Love and War in the Apennines

Love and War is Eric Newby's account of his experiences after being captured in Italy during World War II.  He was initially confined, along with other POWs, to an orfanotrofio (orphanage) in Fontanellato in the Emiglia-Romagna region.  The Armistice (really a surrender) of Italy to the Allies was declared two weeks before the Allies actually arrived in force, allowing the Germans to immediately send forces into Italy to prepare for the Allied invasion.  Accordingly, when Newby and the other POWs were released, they fled into the countryside to avoid being recaptured by the incoming German forces.  

Newby's story, then, describes his experiences of being harbored by the Italian farmers and mountain people who, at great risk to themselves, assisted him, out of their admirable humanity and because they hated the Fascists.  Newby is humbled by their courage and generosity and views his experiences with sympathy and humor. 

Here are a couple examples of the humor:

Drink and supplementary food were bought on the black market, which was even more extensive and better organized than it was in Britain, and a special float of Red Cross cigarettes was kept for this purpose, and for the general corruption of the Italian camp staff, by responsible members of the British administration, ex-bank managers mostly, to whom this sort of thing was second nature.

She used to tell me the latest news about my friends………how one officer whose identity I never discovered had been hidden in the castello of a local principessa who had been so impressed by his girlish face that she had the brilliant idea of dressing him as a young woman of fashion and putting him on a train to Switzerland.  This she had done but, unfortunately, he looked so desirable on the train that some soldiers had “interfered” with him, as the News of the World used to put it, and discovered the truth, although one of them got punched hard on the nose in the process of doing so.

And, in an example of the humanity and generosity of the Italian country people, one evening, a few days after the Germans had made a surprise raid to search for hidden enemy soldiers or Italian deserters, Newby was invited to a dinner with some important people in the town.  This was dangerous and he had to take special care to arrive unseen. 

I was motioned to take a seat and a glass of wine was poured for me. There was no small talk. The Chairman of the Board, for that was obviously what he was, said carefully and very slowly so that I could understand, "We have been talking about you among ourselves for some days. Many of the people in this village and in the farms round about have sons and relatives who are being hunted by the Germans.  Three of them were taken the other day. Some of them have sons in Russia of whom, so far, there is no news and who may never return. They feel that you are in a similar condition to that of their sons who, they hope, are being given help wherever they are , and they think it is their duty to help you through the coming winter, which otherwise you will not survive. I speak for them because my father was born here, and they have asked me to do so. And as it has now become too dangerous to shelter you in their houses, they have decided to build you a house which no one except the people assembled in this room, our families and one other person, and he is a kinsman, will ever hear about. The work will begin at dawn tomorrow".

The descriptions of where the home was to be located and how it was built are extraordinary.  A truly wonderful book.

The Decameron

Lauren suggested we get together each week via Zoom, to read stories from the Decameron - a wonderful choice, both because of its parallel to the COVID-19 pandemic (it's an account of stories told by ten young noblewomen and men during the plague of 1348 in Italy and Europe) and because these young people escape from a place we know and love: Firenze!

The ten young Fiorentini each tell a story a day for ten days, making 100 total stories - a decameron!  We have been reading a couple stories per week and recording our observations in a Google Drive document - here we will just record our progress toward all 100 stories, but it's worth saying that the stories are generally excellent - entertaining and thought-provoking, though including a few that are strange or  forgettable. Overall, we are really enjoying them!

The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily

This children's book, written and illustrated by Italian journalist and author Dino Buzzati, is delightful!  It's an account of how the bears, living in the mountains of Sicily (long-since vanished), and driven by a bitter winter and resultant starvation, decide to go down to the valley to attack the humans, who have food and shelter in abundance. 

The story includes the bears' King Leander, his missing bear cub Tony, a wizard, a vicious sea-serpent, and

The bears eventually triumph in their battle with the men,  and King Leander's rule comes to be appreciated by both bears and men.  But....

...it displeased Leander to see the bears changing under his very eyes. Once modest, simple, patient and easygoing, they were now proud, ambitious and full of capricious fancies.  Not in vain had they lived thirteen years among men.

The story is entertaining and satisfying at every turn!

The Neapolitan Novels

Like millions of others, I found Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels (My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and and Those Who Stay, The Story of the Lost Child) to be fully absorbing and addicting – I don’t say riveting, as many times I alternated between can’t put it down and can’t keep reading. The four books comprise a single, long story of the lifelong, deep and conflicted relationship between two girls, Elena (or Lenù), the narrator, and Rafaella (Lila).  The girls grow up in a poor and violent neighborhood of Naples, from the 1950’s to 2014  – the pervasive violence is not always due to the activities of the camorra, the “secret” crime syndicate that was widespread in Campania, but is embedded in the families and neighborhoods, and especially in the relationships between men and women. 

I was angry.  I said, “You want to use me to con them?”

