That Was Another Country

Capturing the chaos: 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel'

Sun, 13 May 2012 08:37:43 -0500

This film just took me back to India, so much so that as we drove home from the theater I experienced the same impression of orderliness and calm that I did when we returned from the actual India.

The characters in the film made some of the usual observations about how India is an assault on the senses, which it is; like my mother pointed out, though, it’s a colorful assault. The characters also made choices about how they would respond to the chaos, noise, and unpredictability in India. One of them entrenched herself, holding out hope that fortunes would change and she’d be on a plane back to England. Her husband, meanwhile, embraced all that India (or at least Jaipur) had to offer. Another character (played by the always remarkable Judi Dench) compared immersion into India as a wave: if you fight it, you’ll struggle and perhaps drown; it’s best to let it carry you. You might just end up someplace wonderful.

“I revisited the country daily, not just the people, but...

Sat, 12 May 2012 08:40:29 -0500

“I revisited the country daily, not just the people, but the language—rungi-chungi, jilli-milli, olla-molla—the chanting and cymbal crashing that came from monastary windows, the smell of kerosene and cook smoke…the glow of butter lamps at a shrine in front of ships festooned with saris and lungis, the direct gaze that came with a namaste.”

From ‘In the land of no right angles’, by Daphne Beal.

"The well-known world had broken up, and there emerged Florence, a magic city where people thought..."

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 08:29:34 -0500

“The well-known world had broken up, and there emerged Florence, a magic city where people thought and did the most extraordinary things. Murder, accusations of murder, A lady clinging to one man and being rude to another—were these the daily incidents of her streets? Was there more in her frank beauty than met the eye—the power, perhaps, to evoke passions,
good and bad, and to bring them speedily to a fulfillment?”

- E. M. Forster, A Room With A View (via simbula)

New books for armchair travelers to India and Europe (including Paris and that hotbed of crime, Venice)

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 14:14:00 -0500

Europe - What a cool concept: take an old Frommer’s guidebook (a 1963 edition) of ‘Europe on $5 a day’ and see what happens when you rely on it for a journey across Europe today. I was born too late to travel around Europe on anything less than $50 a day, and that was pushing it. But author Doug Mack gave it a try, and the result is what promises to be an amusing read, Europe on 5 wrong turns a day: one man, eight countries, one vintage travel guide. Check out this interview with the author, and this short essay on what $5 currently buys you in a few top European cities, both featured on World Hum.

Paris, France - Sticking with Europe, how many people travel there only to return wishing they could someday call it home? There are loads of memoirs by people who either had that dream and made it a reality, or else ended up there by chance, love, or a job transfer. Rosecrans Baldwin, author of the new memoir Paris, I love you but you’re bringing me down, is a lover of Paris who ended up living there by way of a job opportunity. Based on this excerpt in GQ magazine, Baldwin has written a humorous, honest account of his time in Paris, which will certainly shatter the illusions of some readers, while passages like the following will entice others to book a plane ticket tout de suite:

“But what a marvelous evening to be outside in Paris! Never-ending light. The buzz of apéritifs. Cafés full of disheveled girls smoking cigarettes and their boyfriends fluffing their hair once they’d set down their helmets.”

Venice, Italy - I’ve just started reading Donna Leon’s latest Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery, Beastly things. Besides the murder of a yet-as-unidentified man, the most shocking thing so far has been that Brunetti has a computer. No more sitting at his desk mulling over paperwork or gazing out the window at the cupola of one of Venice’s gorgeous churches; nope, he’ll soon be checking the news or e-mail every five seconds like the rest of us.

India - Katherine Boo, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, spent 3 years visiting Annawadi, which can politely be called a “makeshift settlement” or less politely, a slum, near the international airport in Mumbai, India. Seeing past what would appear to be a sad, even pathetic, existence to many of us, Boo delved into the lives of the people of Annawadi, gaining their trust and detailing their stories, which she presents in Behind the beautiful forevers: life, death, and hope in Mumbai. This excerpt from Shashi Tharoor’s review in the Washington Post has me intrigued:

“Boo, who has an Indian husband, has not just lived with its people and gotten to know them; she has penetrated the dynamics of their relationships, acquired insights into their psyches, breathed the polluted air that suffuses their fears. Her empathy for the slum-dwellers, striving against impossible odds to earn enough for “the full enjoy” they can only dream about, is total.”

