La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to the Italian Mind (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: bella figura, Beppe Severgnini, New York, John Paul (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Severgnini—Italian newspaper columnist and author of the pesce-out-of-water memoir Ciao, America!—must have wanted to emulate Luigi Barzini, author of the 1960s classic The Italians, in this somewhat tepid sociological look at his countrymen. Severgnini writes pleasantly enough (and Giles Watson's translation is smooth, for the most part), but his observations are anything but sharp. He organizes this overview as a kind of geographical "tour," with a chapter about car sex in Naples and another on the Italian countryside in Tuscany. Sweeping statements, such as "Italians have the same relationship with food that some Amazonian people have with the clouds in the sky—one glance and we know what to expect," abound, and they have the ring of truth, but they're rarely backed up by supporting anecdotes. In today's shrunken world, jokes about how Italians love to see half-naked women on television ("The new Italian icon is the Semi-Undressed Signorina") and abuse their cellphone privileges simply aren't new. The collection ends with the hoariest of devices: a letter from an imaginary American friend who has taken Severgnini's tour and reminisces about the beautiful "girls" in a Milan disco. Barzini, too, often wrote in generalities, but he had the advantage of coming first. (Aug.)
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From The Washington Post

America first came into official contact with Italian journalist Beppe Severgnini several years ago, when he turned a one-year stint in the United States into Ciao, America!, a delightful nibbling of the hand that was providing his material. A columnist for Corriere della Serra, one of Italy's largest-circulation dailies, Severgnini spent his American year right here in Washington -- improbably enough, three blocks from my house, which may have heightened my enjoyment of his forays into real estate and the upper reaches of Rockville Pike.

He wrote that book for the Italian market, where it was called Un Italiano in America and became a huge bestseller. He issued it in English for the international market. After all, we enjoy laughing at ourselves and are as baffled as outsiders by our giant mattress sales and the plethora of breakfast cereals at the supermarket. And we enjoy the occasional bits of good news, such as Severgnini's take on the bureaucracy involved in getting a Social Security card or telephone service: "Having trained on the Italian version [of bureaucracy], we feel like a matador faced with a milk cow. It's a pushover."

In half-a-dozen lighthearted books, Severgnini has also lampooned the English (Inglesi), the English language (L'Inglese) and Italian tourists (Italiani con Valigia) -- as well as himself -- so it seems a natural progression for him to attempt a luscious disquisition on the Italian national character some 40 years after Luigi Barzini's classic, The Italians.

Despite Barzini's attempts to disrupt all the clichés about Italians' charm, we Americans have clung to our notions about his countrymen, sometimes infantilizing them, seeing them as simpler than ourselves (when we're not seeing them as impossibly cunning), less plagued by modernity (despite the little cellulari that were pasted to their ears in the street long before it was the fashion here). But Severgnini seems determined to restore and psychologically update those charms and eccentricities, making them appeal to a generation of American travelers who feel they "know" their Italian hosts.

Presenting a "field guide" to the mind, Italian or other, does not give the author a lot of room to move around in, so he offers a construct: Thirty places in 10 days. Sounds straightforward, but it's not. Severgnini's places are rather high-concept, including Malpensa (Milan's international airport); highways, restaurants, churches, the beach and television. We bounce from Milan to Tuscany to Rome to Naples to Sardinia (plus an odd dip into Bahia, in Brazil), or at least that's what we're told -- there's very little evidence of regional differences here.

Before we launch ourselves, the author announces that "Italy is far from hellish. It's got too much style. Neither is it heaven, of course, because it's too unruly. Let's just say that Italy is an offbeat purgatory, full of proud, tormented souls each of whom is convinced he or she has a hotline to the boss." While you're still trying to figure out which country on the planet isn't filled with such souls, Severgnini takes it a step further: "Italy is the only workshop in the world that can turn out both Botticellis and Berlusconis," referring, in case you skipped those art history classes, to the Renaissance painter and, in case you've been avoiding the news, to the recently defeated prime minister. Hmm, what about China -- Qing dynasty porcelains and Tiananmen Square? The United States -- the Bill of Rights and fried Twinkies?

And so it goes, with the author so busy being droll that we sometimes lose his point entirely, struggling so hard to tread water amid his many metaphors that, well, I won't succumb to metaphor extension here -- it's just exhausting after a while. (Just remember that, economically, Italy is like "a Ferrari on the starting grid, its engine throbbing. But it's been there for a while now, and the race is already on the third lap.")

