Customer Reviews

Pictures from Italy (Penguin Classics)

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I don't think I'd like to have Charles Dickens as my travelling companion. He's always on the go, seemingly preferring an enclosed carriage careening down the road to mixing it with the natives (he makes one exception for Genoa, where he spends twelve months). And he makes virtually no mention of his wife, to whom refers at one point as accompanying him, but who therupon disappears as surely as if she had fallen down a well. Finally, as a Roman Catholic, I would spend my trip grimacing at his observations of my faith.

The people appearing in PICTURES are almost entirely people encountered enroute, including postilions, innkeepers, guides, soldiers, and the like. He does not appear to have entertained any intention of interviewing writers, political leaders, prelates, or others. It is as if I took a trip through the U.S. and wrote only about bus drivers, service station attendants, traffic cops, and ticket takers.

And yet, and yet, it is obviously the great Charles Dickens writing this book. The writing is superb even if the subject matter is strangely limited. I was entertained, dismayed, and befuddled all at the same time. Comparing it to something like Mark Twain's INNOCENTS ABROAD or ROUGHING IT, however, I feel it is Twain who comes out ahead. Dickens, it seems, forgot to create any memorable characters.

'Pictures from Italy' is a gem of travel writing. What travel writing should be about; how travel has both changed and stayed the same since 1844; how modern travel writing has degraded.

These are reminiscences by Charles Dickens as he traveled from London to Florence in 1844. Namely from London, to Paris, Lyons (commencing in a four horse carriage, complete with 24 bells on each horse and one postilion being a person riding the leading left-hand horse instead of a coachman), by boat down the Rhone to Avignon, and then variously to Aix, Marseilles, Genoa, Nice, Parma, Modena, Bologna, Ferrara, Verona, Mantua, through the Pass of Simplon into Switzerland, to Rome by Pisa and Siena, then Naples and finally Florence.

Such a trip "from London in about nine to ten days" Dickens noted compared to "Eighteen hundred years ago, the Roman legions under Claudius protested against being lead...urging that it lay beyond the limits of the world". Dickens was, in a sense, a real traveler within the environment compared to today's traveler who should be awarded a degree of Bachelor of Freeway Construction by counting the 178 tunnels between Italy and Monaco for example.

Unlike modern travel writing Charles Dickens provides critical comment such as "Much of the romance of the beautiful towns and villages...[along the Riviera and in Genoa]...disappears when they are entered...the inhabitants... are like a population of Witches - except that they are certainly not to be suspected of brooms or any other instrument of cleanness".

Travel for Dickens is history, true journalism, real and critical comment. Not the modern Hollywood entertainment of Julia Roberts "Eat, Pray, Love" as in 'reconnecting with the true inner self'(!). Not that Dickens does not mention local food such as in a Genoese tavern "...Tagliarini; Ravioli; German sausages, strong of garlic, sliced and eaten with fresh green figs; cocks' combs and sheeps-kidneys, chopped up with mutton chops and liver; small pieces of some unknown part of a calf, twisted into small shreds, fried, and served up in a great dish like white-bait; and other curiosities of that kind".

Victor Hugo, having written in French, improves with each English translation generally leaving Dickens originals at a disadvantage. This is not so in "Pictures from Italy" written in clear, easy style. And it can be downloaded free and instantly on Amazon Kindle as for many classics.

Dickens writes personally with honesty. His efforts include a beheading of a murderer near the church of San Giovanni in Rome, prison visits, churches, art, and museums. Consequently, his book is a gem of real travel journalism, historical comparative interest, and curiosity for us all.

He left the London fog for the canals of Venice, the museums and statues of Florence, the churches and ruins of Rome and the glory of the Italian Mediterranean sun! He was Charles Dickens the greatest British novelist of the Victorian era. In 1846 Dickens and his family decided to spend several months in Italy where the great author could write and explore the wonders of the Italian boot.
Dickens was not the first or the last British author to love Italy. Just think of such literary luminaries as Frances Trollope, D.H. Lawrence
and EM Forster to name a few. Dickens gives us pictures in words of all the major cities and sights. After reading this short (just over 200 pages long) travel book the reviewer learns from Dickens that:
1. The cities and towns were usually run-down and the people encountered were poor. Dickens says little about Italian cuisine.
2. Rebellion against the monarchy was already in evidence in 1846. Several years later Garibaldi would lead a major Italian revolution.
Dickens was a committed democrat who favored constitutional monarchy such as was the practice in his native England.
3. Dickens disliked many aspects of the Roman Catholic Church as he witnessed it in Italy.
4. He includes many anecdotes regarding the mule and cart travel in upland Italy. Travel was often dangerous and slow.
5. Dickens was an early riser and walker enjoying touring on foot the major attractions.
This work is shorter and not as interesting as his "American Notes for General Circulation" but it is a window into the mind of a creative genius who relished new sights, sounds and smells. Viva Italia! Viva Dickens!

This is not at all what I expected from the great Charles Dickens. One expects far more drama and than detachment from one such as he but this book reads a bit like dry toast.
A part of this may be that the journey itself took place over many months and it appears to have been written from memory after consultation with various guide books of the time to jog the author's memory.

Another part of the poor reading experience is that the book is written in an almost stream of conscious manner as Mr. Dickens seemingly adds bits and pieces together as he remembers them in the midst of writing about the bits and pieces of the trip that he remembers.

Another part of it is likely due to the mores of the time when it wasn't accepted journalistic behaviour to include descriptions and exploits of one's immediate travel companions so, for instance, one has no idea that Mr. Dickens was accompanied by his family during parts of his travels.

This is a detached and disjointed recounting of a trip that fails to spark or hold one's interest for very long: Not recommended!