Author Anish Kapur tackles the subject of India as well in his new book, India becoming. The Daily Beast has a great article describing how Kapur, who was raised in Chennai by an Indian mother and a father originally from the U.S., is “an excellent ambassador” for representing the complexities of a rapidly changing country. Like Boo, Kapur seems determined to tell the fascinating stories of the people he meets, and to reveal the beauty as well as the ugliness in a society whose recent economic growth overshadows the darker, even violent, effects of such rapid change.

Assisi, Umbria, Italy.

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 19:12:04 -0500

Assisi, Umbria, Italy.

'My House in Umbria’: a slice of the bel paese from an unreliable narrator

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 19:02:00 -0500

Do writers see the world through the lens of a potential story? Do they see other people through the lens of a potential character, perhaps guessing at the inner lives of their fellow passengers while riding a train? Would a writer in a first class train carriage to Milan, for example, observe a young couple sitting across the way and speculate about the the nature of their relationship, going so far as to imagine how they might have met and arguments they might have had? If that writer is anything like the narrator of William Trevor’s novel ‘My house in Umbria’, this is just what they’d do.

The narrator of ‘My house in Umbria’, a former madam, now writer and hostess of a not-quite-b&b, not-quite-pensione in the countryside near Siena, calls herself Mrs. Delahunty but, as she tells us early on, that’s just one of many names she’s gone by. She’s honest, therefore, about her dishonesty. Early on, Mrs. Delahunty, or Emily (apparently her real name), is the victim of a likely terrorist bombing in a first class train carriage. As she lies in the hospital, she recalls the details of the bombing along with bits and pieces of other significant moments in her life. From this jumbled mess we quickly identify that despite the now-peaceful, even privileged life Emily leads, she has emerged from the darkness of exploitation and abuse. And if her preoccupation with the past is anything to go by, she hasn’t truly escaped.

If she ever did try to forget, we can imagine that Quinty, her faithful manservant, would be more than happy to remind her. It was Quinty, ironically, who delivered her from her former life, which was going nowhere, and from an occupation that was slowly destroying her to a new home in a new country with a new identity and the discovery of a hidden talent: dreaming up other lives in other places as a writer of romance novels. Emily’s imagination has clearly been a great blessing, and yet it’s just the thing that makes her untrustworthy. We, as readers, can’t rely on her version of events to be any more than that: her version. This is true of any narrator, but in most cases the reader believes him or her to be telling the truth, while with Emily the truth comes to us through the reactions and responses of other, apparently more reliable characters.

‘My House in Umbria’ isn’t a light romp through the gorgeous Italian countryside in which it’s set, and it isn’t peppered with stock characters, romance, and loving descriptions of food. Yet it does transport the reader to an old villa in a bucolic setting in the Italian countryside where the guests, Emily’s fellow passengers and bomb victims, grieve all they lost in what Emily refers to as ‘the outrage’: a young German man mourns his fiance, an elderly English general grieves the loss of his daughter, and a young American girl, a child who lost both her parents and older brother in the bombing, lingers between shock and clarity, silence and tentative conversation.

Emily believes something—some compelling narrative, perhaps—is emerging from their shared tragedy. Might she discover an answer to the puzzle of who set the bomb off, and why? Might she determine what is the purpose of their shared convalescence, their bonding after a tragedy? Or will the writer’s block plaguing her since the attack send her mind off to weaving imagined stories for the very real people around her?

“So there is the city and the river, what people make and...

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:15:46 -0600

“So there is the city and the river, what people make and lose and what survives; and there is the beauty of it. Here is where we begin.” — Robert Clark, from Dark water: flood and redemption in the city of masterpieces

'Dark Water' and the meaning of art

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:27:00 -0600

Florence vs. Firenze, the enduring value of art vs. the rather temporal value of a human life, one theory of restoration vs. another: these themes form a binding thread throughout Robert Clark’s exploration of a destructive flood and the subsequent recovery effort in Florence. ‘Dark Water’ features residents and lovers of Florence from the Middle Ages onwards, a diverse cast of characters that includes artists and political greats like Giorgio Vasari, Niccolo Machiavelli and Leonardo Da Vinci, John Ruskin, considered by many as the father of art history, and writers E.M. Forster and Henry James; you’ll find less admirable types, such as that art lover and cruel dictator Adolf Hitler. Hitler once enjoyed a private tour of the Uffizi, and his admiration of the Ponte Vecchio appeared to be the only thing that spared it from destruction during the waning days of World War II.

