La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to
the Italian Mind
Sunday,
October 01, 2006
La Bella Figura: Learning Italian Easy; Learning to BE Italian is
Impossible.
The ANNOTICO
Report
So long ago the
Italians learned what Americans still do not understand: "Image is TOO
Often more Important than Reality"
To explain: If I
have No Power, But I Give the Appearance of Power, You will THINK I have
Power, and You will treat me with More Respect than I might otherwise Deserve. ....
Think about it.
La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to
the Italian Mind
The
Globe and Mail
Julie
Enfield
September
30, 2006
The
first question everyone asks me when I tell them I lived in
Epicurean
obsession is one of the many nuggets that journalist Beppe
Severgnini offers in La Bella Figura,
his ironic and insightful examination of the Italian mind. "The restaurant
is where high-flying bankers come to meet A-list celebs,
who come to rub shoulders with leading fashion designers, who want to bump into
big names in the media, who come to look down their noses at everyone else,
only to beam in contentment when they are recognized," the author of Ciao,
America! writes, carving up, this time
around, our idealized notions of Italian culture. "Be wary of everyone's
poise," he warns in his first chapter. "Don't trust the quick smiles,
bright eyes, and elegance of many Italians."
This may sound
more like Dante's Inferno, but as Severgnini points
out, "
Despite what such
writers as Byron, Goethe and Stendhal had to say about the country, our
And only in
Anyone in doubt
as to the power of this passion for beauty need only head to
Severgnini explains that his
compatriots' weakness for surface appeal extends beyond miniskirts. "We
judge books by their covers, politicians by their smiles, professionals by
their offices, and cars by their styling," he writes. As a result, many
Italians often confuse what is beautiful with what is good. Small
wonder that "one in four Italians is president of something."
Severgnini, a columnist for the
Severgnini's attention then moves to
the psychopathology of the stop light. Here, we learn that a red traffic light
denotes a variety of interpretations. For example, a seven-in-the-morning red
light, with no sign of pedestrians, is a "negotiable red," a
"not-quite-red" that invites drivers to reflect. A red light in
From there, Severgnini goes on to look at the anarchy of the workplace,
the sensory calm of the church and the busy Italian bedroom. His whirlwind
10-day excursion -- partially conceptual, partially geographic -- takes us to
such legendary cities as
Severgnini's observations about
Italians are surprisingly objective; as well, they have the authority of an
insider. Consider trains. Like restaurants, restrooms and churches, trains are
places of "group confession and collective absolution." Or television. We learn that TV "is as exotic as an
airport, as unruly as a city street, as hypnotic as a hotel, as perturbing as a
store, as ever-changing as a restaurant, as noisy as a train, as deceiving as
the countryside, as instructive as a piazza and as ubiquitous as
churches."
When it comes to
office crime in
While clearly
illegal, lying about one's income at tax time is considered normal.
"Obedience is boring," Severgnini writes.
"We think it's an insult to our intelligence to comply with a regulation.
We want to decide whether a particular law applies to our specific case. In that time and place."
Ultimately, La
Bella Figura is a snapshot of
Julie Enfield
is the author of Kiss and Tell: An Intimate History of Kissing. She lives in
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