Author: Julie A. Burk
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780986588709
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
An Italian Odyssey is a story about a midlife couple who embarks on a great adventure walking 1,000 km on the Via Francigena, an ancient, elusive medieval pilgrim trail through the heart of Italy. Historically, the Via Francigena was a broad network of trails originating in ancient Francia, an ever-changing backbone of Roman and medieval roads leading to Rome. Today, unlike the Camino de Santiago in Spain, only a few hundred people have walked the entire Via Francigena through Italy during the past decade. It is a barely discovered, obscure, and sometimes challenging trail to navigate. The couple s initial plan was to walk and eat their way through Italy using their own homemade guide and map books. But their adventure takes on a life of its own as they face unexpected challenges. With both themselves and each other, they struggle with the constant physical and emotional demands and outcomes of navigating an arduous route that is not well signed. But with dollops of Roman and medieval history, a dash of contemporary culture, plenty of sensual food and wine, and gracious Italian hospitality, they also share many romantic and magical moments. Only after they endure sweat, tears, and frustration, when the strange concoction comes to a boil and the flavors and juices ooze out, do they realize and discover the true meaning of their journey. In the end, An Italian Odyssey is a classic bittersweet tale of the couple s expectation of walking and eating through Italy a unique culinary and walking pilgrimage. An Italian Odyssey will appeal to readers who love all things Italian, its history, culture, and food, and those who like traveling and walking; or by the armchair traveler who enjoys reading about other people s adventures. Readers will also appreciate the rewards and discoveries that come about from tackling real life challenges and struggles. It is a story that combines a great adventure of personal growth, individually and as a couple, with the backdrop of Italian history, contemporary culture, food, and wine. This travel memoir is co-written by both authors, so the reader can appreciate the story from the male and female perspective. Buon viaggio
An Italian Odyssey
Author: Julie A. Burk
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780986588709
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
An Italian Odyssey is a story about a midlife couple who embarks on a great adventure walking 1,000 km on the Via Francigena, an ancient, elusive medieval pilgrim trail through the heart of Italy. Historically, the Via Francigena was a broad network of trails originating in ancient Francia, an ever-changing backbone of Roman and medieval roads leading to Rome. Today, unlike the Camino de Santiago in Spain, only a few hundred people have walked the entire Via Francigena through Italy during the past decade. It is a barely discovered, obscure, and sometimes challenging trail to navigate. The couple s initial plan was to walk and eat their way through Italy using their own homemade guide and map books. But their adventure takes on a life of its own as they face unexpected challenges. With both themselves and each other, they struggle with the constant physical and emotional demands and outcomes of navigating an arduous route that is not well signed. But with dollops of Roman and medieval history, a dash of contemporary culture, plenty of sensual food and wine, and gracious Italian hospitality, they also share many romantic and magical moments. Only after they endure sweat, tears, and frustration, when the strange concoction comes to a boil and the flavors and juices ooze out, do they realize and discover the true meaning of their journey. In the end, An Italian Odyssey is a classic bittersweet tale of the couple s expectation of walking and eating through Italy a unique culinary and walking pilgrimage. An Italian Odyssey will appeal to readers who love all things Italian, its history, culture, and food, and those who like traveling and walking; or by the armchair traveler who enjoys reading about other people s adventures. Readers will also appreciate the rewards and discoveries that come about from tackling real life challenges and struggles. It is a story that combines a great adventure of personal growth, individually and as a couple, with the backdrop of Italian history, contemporary culture, food, and wine. This travel memoir is co-written by both authors, so the reader can appreciate the story from the male and female perspective. Buon viaggio
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780986588709
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