Robert Clark begins by noting the differences between one city, Firenze, and another, Florence. They’re geographically the same, of course, but the Italian Firenze belongs to those residents who might trace their family history to their city back not only decades, but centuries. Florence, on the other hand, is a city of tourists, students, writers, and other transient types drawn by art and history and food. A student or tourist or writer might, on occasion, wander into Firenze for a bit, but by and large the two rarely appear to intersect. Clark lived in Florence while researching and writing a novel, and returned, later, to cover the events surrounding the 40th anniversary of the 1966 flood which, save for the dedication of several brave souls, might have destroyed some of the glorious art visitors enjoy today.

Clark explores the events of 1966 through the prism of a single work of art: Cimabue’s Crucifix. This work, though substantial in stature and striking even in its current, damaged state, had largely been dismissed and forgotten by the time the flood struck. And yet afterwards, it transcended its role as a representation of Christ’s suffering for all mankind and became, instead, a symbol of all that was damaged and lost in the flood. Clark observes that in this, the ‘Crocifisso’ is not unique; hadn’t the concept of art itself gone through similar transformations? Vasari, he writes, “created the artist/genius” during the Renaissance, recognizing and celebrating individual artists rather than the works they created as extraordinary. Later, the concept of an artistic “masterpiece” was developed, defined as a work of art which transcended the symbolism of its subject to represent, in and of itself, something significant and special and inherently valuable.

Throughout ‘Dark Water’, Clark describes people who love and create and are obsessed by art, who live for and risk their lives for art. And yet near the end he has a fascinating conversation with a friend about the value of a work of art, which might endure hundreds or even thousands of years and influence countless lives, and the comparative value of a life. Why, in all its flawed, corruptible, and often disappointing nature would a single life not pale before a work by Leonardo Da Vinci? Because any human being might engage in life, in relationships, in great or dismal acts, while art might only at its best capture or inspire those things. Clark quotes John Ruskin as writing, “You will never love art well till you love what she mirrors better.” And this is why, no matter how lovely a city Florence is, so is Firenze.

'Maisie Dobbs' and other Great War trends

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:06:00 -0600

(Cover design by Andrew Davidson for Harper Perennial.)

I don’t know if it’s trend in the arts, or if it’s sheer coincidence, but there seems to be a strong interest in World War I right now. This past weekend we saw the film ‘War Horse’ (based on a book that was later made into a play), which at first glance appears to be a boy-and-his-horse tale, but in actuality demonstrates how quickly and completely warfare was changed by advancements in technology; or, in simpler terms, by more efficient killing machines. On Sunday evening I settled in to watch the US premiere of the second season of Downton Abbey, which kicked off in the midst of World War I, and is (thankfully) more interested in being a highly entertaining, beautifully decorated soap opera than in capturing the trauma of war.

On the literary front I’ve been plowing through the Maisie Dobbs novels, each of which tell not only a good mystery, but also explore the social consequences World War I wrought in the decade that followed. The author of this series, Jacqueline Winspear, embeds lots of period detail, making each book a chance to travel to another, convincingly rendered, period of time. Winspear’s heroine often draws upon her wartime experiences as a nurse, but is equally haunted by all that she saw and endured attending to wounded soldiers in France. In each case, Maisie Dobbs uses her keen perception, her cultivated empathy (she mimics a person’s posture in order to get a better sense of what they are feeling), organization (creating a case map complete with a case of characters and drawing possible links) and a calm, cool demeanor achieved by meditation. There are no clear cut hero’s or villains, as Winspear takes pains to show how complex people—and their motivations—really are.

One thing that really struck me about the Maisie Dobbs books is that unlike some series, such as Donna Leon’s ‘Commissario Brunetti’ crime series, it’s better to actually read the Maisie Dobbs books in order. There are major life changes in store for several of the main characters, and skipping around may spoil some of the anticipation.

While I’ve enjoyed some books in the series more than others, I consistently appreciate the author’s ability to create distinct, unique characters: each person is different and speaks in their own voice. I recently read a highly praised work of literary fiction and felt that too many of the characters were speaking in the same voice, as though they were all spouting one philosophy. Of course, they were all the creation of one person, but a good book builds a world and populates it with distinguishable characters, and it’s best when the scaffolding doesn’t show through.

Links:

The complete Maisie Dobbs series

Author Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs blog

“The window gave onto a view of dove-gray roofs and...

