Italy in Mind: An Anthology [Paperback]

Alice Leccese Powers (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 1997

Comprised of short stories, novel excerpts, essays, poetry journals and letters, this work will delight anyone who loves Italy or great travel writing. Pieces include Barbara Grizzuti Harrison marveling at baroque Sicilian confections, Mary McCarthy celebrating Venice's threadbare dignity, and Henry James's Isabel Archer succumbing to the treacherous antiquities of Florence.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Italy has long been associated with love, images of Romeo serenading Juliet, and over-sexed locals pinching tourist flesh. But another Italian love affair has been going on for just as long, namely the writers who've been enchanted with the place for centuries. Alice Powers has collected an anthology of 41 authors spanning two centuries and all of Italy. There's Lord Byron on Venice, Herman Melville on Padua, Michael Ondaatje on Tuscany, Charles Dickens on Genoa, Richard Wilbur on Rome, Mark Twain on Naples, and Calvin Trillin on Sicily, for a feast of fine literature set in glorious surroundings.

From Library Journal

In her collection of 19th- and 20th-century British and American authors writing about Italy, Powers (The Brooklyn Reader, LJ 12/93) has chosen the somber, brooding poetry of the Romantics?Robert Browning, Byron, and Shelley?and the self-reflective contemporary verses of Joseph Brodsky, Richard Wilbur, and Charles Wright. She represents the American and British confrontation with Italian manners through two short stories (by Malamud and Wharton) and in excerpts from the fiction of Forster, James, and John Mortimer, among others. Conversely, Cahill (Wise Women, LJ 5/1/96), whose selections are exclusively by women, has included the ballads of Francesca Alexander and a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Focusing on the effect of Italy's sensual pageant on visitors' emotional and psychological makeup, she selects the fiction of Francine Prose, Elizabeth von Arnim, and Shirley Hazzard. Travel literature forms the largest segment of both anthologies. Both collections preface each entry with bio-bibliographical information, but Cahill adds, as epilog "for the literary traveler," a fascinating contemporary walking tour of the places mentioned in each selection. She also includes a bibliography of primary and secondary sources. These complementary anthologies are fine additions to the travel collections of public libraries and academic collections supporting the travel literature genre.?Lonnie Weatherby, McGill Univ. Lib., Montreal
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st edition (April 29, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679770232
• ISBN-13: 978-0679770237
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #439,359 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars English teacher obsessed with Italy finds kindred spirits, December 19, 2000

By 

Nalene Filer (Charlottesville, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Italy in Mind: An Anthology (Paperback)

Since visiting Italy this year, I haven't been able to get enough of it. I have read first-hand accounts of Americans living in Italia ("Under the Tuscan Sun" and "The Hills of Tuscany"). Both offered refreshing insider looks at the culture of the country, but "Italy in Mind" is a different breed altogether.

As I myself strolled along the shore of Lago Maggiore, wound my way through the narrow streets of Venice, and dodged the whizzing vespas in Florence, I wondered what classic authors and great thinkers had penned as they experienced similar things. In this volume, I have found, at long last, the answer. Filled with poems, letters, essays, and excerpts from well-known classical works (e.g., "A Farewell to Arms" and "A Bell for Adano"), "Italy in Mind" offers a wide scope of authors' experiences and thoughts during their stays in my favorite European country. Helpful also is the table of contents which provides information on which city or region is described in each piece.

"Italy in Mind" is a manageable but somewhat scholarly approach to a mild obsession with Italy. It would be a great read for anyone who has visited Italy, dreams of visiting Italy, or is interested in finding out more about it. I know I will be looking up some of the complete works which are excerpted in this volume or are mentioned in the informative author biographies.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Probably best used as a key to other works before going, August 16, 2005

By 

Thomas B. Gross (Winchester, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Italy in Mind: An Anthology (Paperback)

I packed this book on a recent tour of Italy, and read most of it on the beach near Paestum towards the end of our two-week vacation. The variety and scope of the selections included in this anthology matched my (characteristically) eclectic itinerary well (Lucca, Padua, Venice, Assisi, Salerno), and the book's size and weight is appropriate to include with the luggage.

If, like me, you never quite know what you are going to want to read once you are actually in Italy, this book is not a bad solution to the problem.

In some ways I wish I had read the anthology before going, and packed the entire texts from a few of the original sources instead. I particularly enjoyed the selections from Matthew Spender's book "Within Tuscany, Reflections on a Time and Place" and, more surprisingly, Susan Sontag's novel "The Volcano Lover". It's not clear however if something like "The Volcano Lover" would have been nearly so captivating if I hadn't first started reading it near Vesuvius. I know, for example, that Shelley's poem "Stanza's Written in Dejection, Near Naples" probably wouldn't have grabbed me if I hadn't read it after a long lunch on a perfect Summer day, near Naples.

Why only 4 stars? The chapters are ordered alphabetically by author's last name, which confused me at first (I'm kind of dumb) and struck me as a bit of a cop-out. It was also confusing trying to figure out when the selections were originally written, which is particularly annoying when reading a non-fiction piece.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Italy in Mind, July 27, 2004

By 

Douglas E Morris (Washington DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Italy in Mind: An Anthology (Paperback)

I Loved this book. I am a travel writer (Italy Guide, Tusnacy & Umbria Guide, Rome Guide) and thought I knew Italy like the back of my hand, but this volume opened up vistas I could not have imagined. I found myself following in the footstep of literary greats, dogging their posthumous steps through the pages of Italy in Mind, and ended up seeing so much more of the country than I had before. Highly recommended reading before travel and while there. A gem of a book.