Monday, January 07, 2008

"Polenta at Midnight: Tales of Gusto and Enchantment in North York" by Glenn Carley.

The ANNOTICO Report

 

A Canadian- English guy - who marries into an Italian-Canadian family and embraces the cultural differences, and is enriched by it.

 

The book is divided into six acts, in the structure of an Italian opera, with all the dramatic flourishes - arias, serenades, laments, intermissions, finale and curtain call.

 

An Italian Flourish

Anglo marries a woman and her culture

 

Montreal Gazette - Montreal,Quebec,Canada

Enza Micheletti
Saturday, January 05, 2008

...We witnessed some ugly moments of bigotry at the Bouchard-Taylor Commission.... What Quebecers needed instead was a little inspiration, a little reminder of the magic of ordinary lives made extraordinary when cultures meet, mingle, grow together, intertwine. They needed to pick up a copy of "Polenta at Midnight: Tales of Gusto and Enchantment in North York", a debut non-fiction book by Glenn Carley.

The book is an antidote to all that malaise. On its back cover, the reader discovers some personal history about the author. Carley is a social worker with the Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board in suburban Toronto. He's an "Inglese" - an English guy - who marries into an Italian family and embraces the cultural differences. More facts emerge as the story unfolds. We meet his wife, Mary, and their two children, and are introduced to the in-laws, Angelo and Lina.

And that's when the music starts. The book is divided into six acts, in the structure of an Italian opera, with all the dramatic flourishes - arias, serenades, laments, intermissions, finale and curtain call. Carley, the outsider, is drawn into the theatricality of Italian customs, into what he describes as "Garibaldi's Court," the court of the Patriarch. His father-in-law, Angelo, takes on the character of Garibaldi, and the author is named "il Vagabondo" (the vagabond). Carley addresses his readers, calling them "the audience of the Living Opera," and urges them to join him. "We will sing, dance, laugh, cry and eat polenta at midnight, al fresco," he promises.

It's a call that's hard to resist. You want to believe in this magical spell he is weaving. You are eager for the lights to dim, the curtain to rise, the drama to unfold. And like any ticket-holder, any observer, you pray it will transport you to another place, move you, teach you something. The author makes it clear, too, from the outset that's his goal. "Always there will be the lezione," he writes, "something to learn and then something to eat."

Does he succeed? In many ways, yes, mostly by finding meaning in little everyday things. He gets us to see the poetry in motion of peeling roasted bell peppers in Garibaldi's backyard; of dining on homemade wine and simple peasant food - boiled pork shoulder, bread, salad (oregano, oil and vinegar dressing, of course); of learning to make gnocchi, little potato dumplings, from scratch. In his detailed descriptions we find beauty and meaning, and it's no small feat. It reminded me of the quiet assurance of another writer, Carol Shields, one of Canada's finest, who always managed to find magic in ordinariness.

That's not to say I didn't expect to cringe a little, and sometimes did. As a daughter of Italian immigrants, I was on the lookout for stereotypes and oversimplifications. And I found some, like Carley's irritating stage direction, "Shrug shoulders here," as if all Canadians of Italian origin have that exaggerated mannerism. I wasn't impressed by the misspelled Italian (a dictionary could fix that). And all that emphasis on food had me worried, too. It's true that canning tomatoes is a ritual in most Italian-Canadian households, an orchestrated affair that takes place in garages across the country at summer's end. But there's more to Italian culture than sauce-making.

Thankfully, the author reaches for more meaning and delivers. The audience is drawn into Angelo/Garibaldi's pain. When he loses his wife, Lina, to cancer, the tragedy of it is clear. When he travels back to his hometown in Italy, the disconnect - of past and present clashing - resonates. And when he sits his Vagabondo son-in-law down for a lesson on life's meaning, all ears are tuned to the canto.

True, I'd have liked a deeper glimpse into Vagabondo's Canadian family. The author only hints at his relationship with his own father, a hole in an otherwise compact, compelling story. And I'm not convinced the opera metaphor was fully explored. But these shortcomings cannot take away the grace of this book - out of love for his wife, a man adopts a family and its culture, and is enriched by it. It's the tale of Canada, lived day to day by so many of us, and it's worth reading and remembering.

Enza Micheletti is a Gazette copy editor

POLENTA AT MIDNIGHT: TALES OF GUSTO AND ENCHANTMENT IN NORTH YORK      By Glenn Carley

Vihicule Press, 206 pages, $19.95

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/books/story.html?id=7ad26ff5-032d-4380-a2b1-461f35acaed5

 

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