or statue you are missing the point. It’s the people, the landscape, the food, and the history that sold us, not the art. After being exposed to so much art in Rome, it felt really comfortable. We’ll be back every time.