Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35990 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-03
• Binding: Paperback
• 327 pages

Synopsis
This is a clever, entertaining book, rare in travel literature, it is charged with a sense of purpose.

Customer Reviews

Finely observed vignettes of Italian life
This is an incredibly well-written book. Let's state right from the outset that this isn't even remotely a tourist guide, but if you know Italian life off the tourist beat just a little, you'll find yourself recognising characters, situations and attitudes to life you might have come across.

Yes, there are areas that won't appeal to English sensibilities. But it shouldn't come as a surprise to discover that when you cross the Channel, you'll find cultural differences that may disturb or even repel you. And so it is in Italy. The fact that these differences exist and Tim Parks chronicals them without an overlay of sentimentality or sensationalism makes them at the same time more shocking - but also more understandable.

I'm in the process of permanently relocating to Italy and I've come across some of the characters and situations in this book - which I find slightly reassuring, yet slightly worrying too ! Yes, it was written in the early 90s, but some attitudes seem pretty familiar.

I'm grateful to this book for increasing my understanding of Italian life and culture which can only be achieved by living there. And I'm relieved that it's enforced my own view that Italians are essentially a friendly and generous race, happy to accept the newcomer if the newcomer in turn accepts Italian life and traditions. And being non-Italian provides an instant excuse for your innocent - or deliberate - shortcomings.

Having read this book, In can't wait to read its sequels. Tim Parks has that rare ability to tell a story in simple, easy-to-read language, while also providing real insights into a foreign culture. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did

Horrible book
The book offers cruel portraits of the author's neighobours and friends.
It's not funny and the informative bits about Italian lifestyle and habits
are scattered among long tedious trivial chapters.

Neighbours AND family
As well as the delightful descriptions of customs that are culturally different, belonging to a different pace of life, there is more. It takes a brave man to tackle the subject of foreign in-laws, and Tim Parks does it with humour and patience. The parents-in-law who arrive and leave with no warning, make promises to their grandchildren that are not kept, who maintain a protective attitude towards grown-up sons, the expectations of loving greetings and being thanked profusely as this is the real reward for small gifts. This is a different culture for Tim Parks, where his children learn to take things for granted that their foreign father finds strange, but by observing and often bridging the gap between the generations he learns to understand, and to accept. A fascinating view of the complicated relationships in a family, where the foreigner always reminds himself that HE is the different element, and adapts. An eye-opening read for the increasing group of people who through intercultural / international marriage find themselves lost in a strange web, and also a good idea for ANY person dealing with in-laws, even if they share the same nationality, because the culture is always different.