A Bell for Adano
Historical fiction is one of today’s most popular genres. From the Peloponnesian War to the war in Iraq and all points in between, you can read books that will give you a sense of what it was like to live in those times. Unsurprisingly, the most compelling of these works are created by the people who witnessed these momentous events, who were part of it. I think of such great novels as Hemmingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls, Heller’s Catch-22, and Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. John Hersey’s Pulitzer Prize winning A Bell for Adano, although not ranked as highly as these others, deserves praise. There is an authenticity to it that gives the reader a sense of what life in Italy must have been like as the war ended.
The Neapolitan Quartet
The Neapolitan Quartet is a set of novels to which many Americans have been introduced through the HBO series, My Brilliant Friend. While the television series does an excellent job of capturing the essence of the books and is well worth the watching, there is nothing that can compare to actually reading Elana Ferrante’s words. I devoured these books, not hesitating in going immediately from one to the next, as if each book were merely chapters of one complete work, which they were. Ferrante has described them as “a single novel” published in four volumes due to length and duration. They are like the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, one story across multiple books.
“Il bar più a sud d’Europa isole escluse.”
We were barely on the road when we stopped at an abandoned farmhouse. The farm had been made into a museum. Apparently, someone who had found some Roman mosaics and were chipping away pieces destroying them and obscuring the story these treasures told. As I understand it, someone had started farming here when they discovered what was under the ground. It reminds me of something a friend once told me. According to him, there is so very much history in the ground that every construction project uncovers something from the past.
Italia, Ieri, Oggi, Domani.
Today we boarded our flight for our Italian adventure. We battled traffic on the LA freeways, passed through the gauntlet of security, and ourselves into seats that would be restrictive for hobbit. There is not much to tell about my odyssey at this point, so let’s talk about Italy.
Arrival
Today, after a very long day of travel, we arrived in Syracuse, or more correctly Sircuasa. I am referring to the original in Sicily and not the one in central New York.