An Italian Odyssey is a story about a midlife couple who embarks on a great adventure walking 1,000 km on the Via Francigena, an ancient, elusive medieval pilgrim trail through the heart of Italy. Historically, the Via Francigena was a broad network of trails originating in ancient Francia, an ever-changing backbone of Roman and medieval roads leading to Rome. Today, unlike the Camino de Santiago in Spain, only a few hundred people have walked the entire Via Francigena through Italy during the past decade. It is a barely discovered, obscure, and sometimes challenging trail to navigate. The couple s initial plan was to walk and eat their way through Italy using their own homemade guide and map books. But their adventure takes on a life of its own as they face unexpected challenges. With both themselves and each other, they struggle with the constant physical and emotional demands and outcomes of navigating an arduous route that is not well signed. But with dollops of Roman and medieval history, a dash of contemporary culture, plenty of sensual food and wine, and gracious Italian hospitality, they also share many romantic and magical moments. Only after they endure sweat, tears, and frustration, when the strange concoction comes to a boil and the flavors and juices ooze out, do they realize and discover the true meaning of their journey. In the end, An Italian Odyssey is a classic bittersweet tale of the couple s expectation of walking and eating through Italy a unique culinary and walking pilgrimage. An Italian Odyssey will appeal to readers who love all things Italian, its history, culture, and food, and those who like traveling and walking; or by the armchair traveler who enjoys reading about other people s adventures. Readers will also appreciate the rewards and discoveries that come about from tackling real life challenges and struggles. It is a story that combines a great adventure of personal growth, individually and as a couple, with the backdrop of Italian history, contemporary culture, food, and wine. This travel memoir is co-written by both authors, so the reader can appreciate the story from the male and female perspective. Buon viaggio
Summer in the Islands
Author: Matthew Fort
Publisher: Unbound Publishing
ISBN: 1783523336
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
Imagine spending a carefree summer in the Italian sun, beachcombing, eating and drinking with abandon, drifting without restraint from island to island, from port to port. Summer in the Islands is the record of Matthew Fort doing just that in his third Italian voyage on a Vespa – first down the length of Italy in Eating Up Italy, then around Sicily in Sweet Honey, Bitter Lemons, and now hopping between the Aeolian Islands, something he hadn’t done since his early 20s. Traveling by Vespa and by ferry, Fort tours the islands at his leisure. He takes us to Elba, where Napoleon was once imprisoned; to Salina, famous for its capers, just as Pantelleria is famous for its dessert wine; to Pianosa, where dangerous Mafia bosses were kept and which Joseph Heller used as the setting for Catch-22; to Capri, where Maxim Gorky ran a school for revolutionaries which was visited by Lenin and Stalin... ...to all of Italy’s 52 islands which he has never written about before. With 30 years of experience as a food critic, travel writer and adventurer, Fort is an excellent guide through the culinary and cultural history he encounters during his summer in the islands.
Publisher: Unbound Publishing
ISBN: 1783523336
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
Imagine spending a carefree summer in the Italian sun, beachcombing, eating and drinking with abandon, drifting without restraint from island to island, from port to port. Summer in the Islands is the record of Matthew Fort doing just that in his third Italian voyage on a Vespa – first down the length of Italy in Eating Up Italy, then around Sicily in Sweet Honey, Bitter Lemons, and now hopping between the Aeolian Islands, something he hadn’t done since his early 20s. Traveling by Vespa and by ferry, Fort tours the islands at his leisure. He takes us to Elba, where Napoleon was once imprisoned; to Salina, famous for its capers, just as Pantelleria is famous for its dessert wine; to Pianosa, where dangerous Mafia bosses were kept and which Joseph Heller used as the setting for Catch-22; to Capri, where Maxim Gorky ran a school for revolutionaries which was visited by Lenin and Stalin... ...to all of Italy’s 52 islands which he has never written about before. With 30 years of experience as a food critic, travel writer and adventurer, Fort is an excellent guide through the culinary and cultural history he encounters during his summer in the islands.
One Hundred Towers
Author: Lola Romanucci-Ross
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
This is the fascinating account of the people who live in the central Italian city of Ascoli Piceno, city of one hundred towers, and the surrounding villages and hilltowns. Lola Romanucci-Ross describes the long and rich cultural heritage of these people and their strategies for cultural and personal survival from both an insider's and an outsider's perspective. In this innovative book, the author goes beyond the newest approach in anthropology, most frequently called reflexive ethnography, where the anthropologist provides information on the researcher as well as the researched. After years of anthropological research in diverse cultures of the world, Romanucci-Ross returns to the town in Italy where her Italian-American family came from. In Ascoli Piceno she is not only anthropological researcher but also niece and aunt, cousin and daughter; here the professional outsider with the insider's perspective deals effectively with the parallax error inherent in views of observer and observed in the anthropological enterprise. A beautifully written yet scholarly account of a vivid and lively culture, this book is also a groundbreaking approach to the ever-growing effort by anthropologists to overcome the limitations that emerge from the separation between researcher and subjects. Romanucci-Ross focuses on the families, their language, personal and cultural identity, mythic thought, and magical thinking in the negotiation of social and personal identity. Both the general reader and professional anthropologists will find One Hundred Towers a source of stimulating ideas and valuable insight.
