Customer Reviews

Italian Neighbors: Or, A Lapsed Anglo-Saxon in Verona

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've lost count of the times I've revisited Tim Parks' adopted home village of Montecchio and enjoyed his highly entertaining prose describing everyday life among his Italian neighbors. This little book is an absolute treasure, indispensable reading for everyone who loves Italy and Italian culture, warts and all. His observations on Italians and their ways are intuitive and honest, infused with the author's obvious affection for his subjects. One of my all-time favorites.

In a series of chapters that can almost stand on their own but are strung together to form the chain of one year, Tim Parks explains what it is really like to live in Italy. He devotes space to the joys of fresh peaches, the Christmas bonus, Italian funeral customs,and a myriad of other subjects, using beautiful prose as he explains the intricacies of Italian life.(I lived in Italy for a few years and I know that I could never approach his knowledge on the subject.) His tone is mostly of ironic detachment, an outsider not quite a full member of his village until the very end of the book, and he usually doesn't depict his neighbors as a bunch of hand-flapping stereotypes. So, why not 5 stars if I enjoyed this book so much? Well, he does play coy with the identity of his wife. (I suppose he hides the fact that she's Italian to make himself seem more adventurous and foreign, though some might say that anyone who would know marching songs of the Italian Alpine Troops would have to be a native.) And there is a subtle anti-catholicism which is most irritating, and out of place in a book that usually deals with its exploration of Italian life with sensitivity. It is still, however, the best book on the subject.

I found this to be the most successful of the "ex-pat" books I have read. Parks has chosen to live in Italy, and has both a love and respect for his wife's homeland, and another cultural perspective with which to look at its foibles and frustrations. Unlike Peter Mayle who seemed in A Year In Provence to be laughing AT some of the locals, and who was somewhat removed from daily life, Parks is fully immersed in everyday, workaday life, and in raising children, getting to know and battle with bureaucracies, admiring education systems etc. And unlike that great phoney Frances mayes, the Tuscan dilettante who jets in each summer to dabble in cute stone-villa Italy, Parks has to come to terms withh being a 'local' whist still being a straniero.

I was still reading this book when I arrived in Italy, and what a difference it made to my visit! I felt so at home, and enjoyed every minute, as if Tim Parks had personally introduced me to all his friends and neighbours. I found this book a delightfully good read, and look forward to reading the sequel. I've started on his novels now, too.

I have lived in the US for about 10 years, but I was
born and raised in Veneto, the region Tim Parks talks
about in his book. I find his descriptions of aspects
of life so close to reality that at times he made me
feel homesick. The touch of his pen is elegant and his
characters so real that I could have changed the names
and he would have been talking of people I used to know.
This is not a book about Italy but rather a book about a
specific part of Italy, Veneto. Also, no attempt is made
to explain the roots of sociological facts. For example,
Parks touches upon forms of racism towards the people
coming from the Southern part of Italy but makes no effort
to go to the roots of that sentiment.
If readers were to come out from reading this book with
the impression that there is a single Italy, that would
be the wrong thing. There are almost as many Italys as
there are regions. And some of the characters Parks brings
to life could not be found in Sicily, for instance.
Parks is overall very respectful of his adoptive country,
although some criticism to the Catholic Church is here
and there to be seen. It is a little bit unfortunate that
he fails to elaborate on the fact that Catholicism is very
much an integral part of today Veneto's cultural
inheritance and contradictions not too differently of what
it could be said to hold true for Ireland.
A more extensive analysis of Italy is available in a recent
book by another Englishman, Paul Ginsborg, who in his Italy
and Its Discontents, 1980-2001 analyzes the impact of
Catholicism in today Italian society. But, this last book
does not belong in the realm of fiction.
The episode about the dog, Vega, is likely to impress
a part of the American public in a negative way, but
it is not really typical of Veneto or Italy in general.
I can say that Italians love their pets, but are less
inclined than Americans to "humanize" them as the circle
of friends is closer and loneliness less of an issue.
The author does not fail to catch these aspects even if
he is not explicit about it.
Overall, I think that the book is excellent and I wish
that many people from Veneto could read it and see
themselves in the eyes of an Englishman. They would
have a lot to think about.

This is the best book I have read about life as an expat in Italy (or anywhere in europe for that matter.) I first read Frances Mayes' books, which I found to portray a bit of a fantasyland in Tuscany. She never tells you what it's REALLY like to live there, day in day out. It wasn't until I read Park's book did I fully understand all the stories and comments from my italian husband. I look forward to the day we move back so I can live out the scenes in each chapter! An excellent read, highly recommended.

As a Brit having lived in Italy many years ago, I always like to take the opportunity to return there even though I am at present just an armchair traveller. Tim Parks writes a witty and interesting story and gives insight to the inner workings of the bureacracy and the "system". The trials and tribulations of everyday life are well chronicled including the hysterial neighbor and the barking dog. At times I wish the author had "opened the door a little wider" by telling us what he had when he dined out and just a few more titbits about his personal life. He leaves it to the reader to surmise that his wife is actually an Italian. I highly recommend the book and can't wait to read the sequel. Enjoy it!

After having lived in Vicenza for 5 years, this book brought back so many memories, good and bad of a country hard to describe. Tim Parks does an excellant job of describing the most minute detail from the haze during the summer down to the Carbinari Van blocking traffic while its occupants are in the local Pasticceria downing an expresso, cradling a semi-automatic and talking to a kid. Yes, Italy is absolutly unorganized, crazy and just plain impossible at times; however, there is a method to the madness. Just when you think you are ready to throw in the towel, the charm of this wonderful country twists at your heart strings and you remain...just like Tim Park. This is the first book that captures what it is truly like to live in the Veneto Region. It doesn't romanticize or condemn; Mr. Parks tells it how it is, with a sense of humor. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I highly recommended it to everyone who has lived there or plans to.

Parks is able to do what so few people (even those of us who are Italian) can: understand Italy and the people who live there. This is a marvelous account of life in Italy which can be appreciated by every armchair traveler. He is funny and insightful, and in describing those around him, he allows his reader to understand the not so subtle aspects of Italian behavior. I highly recommend AN ITALIAN EDUCATION, which picks up where this leaves off. This book might be preferable for those who appreciate a more straight forward account, rather than the books by Frances Mayes, which employ more figurative language.

I borrowed this book from a British friend after my first trip to fascinating Italy. I read it in one sitting- just couldn't get enough of Park's (VERY dramatic ) accounts of his move into a culture of wild Latins who waste no time with proper rules of conduct and infinite responsibilities, but instead rejoice in a world of emotional chaos and random events.

Being Latin myself, I can trace Parks' transformation into a true specimen of our kind. His journey into Latinization encompasses some very familiar events: learning to deal with strangers' hysterical displays of unresolved issues in a most kind and sympathetic manner, cohabiting with invincible insects and volunteeringly engaging in the murder of a harmless animal for the sake of restful sleep.

Fellow Italy lovers-you MUST follow Park in his adventure. His bitter and skeptical narrative provides us indispensable pieces of the puzzle of what it takes to develop a real passionate and impulsive Italian character. If nothing else, you'll certainly get a good laugh out of it!