Anyone who has spent a vacation trip abroad for a few weeks with either a partner or paramour knows the importance of sharing good book choices, especially as a reasonable selection of English language books is often difficult to find in bookshops abroad. I can just hear the techie geeks among you cry that an I-Pad or Kindle device would save all this trouble. However, let me hasten to add that a book is a much more preferable option for holiday reading because, it is easy to pack, light to carry and can be replaced at a very low cost if stolen or misplaced. Furthermore, you can lie back on a sun chair and easily balance a paperback book above your head when necessary, thus providing oneself with part shade from the suns scorching rays!
So on a recent visit to Italy my wife and I each chose three books which we agreed to interchange to prolong our literary enjoyment. However, a small problem soon arose over the choices we had made. One of her books was by Anne Tyler called Noah’s Compass which I had already read and which described a computer challenged man in his early sixties with a loss of memory who had just retired. For someone who is in his early sixties and anticipating retirement in the next few years I’m afraid that I neither related to or sympathised with the description of this man on first reading (he appeared more of a caricature of someone in his eighties to me) and thus I did not relish having to reread it for a second time. Her second choice was a book by Philip Roth Called American Pastoral. However, on rushing to pack, she instead brought a different book called Everyman by Philip Roth which we both had read before. The latter is an excellent read but as we had both read it in the last few months, its presence with us was hardly a reason for celebration. I must admit here that I also made my own error in judgement having selected The Bradshaw Variations by Rachel Cusk which after perusing two chapters I decided was a ‘chick lite’ tome for women readers only and so I abandoned it. Fortunately, we both enjoyed Crazy Heart by Thomas Cobb describing the life of a forlorn country & western singer trying to make a comeback. In fairness, however, this latter book could I suppose be described at ‘man-lite’ in that it appeared unduly sympathetic at least in the early chapters to overweight, drunk and strung out older men! Our other choices:’ Let the Great World Spin’ (Colum McCann) and Netherland (Joseph O’Neill) were mutually appreciated and fit for purpose, as it were.
However, the book that we both enjoyed so much was ‘Scourge and Fire: Savonarola and Renaissance Italy’ by Lauro Martines. Its subject was particularly apt as we were staying in Ferrara, in Northern Italy at the time and there is a statue in the main square celebrating the fact that the famous monk was born here. However, those familiar with the basic facts of the life of Girolamo Savonarola will know that his main influence was in the city of Florence where his preaching and life style had such a profound influence of the inhabitants, the method of city administration and on the Medici and Papal Church in particular. I have read some other books on the Medici and the Renaissance, but this one is by far the most interesting in the breadth of it’s analysis on the conflicting forces shaping the lives of those in Florence and indeed throughout Italy in the early 15th century. Both my wife and I found it to be the best and most insightful book on this period that we ever read. Furthermore, it reads like a thriller and is not in the least dry or academic in its presentation. Hence, it gave us a new insight into the life of one of Ferrara’s most famous sons and into the background of that lovely city itself. Indeed it could be argued that the forces at work in shaping the history of Florence at that period have a real resonance with those affecting our own recessionary world at the moment.
Thus, it can truly be said that it was Savonarola who brought us ‘to book’ in the wonderful medieval city of Ferrara.
Finally, if you truly wish to savour the full benefits of this book and the city of Ferrara, may I suggest that you take up this book with a glass of Sangiovese wine and read it to the accompaniment of the CD ‘Nostos’, being jazz music (Marangolo Tavolazzi & Bandini) from that city. Magic! Salute!!
So on a recent visit to Italy my wife and I each chose three books which we agreed to interchange to prolong our literary enjoyment. However, a small problem soon arose over the choices we had made. One of her books was by Anne Tyler called Noah’s Compass which I had already read and which described a computer challenged man in his early sixties with a loss of memory who had just retired. For someone who is in his early sixties and anticipating retirement in the next few years I’m afraid that I neither related to or sympathised with the description of this man on first reading (he appeared more of a caricature of someone in his eighties to me) and thus I did not relish having to reread it for a second time. Her second choice was a book by Philip Roth Called American Pastoral. However, on rushing to pack, she instead brought a different book called Everyman by Philip Roth which we both had read before. The latter is an excellent read but as we had both read it in the last few months, its presence with us was hardly a reason for celebration. I must admit here that I also made my own error in judgement having selected The Bradshaw Variations by Rachel Cusk which after perusing two chapters I decided was a ‘chick lite’ tome for women readers only and so I abandoned it. Fortunately, we both enjoyed Crazy Heart by Thomas Cobb describing the life of a forlorn country & western singer trying to make a comeback. In fairness, however, this latter book could I suppose be described at ‘man-lite’ in that it appeared unduly sympathetic at least in the early chapters to overweight, drunk and strung out older men! Our other choices:’ Let the Great World Spin’ (Colum McCann) and Netherland (Joseph O’Neill) were mutually appreciated and fit for purpose, as it were.
However, the book that we both enjoyed so much was ‘Scourge and Fire: Savonarola and Renaissance Italy’ by Lauro Martines. Its subject was particularly apt as we were staying in Ferrara, in Northern Italy at the time and there is a statue in the main square celebrating the fact that the famous monk was born here. However, those familiar with the basic facts of the life of Girolamo Savonarola will know that his main influence was in the city of Florence where his preaching and life style had such a profound influence of the inhabitants, the method of city administration and on the Medici and Papal Church in particular. I have read some other books on the Medici and the Renaissance, but this one is by far the most interesting in the breadth of it’s analysis on the conflicting forces shaping the lives of those in Florence and indeed throughout Italy in the early 15th century. Both my wife and I found it to be the best and most insightful book on this period that we ever read. Furthermore, it reads like a thriller and is not in the least dry or academic in its presentation. Hence, it gave us a new insight into the life of one of Ferrara’s most famous sons and into the background of that lovely city itself. Indeed it could be argued that the forces at work in shaping the history of Florence at that period have a real resonance with those affecting our own recessionary world at the moment.
Thus, it can truly be said that it was Savonarola who brought us ‘to book’ in the wonderful medieval city of Ferrara.
Finally, if you truly wish to savour the full benefits of this book and the city of Ferrara, may I suggest that you take up this book with a glass of Sangiovese wine and read it to the accompaniment of the CD ‘Nostos’, being jazz music (Marangolo Tavolazzi & Bandini) from that city. Magic! Salute!!
it is so lovely to see that you and your wife "red together". :)
ReplyDeletethanks for sharing.
annie
Sold! Sounds wonderful, I spent a month in Florence after college, and this all truly does sound quite magical... I will be looking for it stateside ;)
ReplyDelete