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摘要
摘要
Tim Parks's best seller, Italian Neighbors , offered a sparkling, witty, and acutely observed account of an expatriate's life in a small village outside of Verona. Now in An Italian Education , Parks continues his chronicle of adapting to Italian society and culture, while raising his Italian-born children. With the exquisite eye for detail, character, and intrigue that has brought him acclaim as a novelist, Parks creates an enchanting portrait of Italian parenthood and family life at home, in the classroom, and at church. Shifting from hilarity to despair in the time it takes to sing a lullaby, Parks learns that to be a true Italian, one must live by the motto "All days are one."
评论 (3)
出版社周刊评论
In Italian Neighbors, British-born Parks gave a wry portrait of his adopted Italy, where he lives with his native-born wife Rita in a village outside Verona. This engaging sequel is an affectionate family album focusing on the experience of raising their son, Michele, and daughter, Stefania, combined with general observations on childrearing practices in Italy. Parks believes the typical Italian child is born into a tight social matrix of caution, inhibition and a suffocating awareness of everything that can go wrong. For Italians, ``pregnancy is, inescapably, a pathology,'' and the intense mother-child relationship, suffused with eroticism, often produces young men with ``an extraordinarily inflated, mother-fed opinion of themselves.'' Beyond parenting, Parks serves up pungent cultural commentary. His Italy is a paradox, where an ancient mentality steeped in peasant Catholic traditions coexists with a hedonistic society that eagerly embraces all things modern. Parks's wit, eye for telling incident and sensuous prose make this a captivating family portrait. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus评论
A witty, cynical, and ultimately charming account by an English expatriate married to a native and trying to raise his children in Italy. Parks (Italian Neighbors, 1992) has lived in Italy for the past decade, teaching English at the University of Verona. The author of seven novels (Shear, 1994, etc.), he brings his perceptive analysis of human nature to bear on the eternally fascinating Italians and their perennially exasperating rules, regulations, and requirements. Here the focus is on his young family: wife Rita and children Michele and Stefania. The author amusingly describes the national obsession with its offspring. In a country with the lowest birthrate in the world (1.3 per family), Italian children are pampered, spoiled, and humored from their very first day of life. For an atheist Englishman, sometimes it all seems too much. It is not only the children who are receiving an Italian education, but Parks himself. Like many others, he discovers, ``The story of my fatherhood has been that of a long strategic retreat from the systems I had hoped to impose.'' In the end, his children will succumb to what has been called Italy's ``fatal charm.'' This seduction can (possibly) be resisted by adults who scorn the cult of the Madonna, stories of statues that weep blood, and the worship of Mamma. But for Michele and Stefi, Italy is part enchanted playland, part elaborate facade, part intricate labyrinth. As many expatriates have discovered, living in Italy can be overwhelmingly complicated; Parks's short chapters chronicle his adventures with the often absurdly contradictory system of laws governing everything from getting a fishing license to buying a home--and his discovery of ways to navigate around them. Small vignettes of life, fragments of society, aphorisms of a people and a culture that add up to a thoroughly enjoyable look underneath Italy's tourist facade.
《书目》(Booklist)书评
When expatriate novelist Parks wrote about living in Italy in Italian Neighbors (1992), he focused on the process of acclimation and his often tricky relationships with adults. Now, in another charming and fluidly composed volume of keen observations, amusing anecdotes, and creative musings, he considers the "world of children," especially of his own inventively bilingual son and daughter, who, Parks must concede, will grow up thoroughly Italian in spite of being half English. Childhood in Italy is a fecund topic for Parks, a perfect conduit for analyzing all the quirks of Italian society. As Parks attempts to define what exactly makes Italians Italian, he discusses everything from bureaucracy to lullabies, attitudes toward pregnancy and large families, food preferences, the worship of conformity, the "mama mystique," typical vacations, adultery, school events, and textbooks. Thus the concept of "Italian education" works on two levels. While Parks is describing how Italians teach each other to be Italian, he's also teaching us outsiders all about their richly textured culture. This is an intelligent and sunny book, glimmering with all the contradictions and joys of daily life. (Reviewed July 1995)080211508XDonna Seaman