She understood that she had offended me.  She squeezed my hand hard. “I didn’t intend to say something unkind.  I meant only that you are good at making yourself liked.  The difference between you and me, always, has been that people are afraid of me and not of you.”

“Maybe because you’re mean,” I said, even angrier.

“Maybe,” she said, and I saw that I had hurt her as she had hurt me.  Then, repenting, I added immediately, to make up: “Antonio would get himself killed for you: he said to thank you for giving his sister a job.”

“It’s Stefano who gave the job to Ada,” she replied. “I’m mean.”

The relationship between Lenù and Lila is synergistic – on her own, Lenù is book-smart, but a striver, who says she is only fully alive and most creative when working with, or stimulated by Lila.  In contrast, Lila is strong, exceptionally creative and fiercely independent, but seems to seek and need the validation of her accomplished friend.  And their lives and friendship are framed in the books within the larger currents of Italian political and social life, which are fully and grippingly explored.  Still, there are key events in the books whose meaning and significance I cannot quite grasp but which remain in my mind long after closing the books.  Fascinating books!

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My Brilliant Friend

The first of Elena Ferrante's four novels, which constitute the Neapolitan Quartet.  This is a powerful coming-of-age story, telling of two young girls growing up in a poor neighborhood of Naples in the 1950's, whose lives are closely intertwined, as friends and rivals, each extraordinary.  Through much of the book, the title seems clearly to refer to Lila, who is strong, fiercely independent, highly intelligent and self-taught:

Lila, too, at a certain point had seemed very beautiful to me.  In general I was the pretty one, while she was skinny, like a salted anchovy, she gave off an odor of wildness, she had a long face, narrow at the temples, framed by two bands of smooth black hair. But when she decided to vanquish both Alfonso and Enzo, she had lighted up like a holy warrior. Her cheeks flushed, the sign of a flame released by every corner of her body, and for the first time I thought: Lila is prettier than I am.  So I was second in everything. I hoped that no one would ever realize it. 

But at times, "brilliant friend" seems to apply instead to the more scholarly, but sometimes timid Elena, as the frequently tense relationship between the two see-saws back and forth.  The events that occur in the book are seemingly ordinary but they are charged with an intensity that is compelling. 

Bric-a-Brack

Darkness Visible – A memoir of madness by William Styron.  This is a frank and painful account of Styron’s sudden descent into depression.  He provides powerful insight into the depth of hopelessness experienced by those suffering from severe depression.  On one hand, he explains that those who have not suffered these ravages simply cannot comprehend how devastating they are…for example, he says that it is wrong and cruel to blame those, such as Camus, who are overwhelmed by depression and take their own lives.  In one very hopeful note, Styron does say that it’s possible to escape depression and actually become cured. 

THINKS…. by David Lodge.  Set in a small university, Lodge tells the story of the interactions and, eventually, relationship between a visiting professor of creative writing and a well-established cognitive neuroscientist who heads an impressive research center.  This was entertaining. But I enjoyed some of Lodge’s previous works in the same vein (see Changing Places!) much more.

Deruta by Elizabeth Minchilli.  This beautiful book celebrates the glorious ceramics produced in  Deruta, Italy, which are featured in gorgeous photographs by Susie Cushner and David Hamilton - just to look at these pictures is to be transported to a sunny day in Italy!  Minchilli describes the history and some of the methodology of ceramics production – this sounds as if it would be a little dry, but Manchilli’s writing is lively and absorbing. 

I recently found Venom House by Arthur Upfield, a Napoleon Bonaparte story I had never read.  Odd and intriguing characters and some unusual action.   I enjoyed it, but it's not among the better Bony mysteries.

I recently received Classic Westerns, a lovely present from Jarek.  I had been wanting to read some Zane Grey (from Zanesville, Ohio!) and enjoyed The Lone Star Ranger and, especially, The Mysterious Rider.  These were strong stories and the descriptions of life on the trail were wonderful.  In reading these books, I was once again struck by a powerful impression I first had many years ago when I read Huckleberry Finn, which is how amazingly abundant wildlife was in America in the 1800's. Hungry?  Drop a line in the Mississippi and catch your dinner in minutes.  Or shoot rabbits, deer or elk.  It is a pleasure to read of that country of abundance and opportunity - and of the men and women who could not only survive, but flourish in the wilderness.

Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose

The first book I read with my Reedie bookclub was Umberto Ecos’s The Name of the Rose, a beautifully written murder mystery set in medieval Italy. In this thrilling tale, the young monk Adso follows his brilliantly perceptive but unorthodox master, William, to a Benedictine monastery in Northern Italy, to investigate a murder which has taken place in a small but ostentatiously wealthy monastery whose heart is a labyrinth library. More horrors and mysteries are unveiled the deeper William and Adso dig, and the more the two suspect that certain persons are working against them to keep the monastery’s secrets from ever being revealed.

