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Overview
Jean Giono's tale, translated from the French, describes the author's journey to the land of his father's people. A reluctant traveler, Giono nonetheless discovers a strange beauty not only in such traditional sights as the palazzi and canals of Venice but also in people and objects usually ignored or forgotten: wistful waiters, suspicious hairdressers, pugnacious men of God, recalcitrant coffeemakers, telescopic umbrellas, and abandoned field machinery. Giono's world is one in which a stamp collectors' market can appear to verge on revolution and inept municipal musicians can suddenly offer Mozartian joys.An Italian Journey is also a meditation on Giono's development and a manual on how to achieve happiness. Giono is conscious of Italy's obvious beauties, but his gift is apprehending the joys squeezed from the dark side of life -- from dull skies, grim facades, muddy fields, and the redium of the autostrada. Laden with anecdote and history as well as the author's exploration of self, An Italian Journey is a masterpiece of travel literature.
Synopsis
Jean Giono's tale, translated from the French, describes the author's journey to the land of his father's people. A reluctant traveler, Giono nonetheless discovers a strange beauty not only in such traditional sights as the palazzi and canals of Venice but also in people and objects usually ignored or forgotten: wistful waiters, suspicious hairdressers, pugnacious men of God, recalcitrant coffeemakers, telescopic umbrellas, and abandoned field machinery. Giono's world is one in which a stamp collectors' market can appear to verge on revolution and inept municipal musicians can suddenly offer Mozartian joys.
An Italian Journey is also a meditation on Giono's development and a manual on how to achieve happiness. Giono is conscious of Italy's obvious beauties, but his gift is apprehending the joys squeezed from the dark side of life -- from dull skies, grim facades, muddy fields, and the redium of the autostrada. Laden with anecdote and history as well as the author's exploration of self, An Italian Journey is a masterpiece of travel literature.
Kirkus Reviews
In this intimate narrative of his travels through Italy, appearing in English for the first time (it was originally published in 1954), Giono brings his novelist's sensibility not only to the beauty and surprise that is Italy but to the profound questions of why one travels, and what one brings to such an undertaking. French but of Italian origin, Giono is one of this century's most important novelists. His journey follows the well-trod route from Turin and Milan through Venice, the Apennines, and Bologna. But it is not so much the cathedrals and palazzi, the museums and panoramas that interest Giono as the national character that can be read in the "humanity of a minor road" or the magical encounter between Catullus and Dante and "scantily clad typists from Milan pedaling water-tandems together with their bosses" on the banks of Lake Garda. Giono hates the behavior of tourists, is bored by the azure of Naples and Capri, and hates politics—-but he is charmed by priests on Vespas and loves espresso. We get a little bit of everything in the mix, as well as Giono's contemplation of happiness, retreat, melancholy, and friendship. Immersed in so much history, Giono reflects that there are only a few historic dates in each year, and "the rest of the time life is without history, when it's a matter of how to be happy." Late in his tale, Giono considers that Machiavelli had a lot to say about the nature of power, but it may have been "having his shoe repaired by a perceptive cobbler, or a chat with a very sensible grocer on his doorstep, [that] put him on the right path " An Italian Journey shares that, too. Giono skips over the obvious, goes right for the magic of his subject, and addshis own richly invested insight. His enchanting invitation to the idiosyncratic charms of Italy stands out brightly among the ho-hum abundance on the subject.