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
This is the fascinating account of the people who live in the central Italian city of Ascoli Piceno, city of one hundred towers, and the surrounding villages and hilltowns. Lola Romanucci-Ross describes the long and rich cultural heritage of these people and their strategies for cultural and personal survival from both an insider's and an outsider's perspective. In this innovative book, the author goes beyond the newest approach in anthropology, most frequently called reflexive ethnography, where the anthropologist provides information on the researcher as well as the researched. After years of anthropological research in diverse cultures of the world, Romanucci-Ross returns to the town in Italy where her Italian-American family came from. In Ascoli Piceno she is not only anthropological researcher but also niece and aunt, cousin and daughter; here the professional outsider with the insider's perspective deals effectively with the parallax error inherent in views of observer and observed in the anthropological enterprise. A beautifully written yet scholarly account of a vivid and lively culture, this book is also a groundbreaking approach to the ever-growing effort by anthropologists to overcome the limitations that emerge from the separation between researcher and subjects. Romanucci-Ross focuses on the families, their language, personal and cultural identity, mythic thought, and magical thinking in the negotiation of social and personal identity. Both the general reader and professional anthropologists will find One Hundred Towers a source of stimulating ideas and valuable insight.
Palmento
Author: Robert V. Camuto
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803228139
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
Inspired by a deep passion for wine, an Italian heritage, and a desire for a land somewhat wilder than his home in southern France, Robert V. Camuto set out to explore Sicily?s emerging wine scene. What he discovered during more than a year of traveling the region, however, was far more than a fascinating wine frontier.ø Chronicling his journey through Palermo to Marsala, and across the rugged interior of Sicily to the heights of Mount Etna, Camuto captures the personalities and flavors andøthe traditions and natural riches that have made Italy?s largest and oldest wine region the world traveler?s newest discovery. In the island?s vastly different wines he finds an expression of humanity and nature?andøthe space where the two merge into something more. Here, amid the wild landscapes, lavish markets, dramatic religious rituals, deliciously contrasting flavors, and astonishing natural warmth of its people, Camuto portrays Sicily at a shining moment in history. He takes readers into the anti-Mafia movement growing in the former mob vineyards around infamous Corleone; tells the stories of some of the island?s most prominent landowning families; and introduces us to film and music celebrities and other foreigners drawn to Sicily?s vineyards. His book takes wine as a powerful metaphor for the independent identity of this mythic land, which has thrown off its legacies of violence, corruption, and poverty to emerge, finally free, with its great soul intact. Watch the Palmento book trailer on YouTube.
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803228139
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
Inspired by a deep passion for wine, an Italian heritage, and a desire for a land somewhat wilder than his home in southern France, Robert V. Camuto set out to explore Sicily?s emerging wine scene. What he discovered during more than a year of traveling the region, however, was far more than a fascinating wine frontier.ø Chronicling his journey through Palermo to Marsala, and across the rugged interior of Sicily to the heights of Mount Etna, Camuto captures the personalities and flavors andøthe traditions and natural riches that have made Italy?s largest and oldest wine region the world traveler?s newest discovery. In the island?s vastly different wines he finds an expression of humanity and nature?andøthe space where the two merge into something more. Here, amid the wild landscapes, lavish markets, dramatic religious rituals, deliciously contrasting flavors, and astonishing natural warmth of its people, Camuto portrays Sicily at a shining moment in history. He takes readers into the anti-Mafia movement growing in the former mob vineyards around infamous Corleone; tells the stories of some of the island?s most prominent landowning families; and introduces us to film and music celebrities and other foreigners drawn to Sicily?s vineyards. His book takes wine as a powerful metaphor for the independent identity of this mythic land, which has thrown off its legacies of violence, corruption, and poverty to emerge, finally free, with its great soul intact. Watch the Palmento book trailer on YouTube.
