Customer Reviews

Adultery and Other Diversions

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This is the third book of the author I have read.I run into the Italian Education accidentally,while perusing through the travel section in a bookstore. Later I have read the Italian Neighbours. I recommend these books higly especially for those who are interested in Italian society and who thought that Francis Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun was a tasteless joke. This last book by Parks which comprises of a set of essays strengthened my conviction that,when it comes to making observations and passing judgments on contemporary institutions and social norms he is as insightful and original as anybody, perhaps he is a modern day Tocqueville. These seemingly disparate essays are held together by some common themes:limits of rationality in guiding behavior,arbitrary nature of language,critique of the historical unlearning process which is underway,etc. What is particularly noteworhy in the author's reasoning is that he can start out with a convention or an assumption that reasonable minds will agree(such as "being charitable is a good thing"),then he debunks the widely held conventions by attacking their inner contradictions before(sometimes)reaching a moral conclusion. Fortunately he does this without a dash of pedanticism and with irony and sincere self-examination. The book also becomes a lot of fun to read under the Campania sun when Parks delivers a beautifully crafted personal attack against a literary"giant" and you understand that the man must have been a force to reckon with when he played football(Soccer)in his youth.

Having lived in Italy for over 20 yers I am a great fan of Tim Parks. Italian Neighbors, are my neighbors. Down to the barking dog you plan to kill on the first moonless night. Italian Eucation is the story of my beach and my beach club. Down to the juke box mother! Adultery is just such a disappointment. None of the humor. None of laughing outloud. Just dull and overly trying too hard to impress. I have to say I disliked every word of this book. Not vintage Parks

The English have a tradition of great essayists but modern practitioners such as Parks and Theroux do not have the scope or weight of their predecessors.

Parks is clever and he never rambles on. But his subjects--adultery, cleaning his daughter's room, the transforming power of language expressed in a hike--do not carry the weight of an Eliot or Orwell essay. Maybe that's because most of Parks's pieces appeared in the New Yorker, which has pared back noticeably the length of essays it publishes.

You may find that the essays do not compell repeated readings as, say, Eliot's and Orwell's do.

This talented novelist and essayist rarely disappoints, and this book of essays is as understatedly clever as everything Tim Parks write. Especially impressive and thought-provoking is "Charity," a devastating consideration of that famous Italian sportswear's manufacturer's infamous "consciousness raising" ad campagn. That essay alone is worth reading many times. One hopes these smart essays will lead more readers to Parks's superb novels such as "Europa" and "Family Planning."

All the joys of being a husband, friend and father are extolled in this book, yet they are rendered with a much deeper understanding of the human condition and the community of life.