This novel is a true page-turner, but also deals in depth with many interesting themes revolving around the nature of Truth – its complexity, mutability, and debatable impenetrability, the meaning of heresy, and whether knowledge should be shared freely with all, and if not, under what circumstances secret knowledge should be guarded, by whom, and through what means.

A truly fascinating book that I would recommend to all, and would definitely enjoy discussing at greater length!

Galileo's Dream

Quite an unusual story, from Kim Stanley Robinson, author of the Mars Trilogy.  Well, two stories: one is the life of Galileo in Italy and the second is set in about the year 3000 on the planets of Jupiter.  Humans who have settled the planets have a way to time travel and, and for reasons never made completely convincing, they retrieve Galileo from time to time, to help settle some ongoing disputes.  The second of these narratives is a little loopy, but interesting.  Without serious spoilers, it's fair to reveal that the crux of some of the major dispute is whether Galileo is spared or martyred  for his heretical views.  A brief but terrifying part of the book allows Galileo and the reader) to visualize/experience being burned at the stake.  The main narrative describes  Galileo's life, vigorously portraying his vitality, his passion for experimentation, his astonishing breadth of interests and achievements, and his loving but tragic relationships with his daughters.  Not a perfect book, but a wonderful, absorbing read.

Clash of Civilizations over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio

In this second novel by Amara Lakous, an Algerian now living in Italy, a dozen denizens of Piazza Vittorio in Rome weigh in on whether or not Amadeo, believed by almost everyone to be a native Italian but actually an immigrant from Algiers who speaks Italian better than the Italians and knows the streets and byways of Rome better than an Italian taxidriver, really murdered the crude and offensive Lorenzo Manfredini, known as The Gladiator. The foundation of the novel is the universal plight of immigrants, but the Italians even distrust and dislike other Italians from different parts of the country. The voices are wonderful - sharp, humorous, arrogant, wacky - the characters are lively and the unfolding resolution of the murder mystery is unexpected and interesting. This was easy and pleasurable to read, but also thought-provoking and sad. Very highly recommended!

The Imperfectionists

This book takes place in Rome so I had to pick it up from the library although it turns out the city plays a very small part in the story. It is about a English-language newspaper in Rome over roughly a fifty-year period. The structure is a little unusual: each chapter focuses on a different individual with little connection between characters. This makes it sound like a collection of short stories, which I usually avoid like the plague, but it was written so well that the stories intertwined enough to make it engrossing. I found it easy to relate to many of the characters being an imperfect perfectionist myself.

The Broker

Recommended by our Italian tutor, Antonio, this was the first book I have read by John Grisham and it's unusual for him, because it's not about lawyers as much as it's a kind of spy story in which a miserable power broker, Joel Backman, betrays his country for money, is caught and thrown into a high security prison, but after six years is pardoned by a lame duck President, at the behest of the CIA. The CIA wants to learn more about the secrets Backman was selling by finding out who will kill Backman after his release! So they drop him in Italy, help him get adjusted, and then leak his whereabouts to the Russian, Chinese and Israeli security forces. Well, it's not fantastic literature, but it IS a page turner, and it's laced with Italian phrases, and wonderful descriptions of the people and sights of Bologna. Leggiamo!

Related reading

While in Rome, I tried to focus my reading on books of direct relevance. So among others, I read Room With a (Disappointing) View, The Leopard (an Italian classic that is more moody and introspective than I cared for), Heat (great fun in Mario Batali’s kitchen and footsteps), and numerous others. I’m just started reading Rubicon, about the final days of the Roman Republic.

Aside from Italian subject matter, I also picked up a book about the UN, Emergency Sex. It is more substantive than it sounds, covering the heady New World Order days, when the UN/US were prepared to send troops to support democracy and human rights in Somalia, Haiti, and elsewhere. Despite the titular, titling elements that helped it become a best seller, the book depressingly chronicles the deflation of this idealism.

You are an ascetic!

The Brackenbury-Parysek Tribe is gearing up to read Dante's Inferno (in English, with some attention to the facing-page Italian original). But what are you waiting for? here's what Jorge Luis Borges says:

The Commedia is a book that everyone ought to read. Not to do so is to deprive oneself of the greatest gift that literature can give us; it is to submit to a strange asceticism. Why should we deny ourselves the joy of reading the Commedia?

Four Seasons in Rome

After visiting Jesse, Eileen, and Henry in Rome, we got to re-visit them, in a way, through this delightful book, which Jesse let me take home. Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr, describes a year with his family in Trastevere while he was supported by a Rome Prize Fellowship. The book has a story arc, but largely consists of observations on life and parenting, set against the backdrop of Rome, beautifully captured in quick, vivid sketches. The subtitle gives a flavor of this very pleasant read: "On twins, insomnia, and the biggest funeral in the history of the world."