Severgnini is at his best when he's delivering Italy in real context (you know, reporting) -- about the role of Vespas in the post-war nation, about its contretemps with the European Union. But his neatly packaged aperçus keep coming at us:

"In other words, if you want to understand Italy, forget the guidebooks. Study theology."

"You've been to Italy when you know the result of the Juventus game, not before."

"You'll have to understand the piazza if you want to find out what goes on inside an Italian's head."

"The Italian mind is an exotic location that deserves a guided tour."

Every stop on our 10-day tour gets this kind of pronouncement:

The airport: "Malpensa encapsulates the nation." Okay, whatever.

The coffee bar: "Like an English club, an Italian bar is a place of long lingerings, yet it's also a place for swift passings-through, like a market in China." Huh? "It's a place where you can clinch a deal, sort out an evening, start a new working relationship, or end an affair over an espresso. Standing at the bar, usually. Vertical emotions hold no fears for Italians." Double huh?

The now-frenetic Italian weekend: "A Po Valley skier rents a chalet in Switzerland and then commutes. Once, her ancestors made a similar trip, but they didn't have a ski rack on the roof of the car." The latter sentence may be a reference to Italian laborers who had to sign on as guest workers in Switzerland for lack of work at home, but that's just a guess (and the use of the word "ancestors" suggests Otzi, the Stone Age ice man found in the Italian Alps, not the Po Valley skier's Uncle Giuseppe).

Am I silly to attempt such scrutiny of something that is obviously harmless entertainment? Perhaps. But it's annoying to try to read while alarm bells -- Something's wrong! Something's wrong! -- keep going off in your brain. And with La Bella Figura, it gets very noisy in there indeed.

Oh yes, the bella figura: For those who don't know, it means cutting a good figure. But we're assured that such an expression is uniquely Italian, that it's quite different from the plain old "making a good impression."

If there's an overall criticism to be made of a book that does in fact have its entertaining moments, it's that the Italian mind we get trapped inside of for too long is the clever but not totally reliable one belonging to Beppe Severgnini.

Reviewed by Nancy McKeon
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; 1st edition (August 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767914392
• ISBN-13: 978-0767914390
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #418,919 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This was great in Italian - Don't miss it in English, March 28, 2006

By	Hank n Tennessee (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews

I read the Italian language version (La Testa Degli Italiani)before my family's trip to Italy last summer (my family is Italo-American). Severgnini was European Journalist of the Year last year, writes a wonderful daily letters column in Corriere della Sera entitled "Italians" which is available on- line at www.corriere.it, and has written other delightful books about his travels in America, England and Germany. There is no better person to explain, with sharp insight and great good humor, the marvelous complexities and contradictions of this amazing country. With its shining successes, its glaring faults, and its self critical population, few countries are so delightful and so maddening at the same time. Read and enjoy. Then go to Italy and see for yourself! You'll never regret the journey.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Divertente, ma un po noioso...., December 7, 2006

By	Jamie Thome "loulou" (Chicago IL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I read this book after I heard Beppe Severgnini speak about it in Chicago; while reading, I realized that he'd already mentioned the best things in the book during his talk. The book was interesting, and funny, and I wish that I had read it prior to a trip to Italy, but I was slightly disappointed that there wasn't more to it. He's a very funny man, however, and if you're at all familiar with (or interested in) the ways of the Italians, you'll get a kick out of it.

19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Awkward format but an incisive and comprehensive dissection of Italians, September 5, 2006

By	Andy Orrock (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

While dining in a favorite restaurant recently, I congratulated the Italian proprietor on his country's recent well-deserved World Cup triumph. "Yeah," he replied, shaking his head, "it was just too easy...I'm really not sure what they can do in 2010 because it's just too easy for us now." I scanned his face for any hint of his pulling my leg (are we talking about the same tournament here?). There was none.

That's the type of Italian bravado and confidence that Beppe Severgnini conveys to his readers in "La Bella Figura." [Typical passage: "We are the consummate professionals of culinary consumption...The French know what they're talking about, but they're sliding into affectation...Note that I'm talking about all Italians...There is a spontaneous gustatory proficiency that cuts across social classes, age groups, income brackets, education and geographical boundaries."]

Now, there are some good things in here, as the other reviewers here can readily attest to. My lukewarm review stems from the fact that the book's awkward format never grabbed me. Severgnini's schtick here is that he's taking us (figuratively) on a ten-day tour so we get lines like "that's the ocean there in front of you...that sand you see was the city council's idea.' Cute idea, but it got old and grating very quickly.

However, if you can get past the clunky presentation, the Italophile in you will be rewarded with an incisive and comprehensive dissection of the national character.