An Italian American Odyssey
Author: B. Amore
Publisher: Center Migration Studies
ISBN: 9781577030461
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 412
Book Description
"Illustrated in full color, the book is based on Amore's multimedia exhibition Life line - filo della vita, which traveled to great acclaim from the Ellis Island Museum to Boston, Rome, and Naples. Woven throughout the fully bilingual text are numerous interviews and historic photographs from the Ellis Island archives. Also included are original essays by noted scholars - Pellegrino D'Acierno, Fred Gardaphie, Jennifer Guglielmo, Edvige Giunta, Flavia Rando, Joseph Sciorra, and Robert Viscusi - who take Amore's art as a starting point for illuminating explorations of the immigrant experience, from the aesthetics of cultural memory and the persistence of ethnic identity to issues of gender, race, and generational change in Italian-American history and life."--BOOK JACKET.
Publisher: Center Migration Studies
ISBN: 9781577030461
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 412
Book Description
"Illustrated in full color, the book is based on Amore's multimedia exhibition Life line - filo della vita, which traveled to great acclaim from the Ellis Island Museum to Boston, Rome, and Naples. Woven throughout the fully bilingual text are numerous interviews and historic photographs from the Ellis Island archives. Also included are original essays by noted scholars - Pellegrino D'Acierno, Fred Gardaphie, Jennifer Guglielmo, Edvige Giunta, Flavia Rando, Joseph Sciorra, and Robert Viscusi - who take Amore's art as a starting point for illuminating explorations of the immigrant experience, from the aesthetics of cultural memory and the persistence of ethnic identity to issues of gender, race, and generational change in Italian-American history and life."--BOOK JACKET.
Dottoressa
Author: Susan Levenstein
Publisher: Paul Dry Books
ISBN: 1589881397
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
“Wise and witty.”―Publishers Weekly “A charming story well told.”―Kirkus Reviews “Smart, funny, charming . . . full of astute insights into the way Italy works.”―Alexander Stille “A wonderfully fun read.”―Dr. Robert Sapolsky "As funny as it is poignant. A must read for anyone who thinks they understand medicine, Italy, or humanity.”―Barbie Latza Nadeau After completing her medical training in New York, Susan Levenstein set off for a one year adventure in Rome. Forty years later, she is still practicing medicine in the Eternal City. In Dottoressa: An American Doctor in Rome Levenstein writes, with love and exasperation, about navigating her career through the renowned Italian tangle of brilliance and ineptitude, sexism and tolerance, rigidity and chaos. Part memoir―starting with her epic quest for an Italian medical license―and part portrait of Italy from a unique point of view, Dottoressa is packed with vignettes that illuminate the national differences in character, lifestyle, health, and health care between her two countries. Levenstein, who has been called “the wittiest internist on earth,” covers everything from hookup culture to neighborhood madmen, Italian hands-off medical training, bidets, the ironies of expatriation, and why Italians always pay their doctor’s bills.
Publisher: Paul Dry Books
ISBN: 1589881397
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
“Wise and witty.”―Publishers Weekly “A charming story well told.”―Kirkus Reviews “Smart, funny, charming . . . full of astute insights into the way Italy works.”―Alexander Stille “A wonderfully fun read.”―Dr. Robert Sapolsky "As funny as it is poignant. A must read for anyone who thinks they understand medicine, Italy, or humanity.”―Barbie Latza Nadeau After completing her medical training in New York, Susan Levenstein set off for a one year adventure in Rome. Forty years later, she is still practicing medicine in the Eternal City. In Dottoressa: An American Doctor in Rome Levenstein writes, with love and exasperation, about navigating her career through the renowned Italian tangle of brilliance and ineptitude, sexism and tolerance, rigidity and chaos. Part memoir―starting with her epic quest for an Italian medical license―and part portrait of Italy from a unique point of view, Dottoressa is packed with vignettes that illuminate the national differences in character, lifestyle, health, and health care between her two countries. Levenstein, who has been called “the wittiest internist on earth,” covers everything from hookup culture to neighborhood madmen, Italian hands-off medical training, bidets, the ironies of expatriation, and why Italians always pay their doctor’s bills.
