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A Field Guide to the Italian Mind
Broadway
August 2006
On Sale: August 15, 2006
240 pages
ISBN: 0767914392
EAN: 9780767914390
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
You won’t need luggage for this hypothetical and hilarious
trip into the hearts and minds of Beppe Severgnini’s
fellow Italians. In fact, Beppe would prefer if you left
behind the baggage his crafty and elegant countrymen have
smuggled into your subconscious. To get to his Italia,
you’ll need to forget about your idealized notions of
Italy. Although La Bella Figura will take you to legendary
cities and scenic regions, your real destinations are the
places where Italians are at their best, worst, and most
authentic: The highway: in America, a red light has only one possible
interpretation—Stop! An Italian red light doesn’t warn or
order you as much as provide an invitation for reflection. The airport: where Italians prove that one of their
virtues (an appreciation for beauty) is really a vice. Who
cares if the beautiful girls hawking cell phones in
airport kiosks stick you with an outdated model? That’s
the price of gazing upon perfection. The small town: which demonstrates the Italian genius for
pleasant living: “a congenial barber . . . a well-stocked
newsstand . . . professionally made coffee and a proper
pizza; bell towers we can recognize in the distance, and
people with a kind word and a smile for everyone.” The chaos of the roads, the anarchy of the office, the
theatrical spirit of the hypermarkets, and garrulous train
journeys; the sensory reassurance of a church and the
importance of the beach; the solitude of the soccer
stadium and the crowded Italian bedroom; the vertical
fixations of the apartment building and the horizontal
democracy of the eat-in kitchen. As you venture to these
and many other locations rooted in the Italian psyche, you
realize that Beppe has become your Dante and shown you a
country that “has too much style to be hell” but is “too
disorderly to be heaven.” Ten days, thirty places. From north to south. From food to
politics. From saintliness to sexuality. This ironic,
methodical, and sentimental examination will help you
understand why Italy—as Beppe says—“can have you fuming
and then purring in the space of a hundred meters or ten
minutes.”
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