Thursday,
September 14, 2006
Book: "La Bella Figura:
A Field Guide to the Italian Mind" -
The
ANNOTICO Report
Yes,
I have Reported Reviews before on Beppe Severgnini's "La Bella Figura:
A Field Guide to the Italian Mind", but each review seems to approach it
from a different perspective, and emphasis, that adds to the books richness.
In
this one, I particularly liked this anecdote. "I had a student in
"We
hate impersonal relationships. You deal with everyone: the waitress, the
policeman. We look at people and talk to them, remember each and every one.
Some people find that tiring."
ITALIAN
DOLCE VITA TRANSLATED FOR ALL
Judy
Stoffman
September. 13, 2006.
If
you think of grated parmesan, Armani jackets, grappa, Fiat cars or Vespa scooters as
"
For
those who have the misfortune not to have been born in
Reading
his witty deconstruction of Italian habits and customs, we learn many
fascinating things: that Italians feel sorry for anyone who has to walk; that
they consider stop signs and red lights at intersections as just a suggestion;
that an Italian absolutely must park right next to his destination; that
conversation is a performance art accompanied by extravagant gestures, which
are codified in an Italian dictionary; that Italians don't like air
conditioning; that paying your taxes in Italy signifies a failure of imagination.
"The
fine gesture comes easier to us than good behaviour,"
he writes, adding that Italians have an "` la carte approach" to
morality. Italians mistrust credit cards and prefer cash but have happily
embraced another modern invention, the telefonino (cellphone). It fits perfectly into Italian life, adding
public drama to private affairs when everyone overhears the conversation.
They
love good food but eat according to rules that stranieri (foreigners) will find puzzling: pizza must not be
ordered at lunch, grating parmesan over pasta with clam sauce is possibly
illegal and a cappuccino cannot be drunk after 10 in the morning.
In
a recent interview at Bar Italia on
"On
a wet fall day in
And pizza? "Maybe if you are a student, you can have
for lunch. Or at sporting events - it is happy food."
It
is also good for mopping up the alcohol when friends meet for late-night
drinks. "In northern countries and at
La
Bella Figura is an update of the classic
work of the great journalist Luigi Barzini, The
Italians, published in 1964. Severgnini
acknowledges his debt to Barzini, who died in 1984,
by using a quote from his book as his epigraph.
When
asked why Italians are so tolerant of political corruption, Barzini
has this explanation: parliamentary democracy is a foreign import and Italian
people accept that leaders will always act like the Borgias
or the Medicis, putting their own interests first and
the public interest second.
But
it is the warmth of Italians that we northern people envy, and with reason. No
other Europeans invest as much energy and time in human relationships.
"I
had a student in
For
the English, his country has always represented a place of liberation because
"it's a place where people are willing to overlook the rules," Severgnini says.
The
Romantic poets Keats, Shelly and Byron all spent time there, as did Robert
Louis Stevenson, D.H. Lawrence and E.M. Forster, and their writings bequeathed
us an idea of
Severgnini was provoked into writing his book in reaction to
the sentimental bestsellers of American writer Frances Mayes such as Bella
Tuscany: The Sweet Life in Italy, Under the
Tuscan Sun and Bringing Tuscany Home. In these lifestyle tomes, the
locals are picturesque extras, he says. "She has a stereotype of
He
is flattered by the attention, he says, but the picture is false.
"
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