Notes from an Italian Garden
Author: Joan Marble
Publisher: WilliamMr
ISBN: 9780060185749
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Thirty years ago journalist Joan Marble and her sculptor husband, Robert Cook, bought an unpromising piece of land near the little hamlet of Canale, north of Rome where the ancient Etruscans once lived. Here they built a house and, more important, set out to start a wonderful garden. All was not easy, however. They faced blank incomprehension from the local inhabitants. "Why do you want to have a garden here?" they were asked. "There's no water, the ground is like cement, it's too cold in winter and too hot in summer, it never rains. . . ." But Joan and Robert's enthusiasm for the land, their ignorance of the obstacles that faced them, their downright obstinacy and the unexpected friends who helped them -- all served to conquer the intransigent terrain. "I fell in love with Etruria one chilly evening in the middle of winter," says Joan. "They were having a New Year's Eve festival in a little town near Campagnano, and a group of local boys dressed in Renaissance costumes were marching in a torchlight parade down the main street. As I stood there in the cold watching the flames lurching to the sky, I realized that I felt very much at home in this ancient place. If ever we should decide to move to the country, this was the kind of place I would choose....." Inspirational, aspirational, enchanting -- this is an account of a passion for a place and an obsession with a garden that will charm all who love Italy, gardening, and life.
Publisher: WilliamMr
ISBN: 9780060185749
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Thirty years ago journalist Joan Marble and her sculptor husband, Robert Cook, bought an unpromising piece of land near the little hamlet of Canale, north of Rome where the ancient Etruscans once lived. Here they built a house and, more important, set out to start a wonderful garden. All was not easy, however. They faced blank incomprehension from the local inhabitants. "Why do you want to have a garden here?" they were asked. "There's no water, the ground is like cement, it's too cold in winter and too hot in summer, it never rains. . . ." But Joan and Robert's enthusiasm for the land, their ignorance of the obstacles that faced them, their downright obstinacy and the unexpected friends who helped them -- all served to conquer the intransigent terrain. "I fell in love with Etruria one chilly evening in the middle of winter," says Joan. "They were having a New Year's Eve festival in a little town near Campagnano, and a group of local boys dressed in Renaissance costumes were marching in a torchlight parade down the main street. As I stood there in the cold watching the flames lurching to the sky, I realized that I felt very much at home in this ancient place. If ever we should decide to move to the country, this was the kind of place I would choose....." Inspirational, aspirational, enchanting -- this is an account of a passion for a place and an obsession with a garden that will charm all who love Italy, gardening, and life.
Italian Days
Author: Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802190294
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 483
Book Description
A “contagiously exuberant” celebration of Italian food, culture, and history that “will be the companion of visitors for years to come” (The Washington Post Book World). In an absorbing journey down the Italian peninsula, essayist, journalist, and fiction writer Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, offers a fascinating mixture of history, politics, folklore, food, architecture, arts, and literature, studded with local anecdotes and personal reflections. From fashionable Milan to historic Rome and primitive, brooding Calabria, Harrison reveals her country of origin in all its beauty, peculiarity, and glory. Italian Days is the story of a return home; of friends, family, and faith; and of the search for the good life that propels all of us on our journeys wherever we are. “Harrison’s wonderful journal will make you update your passport and dream of subletting your job, home, etc. . . . With Harrison, you never know with whom you’ll be lunching, or climbing down a ruin. You just know you want to be there.” —Glamour
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802190294
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 483
Book Description
A “contagiously exuberant” celebration of Italian food, culture, and history that “will be the companion of visitors for years to come” (The Washington Post Book World). In an absorbing journey down the Italian peninsula, essayist, journalist, and fiction writer Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, offers a fascinating mixture of history, politics, folklore, food, architecture, arts, and literature, studded with local anecdotes and personal reflections. From fashionable Milan to historic Rome and primitive, brooding Calabria, Harrison reveals her country of origin in all its beauty, peculiarity, and glory. Italian Days is the story of a return home; of friends, family, and faith; and of the search for the good life that propels all of us on our journeys wherever we are. “Harrison’s wonderful journal will make you update your passport and dream of subletting your job, home, etc. . . . With Harrison, you never know with whom you’ll be lunching, or climbing down a ruin. You just know you want to be there.” —Glamour
A Hope in the Unseen
Author: Ron Suskind
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307763080
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 402
Book Description
The inspiring, true coming-of-age story of a ferociously determined young man who, armed only with his intellect and his willpower, fights his way out of despair. In 1993, Cedric Jennings was a bright and ferociously determined honor student at Ballou, a high school in one of Washington D.C.’s most dangerous neighborhoods, where the dropout rate was well into double digits and just 80 students out of more than 1,350 boasted an average of B or better. At Ballou, Cedric had almost no friends. He ate lunch in a classroom most days, plowing through the extra work he asked for, knowing that he was really competing with kids from other, harder schools. Cedric Jennings’s driving ambition—which was fully supported by his forceful mother—was to attend a top college. In September 1995, after years of near superhuman dedication, he realized that ambition when he began as a freshman at Brown University. But he didn't leave his struggles behind. He found himself unprepared for college: he struggled to master classwork and fit in with the white upper-class students. Having traveled too far to turn back, Cedric was left to rely on his intelligence and his determination to maintain hope in the unseen—a future of acceptance and reward. In this updated edition, A Hope in the Unseen chronicles Cedric’s odyssey during his last two years of high school, follows him through his difficult first year at Brown, and tells the story of his subsequent successes in college and the world of work. Eye-opening, sometimes humorous, and often deeply moving, A Hope in the Unseen weaves a crucial new thread into the rich and ongoing narrative of the American experience.