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:55:49 -0600

“The window gave onto a view of dove-gray roofs and balconies, each one containing the same cracked flowerpot and sleeping feline. It was as if the entire city of Paris had agreed to abide by a single understated taste. Each neighbor was doing his or her own to keep up standards, which was difficult because the French ideal wasn’t clearly delineated like the neatness and greenness of American lawns, but more of a picturesque disrepair. It took courage to let things fall apart so beautifully.” - Jeffrey Eugenides, from ‘The Marriage Plot’.

Florence, Italy. September, 2011.

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 08:18:05 -0600

Florence, Italy. September, 2011.

The Birth of Venus and the Monster of Florence

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 08:00:00 -0600

Fiction set in a travel destination has the benefit of allowing me, for the cost of a book (or library late fines for checking out said book), to not only gain a better perspective of where I’m going, but afterwards, to experience that place all over again. Normally, I reserve reading about beloved destinations until after the trip, but on our recent excursion to Italy I brought along Sarah Dunant’s The Birth of Venus. Depicting the life of a young, privileged Florentine woman during the reign of Savonarola, the book breathed life into all the old buildings and squares we saw during our daily explorations. It’s easy to romanticize life at the height of creativity and learning in Renaissance Florence, especially because even as it was occurring people recognized it as a uniquely exciting time and place to be alive. ‘The Birth of Venus’ reminded me, though, of how complicated and limited and even dangerous that period was for women, wealthy and protected or not.

On the plane ride home from Italy, still sighing over a perfect four days spent in Florence sampling unbeatable food and wine and viewing some of the greatest art in the world, I nonetheless plowed through most of Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi’s decidedly unromantic The Monster of Florence. The book, a true story, describes the search for a serial killer whose crimes were committed decades ago, but who has never been brought to justice. The crimes themselves are pretty horrific, but almost more disturbing is what happened next: a bizarre investigation, in which seemingly every rabbit trail was followed and every theory, no matter how nonsensical and ridiculous, was taken seriously. The epilogue reveals a startling link between the ‘Monster’ investigation and a far more recent, chilling crime that captured international headlines involving a certain young American student and her Italian boyfriend; it’s another crime which, like the serial killings around Florence so many years ago, may never be solved.

Fiesole, Italy. September 2011.

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 19:49:24 -0600

Fiesole, Italy. September 2011.

In pursuit of (a united) Italy

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 19:44:00 -0600

Is Italy too regionally diverse, and its citizens too culturally diverse, to be a truly unified country? A new book, The pursuit of Italy: a history of a land, its regions, and their peoples explores whether and how Italy works as a unified country, and perhaps if it’s one instance of a place whose parts are more valuable and functional than the whole. 2011 marked the 150th year of Italy’s Risorgimento, or unification. Considering a history that spans thousands of years it’s surprising to consider that, as a political entity, Italy is younger the U.S.

Even a cursory bit of research about Italy reveals the depth and extent of its regional diversity. In preparing for our trip I came across variations of the following observation at least three or four times: Italians consider themselves residents of their town or city first, then their region, then as ‘Italian’, and finally as European. They identify first and foremost with their local dialect, their local culinary specialties, their local campanile.

The NYT’s book review for ‘The pursuit of Italy’ asks, “What provincial town doesn’t have its statues of Garibaldi and Victor Emanuel, its Via Cavour and Piazza Mazzini?” Reading this, I thought at once of the statue of Garibaldi and Emanuel that dominates the tiny town center of Fiesole, and considered it in a new light: like the statue of Paul Revere atop his horse in Boston, this monument was meant to illustrate and propagate a narrative citizens of a diverse country might rally around. It’s meant to offer Italians, like Americans, a common point of reference. But statues aren’t enough, are they? Differences persist, despite the commonalities of a shared language and culture, and those differences can be enriching even as they are divisive.

The traveler to Italy is all the more blessed for Italy’s regional differences. The diversity in landscape, food, and culture make a journey through even a small portion of Italy resemble a grander adventure.

A little too wild about Oscar

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 08:09:19 -0600

When I mentioned to a friend that Oscar Wilde’s grave at Pere LaChaise cemetery is covered with lipstick marks, she wrinkled her nose and said, “Ewwww….” Yeah, it is kind of icky. So why the kisses? Wilde is loved and all, but so are a lot of other writers and artists, and except for Jim Morrison, their graves aren’t quite as…decorated. According to this news article, in 1999 “someone had the idea of planting a large, lipsticked kiss on the tomb, sparking a craze for Wilde’s many admirers visiting Paris.” The same article features an image of the glass shield recently unveiled to protect the newly cleaned tombstone from further displays of affection. I have to wonder if people won’t just start kissing the glass, instead?

