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.
The Many Saints of Newark
In Praise of Labor
Italian Americans & The Confederacy
Last week as I watched the Confederate flag paraded through the Capitol, I was reminded of a conversation I recently had with another Italian American who defended flying the Confederate flag. His position was that he lived in a former Confederate state where many of his neighbors who flew the Stars and Bars were good people who see it as part of their heritage. As I told him, I had little doubt about the goodness of the people.
Are Italian-Americans Italian? Redux
I hate to admit being wrong, to publicly change my opinion, especially when that opinion is dear to me. I guess I could just cite the adage; to admit that you were wrong is to declare that you are wiser now than you were before. Maybe I should have started this post by telling you how much more wise I now am than I was in the past. See how I turned that around?
Sauce, Gravy, or Dante? (Part 2)
Dante Alighieri; author of The Divine Comedy, Father of the Italian Language, philosopher, theologian, statesman. In my previous post, I make the point that to truly understand Italian and Italian-American culture you need to understand Dante. That post focuses on Dante the poet, the author of The Divine Comedy.