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307763080
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 402
Book Description
The inspiring, true coming-of-age story of a ferociously determined young man who, armed only with his intellect and his willpower, fights his way out of despair. In 1993, Cedric Jennings was a bright and ferociously determined honor student at Ballou, a high school in one of Washington D.C.’s most dangerous neighborhoods, where the dropout rate was well into double digits and just 80 students out of more than 1,350 boasted an average of B or better. At Ballou, Cedric had almost no friends. He ate lunch in a classroom most days, plowing through the extra work he asked for, knowing that he was really competing with kids from other, harder schools. Cedric Jennings’s driving ambition—which was fully supported by his forceful mother—was to attend a top college. In September 1995, after years of near superhuman dedication, he realized that ambition when he began as a freshman at Brown University. But he didn't leave his struggles behind. He found himself unprepared for college: he struggled to master classwork and fit in with the white upper-class students. Having traveled too far to turn back, Cedric was left to rely on his intelligence and his determination to maintain hope in the unseen—a future of acceptance and reward. In this updated edition, A Hope in the Unseen chronicles Cedric’s odyssey during his last two years of high school, follows him through his difficult first year at Brown, and tells the story of his subsequent successes in college and the world of work. Eye-opening, sometimes humorous, and often deeply moving, A Hope in the Unseen weaves a crucial new thread into the rich and ongoing narrative of the American experience.
Sicilian Odyssey
Author: Francine Prose
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1426209088
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 171
Book Description
A blending of art and cultural criticism, travel writing, and personal narrative, Sicilian Odyssey is Francine Prose's imaginative consideration of the diverse cultural legacies found juxtaposed and entangled on the Mediterranean island of Sicily. She writes of the intensity of Sicily, the "commitment to the extreme," where the history is more colorful, the sun hotter, the cooking earthier, the violence more horrific, the carnival more raucous, the politics more Byzantine than other places on Earth, and how much the island can teach us about the triumph of beauty over violence and life over death. Prose examines architectural sites and objects and looks at the ways in which myth and actuality converge. Exploring the intact and beautiful Greek amphitheaters at Siracusa and Taormina, the cathedral at Monreale, the Roman mosaics at Piazza Armerina, and some of the masterpieces of the Baroque scattered throughout the island, Prose focuses her keen insight to imagine them in their own time, to examine the evolution and decline of the cultures that produced them, and to deconstruct powerful responses each evokes in her.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1426209088
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 171
Book Description
A blending of art and cultural criticism, travel writing, and personal narrative, Sicilian Odyssey is Francine Prose's imaginative consideration of the diverse cultural legacies found juxtaposed and entangled on the Mediterranean island of Sicily. She writes of the intensity of Sicily, the "commitment to the extreme," where the history is more colorful, the sun hotter, the cooking earthier, the violence more horrific, the carnival more raucous, the politics more Byzantine than other places on Earth, and how much the island can teach us about the triumph of beauty over violence and life over death. Prose examines architectural sites and objects and looks at the ways in which myth and actuality converge. Exploring the intact and beautiful Greek amphitheaters at Siracusa and Taormina, the cathedral at Monreale, the Roman mosaics at Piazza Armerina, and some of the masterpieces of the Baroque scattered throughout the island, Prose focuses her keen insight to imagine them in their own time, to examine the evolution and decline of the cultures that produced them, and to deconstruct powerful responses each evokes in her.