‘Before Sunrise’ = Vienna; ‘Before Sunset’ = Paris; ‘Before the solar eclipse’ = ?

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 19:38:06 -0600

I’ve written before about my admiration for the Richard Linklater films ‘Before Sunrise’ and ‘Before Sunset’, starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, and was excited to see that they’re talking about making a third entry. (Have nine years really almost passed since ‘Before Sunset’? Sheesh!) So, where will the third film in the ‘Before…’ series take place?

If they stick with European settings, I vote for Florence. It’s romantic, walkable, and full of narrow little streets opening onto wide piazzas. The Boboli Gardens would make a particularly lovely setting for at least one scene. But if the filmmakers decide to branch out from Europe, the possibilities are endless. Apparently, the first film was meant to take place in North America, on a train between California and Texas, but it’s difficult imagining it set anywhere but Vienna. The capital city of Austria is not as well known or as easily recognizable as, say, Paris, and consequently didn’t hog the limelight or the viewer’s attention. Rather, it served as an elegant backdrop for a film about the excitement of making an intense, unexpected connection. The sequel was, of course, filmed in Paris. The director moved beyond cliches, though, and chose a few places not normally on the tourist track (like the Promenade Plantee), and thus less familiar and less distracting.

What about filming a third chapter in North America? There are few reasons this might not work, actually, one of which involves aesthetics. In an insightful response to the question of why he chose to live in Paris, the author David Sedaris observed that Paris is beautiful throughout (which I’d argue is true with Vienna, as well), whereas in North America, cities are beautiful only in spots: there’s always the chance that, after several blocks of lovely architecture, you’ll run into a parking lot. If the filmmakers do go for a North American city, my vote would be San Francisco (although all those hills might leave our talkative hero and heroine a bit breathless). Outside of North America, and for sheer romance Bath, England would fit the bill. Perhaps Jesse has become a Jane Austen aficionado, and Celine, working with an international environmental organization, is there to test the quality of the water in the pump room. Or something like that.

Piazza del Comune, Assisi, Italy. September 2011.

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 14:10:00 -0600

Piazza del Comune, Assisi, Italy. September 2011.

Only connect

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 13:54:00 -0600

This New York Times article features a colorful, evocative slideshow of Kolkata (Calcutta), India, but it also raises interesting questions about the nature and fluidity of identity. The article’s author, Alex Vadukul, is the son of an Italian woman and a man of Indian descent who was raised in Kenya and “culturally Anglicized as a teenager in London”. Vadukul was born in Milan and raised in New York City, and recently accompanied his father on a work assignment to India in the hope of connecting with a part of his heritage he’d left largely unexplored. Kolkata is an intense introduction to India, which makes it an economical one as well: the best bang for your buck, so to speak.

I wondered how much the trip to India resonated with Vadukul and his father. Did they recognize aspects of themselves in the culture and people around them? Did they feel more, or less, connected to their heritage after the trip? I also thought about why we tend to connect with certain aspects of our cultural heritage and not others, or why we sometimes identify with other cultures and countries deeper than our own: do we hold romantic, idealized perceptions of certain cultures, gleaned from shallow observation or a too-brief visit? Do we take for granted the positive aspects of our own culture?

In traveling to Europe, the culture, lifestyle and most of all the history tend to strongly resonate with me. This is true for Matt as well, but he feels a deeper connection to South Asian (Indian and Nepali) culture. There’s a connection, an appreciation, a feeling of belonging that we feel in these places; we may not have roots there (or those roots are a generation or two removed), but in these places we experience a recognition of our own values, our own interests, our own hopes.

"What better occupation, really, than to spend the evening at the fireside with a book, with the wind..."

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 13:14:43 -0600

“What better occupation, really, than to spend the evening at the fireside with a book, with the wind beating on the windows and the lamp burning bright. Haven’t you ever happened to come across in a book some vague notion that you’ve had, some obscure idea that returns from afar and that seems to express completely your most subtle feelings?”

- Gustave Flaubert (via whiskey river)

“Rome living was the world’s sole ornament, and dead...

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 19:40:00 -0600

“Rome living was the world’s sole ornament, and dead is now the world’s sole monument.”

Edmund Spenser, “Ruins of Rome”