Reading List: November 2012

During the month of November I finished three books that I had previously started, continued reading in three books that were underway, and started and finished two books, and started a second run through an instructional book. I've been thinking about doing some categorical breakdowns of my reading, but, for the moment, I'll continue to present the books according to the date during the month when I took them up.

David Gilmour, The Pursuit of Italy (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011). Contemplating a trip to Italy in the spring of 2013, I thought I'd read up on the country. I started Sir David Gilmour's The Pursuit of Italy on October 2, and I finished it on November 6. The title tells the story: Gilmour's thesis is that Italy, divided by geography, history, economics, and culture, is not, and never has been a unified country. Declarations of Italian unity have been aspirational, rather than descriptive, and the attempt to impose an artificial uniformity on a diverse country led to the monstrosity of fascism.

Bruce Feiler, Walking the Bible (New York: Harper Perennial, 2001). This is a very well-known travel book, describing Mr. Feiler's efforts to visit locations mentioned in the Pentateuch. One of the major problems facing Feiler is that the present location of many of the place names in the Bible is unknown or disputed. (My personal crochet is that I think the Garden of Eden, if it existed, would have been located much farther north than is generally accepted.) Since no one knows if there was an exodus from Egypt, it's hard to follow the putative route of the alleged migration. Also, Feiler is very inconsistent, which may just reveal his humanity, about whether he's a doubter looking for faith, or a believer looking for confirmation.

David Abulafia, The Great Sea: A human history of the Mediterranean (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). This is a book of immense scope. It's beautifully written, and the maps are very helpful. The Mediterranean has sometimes unified the countries and peoples of its islands and littoral, and sometimes divided them. This is a book well worth reading.

Christopher Duggan, The Force of Destiny: A history of Italy since 1796. (Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Compnay, 2008). The title, taken from a Verdi opera, indicates Duggan's thesis that the risorgimento, the unification of Italy, was really a conquest of the regions of Italy by Piedmont, under the leadership of Camille Cavour. Most of Italy was never enthusiastic about being taken over by the Piedmontese, and resentment still rankles. Together with Gilmour's book, The Force of Destiny paints a rather pessimistic picture of the prospects for a united and prosperous Italy.

H. V. Morton, A Traveller in Italy (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2002). H. V. Morton was a fine travel writer, and his book on Italy, originally published in 1964, is very good on the northern part of the country. (He has another book which deals with Rome.)

Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, Murder at the Savoy (New York: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2009 [1971]). This is the sixth in the famous Scandinavian series of mysteries, or romans policiers, The Story of Crime, by Sjowall and Per Wahloo. Good writing and a fine eye meet social criticism.

Alan Furst, Mission to Paris (New York: Random House, 2012). Another of Furst's fine novels of pre-World War II Europe. In this case, a Hollywood actor of East European origins get caught up in a web of Nazi intrigue in the film industry.

Marcel Proust. A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs (Paris: Gallimard, 1988 [1919]). The second volume of Remembrance of Things Past. A long-term project.

Antonella Ansani, Complete Italian: The Basics Edited by Suzanne McQuade. (New York: Living Language, 2008). If I keep at it long enough, I'll actually learn some Italian. Magari!