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Oriana Fallaci: I'll Die Standing on My Feet (Libro verita)

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Riccardo Nencini is a scholar, author and politician, currently premier of the Italian region of Tuscany. His essay recounts a day spent with Oriana Fallaci shortly before her death on 15 September 2006. Nencini chronicles their final dialogue moment by moment. They smoked a lot, alone in that small room in Florence in which there was almost nothing besides champagne and cigarettes. The author thinks that in preparing for death, Oriana wanted to prove that she did not need much more from this life, not even food.

They discussed many things: how to face death, the decline of the West, the peril of terrorism, the role of the USA and the sorry state of Europe. The specter of Eurabia recurs in the conversation, considered from many angles. Living in New York City in retirement, Oriana was universally popular with the media until the publication of The Rage and The Pride, her blistering response to the 9/11 atrocity. In her own words, she was trying to 'open the eyes of those who refuse to see, unplug the ears of those who refuse to hear and ignite the thoughts of those who refuse to think'. That made her fall foul of the politically correct media and the multicultural elites of Europe.

Undaunted, she continued speaking out in articles and interviews in both the Italian and American media. She contemptuously referred to her choir of critics as "cicadas," called the European Union a "pit of Pontius Pilates" and railed against European antisemitism and its return under the mask of anti-Zionism. Although in her earlier career she had harshly criticized the Israelis, she became one of Israel's most courageous defenders, publishing articles like the eloquent and inspired "I Stand with Israel, I stand with the Jews."

The aforementioned book was translated into all the major European languages and sold in the millions despite the insults, legal actions and death threats from various quarters. She followed it up with La Forza della Ragione which was finally published in English in 2006 as The Force of Reason. It is another tour de force, more measured than the previous book but not entirely devoid of her trademark fury and sense of humor. In essence, The Force of Reason is a comprehensive analysis of the perilous intellectual climate in the democracies and the alarming spread of terrorism, a much-needed antidote to a set of widely held false beliefs, and an impassioned wake-up call to the West.

With Nencini she also spoke of her famous interviews with politicians, the city of Florence, her childhood, the Second World War and her illness which she called "the alien." Defiant to the end, she refused to give her killer any recognition. It was the same Oriana that Nencini had always known: passionate, intelligent and sharp of mind & tongue yet witty, capable of tenderness and fragile at times. The room she chose for her last conversation with her friend is situated in a part of Florence overlooking the Arno River where her father's group of partisans fought against Mussolini and the Germans in World War II.

Nencini provides a moving portrait of the brilliant Italian author who represented the golden decades of Europe. The dialogue captures her essence, her intelligence, passion and convictions as well as her kindness, her concern for the oppressed and her courage. Until a proper biography appears, this little booklet will do. To learn more about Oriana's fear for the future of civilization, I recommend Menace in Europe by Claire Berlinski who mentions Fallaci in her book, While Europe Slept by Bruce Bawer, Icarus Fallen and The Unlearned Lessons of the Twentieth Century by Chantal Delsol, Eurabia by Bat Ye'or and The Last Days of Europe by Walter Laqueur.

I haven't the skill for it, though. That said, I felt as though i was a bit of a voyeur. Momentary glimpses into some moments before her death offer one a view of Fallaci in decline, but the brevity of the segments would make you feel as though you were eavesdropping on her conversation. There's obviously more to these last meetings than what is on the page. Is she still resiliently defiant? Absolutely. And her great love for A Man, who is buried in her family gravesite, still resonates with her. But there is no great revelation, no final proclamation, no last treatise, just a few days in which one goes about putting a few last things in order. There is a sadness to that, really. And maybe that is how it should be. As I said, I felt as though I were eavesdropping on private moments. As my mother was dying, she wanted no visitors, and then received everyone who came to call. In the end, it was just us and there were a few last instructions and observations. I guess it's just none of my business what Fallaci's last observations were. This little portrait is a fleeting last glance.

I would not recommend this to anyone who is not a hardened Oriana fan. I have only read one of her other books and it was a knockout, It was 'The Force of Reason'. Read this first and the 2 other books in that series. This is a serious person. This small volume does not do her justice. Go for the meat and get the potatoes later - if you have time.

Christopher Hitchens said that Fallaci is are a primer on how not to write about Islam. Now one thing the Hitch and I have in common is that we are both blokes, and, this is naughty of us, we both know that we will benefit from an Islamic paradise. Yes, we larvae know this deep in our bones; that we men will benefit from the coming Islamic spring and the later Muslim paradise.

What with the young full-breasted maidens you will meet in the Muslim paradise (Surah 78 an-Naba: The Announcement) and all the other sweet n sexy bits n pieces promised by Allah; why fear the inevitable march of monotheism with an erotic face? Man will own four wives in this world, and so loads of intercourse on tap; plus, no more awkward eye contact in front of an attractive woman and no more angry singles bars because women will be ours to own; just like the enslaved women in Saudi Arabia. You could even give your woman sexy tattoos and draw funny pictures on her breasts, as she is always covered up, only you would know! What an image.

Aldous Huxley once joked that in a Moslem paradise, every orgasm lasts 700 years. Today, he would get wheeled off to the European courts! Therefore, one of the reasons Islam is winning is that we men don't want to get wheeled off to jail and, more importantly, we men can joke about the lustfulness, to use David Hume's term, of Islam, without feeling threatened. This is what Christopher Hitchens and the other male commentators miss; that for we men, it's an argument over yet another ideology, but for women, well there is a completely different ontology going on.

We bad ass tough men really have nothing to fear from sharia law, you know. OK,we do vigorously pander to enlightenment values and all that, but I doubt you will feel threatened from the owning of four wives and interest free loans.

Oriana Fallaci is an angry voiced Italiano woman who thinks otherwise! She sounds frightened and alone, to me and maybe to you. So if it's not our hope of a 700 year orgy, then what other reason for our passivity in the face of a distressed female? We are paralysed like those larvae people in The Matrix. But Muslims, Fallaci is arguing, are not. Fallaci sees Muslim men vigorously on the march. This, I think, is why intelligent women are cackling their pants! They know that they are on their own. (Germain Grear isn't worried mind, but let's bestow on her the privilege of honorary bloke). They are terrified because we European larvae people are sitting on our hands and even worse, we are kicking feminists out of their own country (like Hirsi Ali, who was booted all the way to the USA) or vilifying them in the media or dragging then to the law courts. Sorry to sound all self righteous and dramatic, but Oriana Fallaci's fear and anger sparkles in these pages. Her prose is that of a angry but petrified woman and so this has an effect on the reader. This is one of the most angry prologues I have ever read you see; and it is so well written. She's got cancer but spiteful people are writing her letters of hate and even cheering that she's got the cancer (the same thing is happening to Christopher Hitchens). She lists the flabby European politicians who are in league with the fat mullahs and dirty imams, who are all in unison, like a line of clapping seals, in trying to silence her. These men are all in agreement; Fallaci needs to be thrown into a dungeon and made to eat dung till she dies! All because she speaks the truth. What's up with us guys!