Washington Post
Thursday, May, 23, 2002
By Jonathan Yardley

CIAO, AMERICA! 
An Italian Discovers the U.S. 
By Beppe Severgnini
Translated from the Italian by Giles Watson
Broadway. 242 pp. $21.95

Originally published in Italy several years ago as "Un Italiano in America," 
this wonderfully funny and perceptive book only now finds its way to the 
country that inspired it. What a pity that it took so long to get here, but 
what a joy that it is here at last. Writing in the grand tradition of other 
Italians before him -- Giuseppe Prezzolini, Mario Soldati, Guido Piovene and, 
most notably, Luigi Barzini, the author of "O America!" -- Beppe Severgnini 
gives us the United States Italian-style, which is decidedly different from 
French-style or English-style or any other style assumed by foreign visitors 
who have attempted to describe us to their fellow countrymen and, perhaps, 
ourselves.

Italians, Severgnini says in the course of a few reflections on how Italian 
visitors react to the time difference in the United States, say that Italians 
are possessed by a "sense of wonder that makes [them] the world's eternal 
infants." They "may be descendants of Leonardo Da Vinci but we're still not 
convinced that while it's Saturday night in Washington, in Milan it really is 
Sunday morning." Maybe that's it, maybe it's something else, but whatever the 
explanation for it, Italians who have written about this country almost 
always do so not only with wonder but also with joy, affection, astonishment 
and delight. No Dickensian outrage is to be found in these pages, no close 
Tocquevillian analysis; "Ciao, America!" is fun from first page to last, pure 
and simple.

Severgnini, a popular Italian columnist and author of several books that have 
been bestsellers in Europe, came to the United States in the spring of 1994, 
apparently with the express purpose of writing this book. He and his wife 
rented the house at 1513 34th St. NW, on the theory that "the tiny rooms and 
woodworm-riddled floors of Georgetown serve to cushion the blow of moving 
from the Old World" in ways that a suburban tract house in Bethesda or 
Springfield never could. They got all the necessary American papers and 
bought a used car -- all of which Severgnini describes with great glee -- and 
then went off to Potomac Mills to furnish the house:

"It is a spectacularly large mall whose tentacles spread out across the 
fields of Virginia, attracting 14 million visitors each year. Many of the 
shops are factory outlets and the prices are a third lower than in the shops 
in town. It's immensely easy to get lost and absolutely impossible not to buy 
anything. After one hour, Europeans are enjoying themselves like spoiled 
children. After two hours, they are scooping things up like refugees from the 
former Soviet bloc."

They are in fact victims of "the Russian Tourist Syndrome," defined as 
"disorientation, an urge to buy everything you can lay your hands on, and the 
general impression of having disembarked somewhere in the future." The 
challenge is stupendous because "you have to distinguish, in this tropical 
rain forest of supply, the necessary from the superfluous, the tool from the 
toy, and the service that will enhance your lifestyle from the contraption 
that will serve to complicate it even further."

With that as with everything else, Severgnini has himself a ball. Here for 
your delectation are a couple of quotes, the first having to do with snow in 
Washington:

"The newspapers carry articles that appear to have been written by elementary 
schoolchildren. Under headlines that say 'It's snowed,' women journalists 
with names like Terry or Marcia interview kids with sleds (carefully noting 
name, surname, and age), parents who are keeping an eye on them ('The kids 
are having a wonderful time'), snowperson artists who have been promoted to 
sculptors, and the inevitable fifty-year-old immigrant from Central America 
who has never seen snow before. I'm convinced it's always the same man from 
El Salvador who keeps moving round the United States, following the weather 
forecasts."

The second involves a quick return visit that Severgnini made to the States 
in 2000 to provide an epilogue for the American edition of his book. In 
Georgetown he found a new Fresh Fields, "a temple to the cult of American 
alimentary correctness" that he gets exactly right:

"At Fresh Fields, the produce is organic, biological, and telegenic. And they 
have prices to match. Safeway, which in 1995 was for me the last word in 
shopping chic, now looks like an unassuming Standa store back home. In 
contrast, Fresh Fields is for intellectuals. Young women with a studiedly 
disheveled air diffidently observe vegetables that could give them lessons in 
dress sense. Athletic advocates leap like mountain goats from a white 
Californian wine to a French red. . . . I wanted to scream, 'Why is your beer 
always too cold and your coffee too hot?' Then I realized that the 
sophisticated clientele at Fresh Fields might actually have agreed with me. 
And where's the fun in that?"

The fun of course is right here, in "Ciao, America!" Just as the fellow in 
Fresh Fields says as he hands you a sample of grilled organic pork loin on a 
Belgian wafer: Try it, you'll like it.
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E-mail: yardley@twp.com
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<A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60480-2002May22.html">
A Bella Laugh (washingtonpost.com)</A> 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60480-2002May22.html
===============================
<A 
HREF="http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=19X816T

6N2&mscssid=&isbn=0767912357">Barnes & Noble.com - Ciao, America: An Italian 
Discovers the U.S.</A> 
http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=19X816T6N2&ms

cssid=&isbn=0767912357
===================
>From the Publisher: 

In the wry but affectionate tradition of Bill Bryson, Ciao, America! is a 
delightful look at America through the eyes of a fiercely funny guest — one 
of Italy’s favorite authors who spent a year in Washington, D.C.

When Beppe Severgnini and his wife rented a creaky house in Georgetown they 
were determined to see if they could adapt to a full four seasons in a 
country obsessed with ice cubes, air-conditioning, recliner chairs, and, of 
all things, after-dinner cappuccinos. From their first encounters with 
cryptic rental listings to their back-to-Europe yard sale twelve months 
later, Beppe explores this foreign land with the self-described patience of a 
mildly inappropriate beachcomber, holding up a mirror to America’s signature 
manners and mores. Succumbing to his surroundings day by day, he and his wife 
find themselves developing a taste for Klondike bars and Samuel Adams beer, 
and even that most peculiar of American institutions — the pancake house.

The realtor who waves a perfect bye-bye, the overzealous mattress salesman 
who bounces from bed to bed, and the plumber named Marx who deals in 
illegally powerful showerheads are just a few of the better-than-fiction 
characters the Severgninis encounter while foraging for clues to the real 
America. A trip to the computer store proves just as revealing as D.C.’s 
Fourth of July celebration, as do boisterous waiters angling for tips and 
no-parking signs crammed with a dozen lines of fine print. 

By the end of his visit, Severgnini has come to grips with life in these 
United States — and written a charming, laugh-out-loud tribute.
================================
>From the Critics: From Library Journal 

It would be difficult not to like this delightful book. Best-selling Italian 
author Severgnini, who is also a correspondent for the Economist and a 
columnist for the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, here documents one 
year in America. The book is actually an English version of Un italiano in 
America now with a postscript five years later. Severgnini's encounter with 
America begins in April 1994 when he and his family arrive in Washington, DC, 
and settle in Georgetown, a neighborhood where he meets both college students 
and politicians. In a light yet poignant writing style, he chronicles renting 
and furnishing his new home and approaches routine tasks that Americans take 
for granted obtaining parking permits, choosing cable and long distance 
services with wonder and humor. He also tackles American customs and habits: 
Why are Americans obsessed with air-conditioning and ice? Why do they like 
their coffee scalding? Americans, he observes, are individualistic, and yet 
they also come together for a nationwide picnic on the Fourth of July. While 
the key strength of the book is the author's fresh perspective, the weakness 
is its focus on Washington, DC, and many consider America to start actually 
beyond the capital Beltway. Still, a good purchase for most public libraries. 
Lee Arnold, Historical Soc. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Cahners Business 
Information.