- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Faber and Faber; First Edition edition (20 Jan 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0571205828
- ISBN-13: 978-0571205820
- Product Dimensions: 22 x 14 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 421,914 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Dark Heart of Italy, The
and over 900,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Tobias Jones' remarkable book essential reading for Italy enthusiasts: The Dark Heart of Italy (subtitled Travels Through Time and Space across Italy) is unlike any book on the country you may have read before. It is not a guide to Italy's art, or her geographical splendours. Nor is it a guide to her amazing cuisine. And it is not an examination of the Italian character. It does, however, contain elements of all of these and much more. When the author emigrated to Italy in 1999, he expected the customary ravishing of the senses that Italy usually provides. But, looking beneath the surface, Jones was astonished to encounter surprising undercurrents, among them national paranoia and the crippling fear inspired by terrorists (the Italian parliament, it seems, has a 'Slaughter Commission').
This is, of course, the country of Silvio Berlusconi, the tycoon whose controversial election via his stranglehold on the media was (to British eyes at least) something that should not be countenanced in a non-totalitarian country. While always taking on board the glories of Italy, Jones' picture of the country is both fascinating and disturbing: this is a land torn apart by civil wars and endemic corruption, the still influential Cosa Nostra and unbending Catholicism exert considerable sway.
Italy remains utterly unlike any of its European neighbours. Jones sees links between the powerful creativity of the Italian soul and the 'dark heart' that he refers to in his title. What is most remarkable about the book is the fact that no one who loves Italy will be at all disenchanted to encounter the truths that Jones presents to us. If anything, the complex and contradictory nation that emerges will hold an even greater fascination for both the serious student and the casual visitor. --Barry Forshaw
Conde Nast Traveller, 1 January 2003
Incisive and intelligent, this is the book to take on your Italian holiday.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
I arrived in Parma knowing only a few Italian words culled from classical music and from menus (adagio, allegro, prosciutto, and so on), and I found myself in the infantile position of trying to understand my surroundings at the same time as I learnt how to describe them. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
I arrived in Parma knowing only a few Italian words culled from classical music and from menus (adagio, allegro, prosciutto, and so on), and I found myself in the infantile position of trying to understand my surroundings at the same time as I learnt how to describe them. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
47 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely brilliant!,
By
This review is from: The Dark Heart of Italy: Travels Through Time and Space Across Italy (Paperback)
This book must be revealing to the British, but it is an absolute eye-opener for an Italian living in the United Kingdom, like me. It gives a description of Italy free of the prejudices we Italians have on ourselves, it does not take anything for granted, and manages to make fun of some of our most ingrained habits. It made me laugh out loud for most of the first chapter, then it made me think, then it got me depressed and angry. The attitudes he describes, towards bureaucracy, towards political power, towards dishonesty, are exactly what compelled me to leave the country (finally) 5 years ago. A must-read for those who want to understand modern Italy, and for expatriate Italians as well - as a vaccine against excessive homesickness
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Uninformed, superficial, exuding prejudice and smugness, politically biased,
By Carno Polo "adventure traveler" (Rome, Italy) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Dark Heart of Italy: Travels Through Time and Space Across Italy (Paperback)
This must be the worst book on Italy I have ever read. The author displays phenomenal ignorance and his judgement is superficial almost to the point of being funny! Were it not for some specific anecdotes he tells rather amusingly, I would have wondered whether he ever set foot in the country at all. He is obsessed with Berlusconi, he just hates the guts of the man. Well that's fine, many Italians do too, but it does not make for informative reading. His writing style is full of smugness, he says he loves the country but he is very condescending toward Italians and does not display the least interest in truly integrating in Italian society. Inaccuracies are too many to list here. A book that is better avoided by those who want to understand contemporary Italy.
34 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
It is an ancient mariner......,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Dark Heart of Italy: Travels Through Time and Space Across Italy (Paperback)
When I first came to live in Italy, five years ago, I was trapped at a dinner party by a man who told me that all Italian postmen were thieves. "Never order anything through the post, because it will automatically be stolen", he warned me. The reason, he explained in a hoarse whisper, was that all Italian postmen were Communists, and that they stole things from the mail as a mute expression of class warfare. I was horrified, but went on ordering books and CDs through the post. Five years and over a hundred mail-order deliveries later, I can happily say that I have never once experienced any serious problem with the Italian postal system. Everything that I have ordered has been delivered, often with amazing speed. The man I met at the party belonged to a particular type of Italian - male, deeply pessimistic, and convinced that modern Italy is a forum for the working out of intricate and baleful conspiracies. Italians such as this have been around since the Renaissance and the rise of the Italian city states. One soon learns to spot them and to avoid them - unless, that is, one actually likes being regaled by Ancient Mariner figures with a sinister tale to tell.Mr Jones' problem is that he has never really escaped from the clutches of the Italian Ancient Mariners. He has an unfortunate weakness for listening to their tales and, worst of all, he tends to give the tales a credence that they don't always deserve. And my goodness how tedious his versions of some of the stories can be. Read his chapter on the bombing in Piazza Fontana in Milan in 1969 (much of it written in italics, for some unexplained reason), and you will find yourself as though trapped in the corner of a smoke-filled bar late at night, looking longingly at the exit while an Italian Ancient Mariner grips your arm and regales you a long and complicated rigmarole of political mystery and intrigue - a story, alas, that has long since lost its relevance to the everyday lives of people in the real world outside. Mr Jones' dark heart of Italy is an alarming place of Dantean ghastliness. It is the Italy of corruption, pompous bureaucrats, bent magistrates, conniving policemen, self-serving politicians and, of course, Mr Berlusconi and his dreadful government. Much of what he says about these things is true. But there is another Italy, that lies beyond these horrors. This is the Italy of, for want of a better term, the common men and women - the millions of Italians who have to make their day-to-day lives through hard work, self-sacrifice and intelligent and tolerant compromise with their fellow human beings. Perhaps these people have the strongest claim to represent the real heart of Italy. They certainly deserve more mention and acknowledgement than they receive in this book. This is not a bad book, but it's not a very good one, either. Anyone seeking a readable introduction to life in Italy would be far better advised to read the earlier books of Tim Parks. Those wanting a good historical background with political detail should look at Modern Italy by Denis Mack Smith and Italy and its Discontents, by Paul Ginsborg. One day, perhaps, someone will write a book called The Dark Heart of Britain. This might explain, amongst other things, why so many British people have chosen to make their permanent home in Italy, while so few Italians have elected to go in the opposite direction.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
