Tim Parks s books on Italy have been hailed as "so vivid, so packed
with delectable details, they] serve as a more than decent
substitute for the real thing" (Los Angeles Times Book Review).
Now, in his first Italian travelogue in a decade, he delivers a
charming and funny portrait of Italian ways by riding its trains
from Verona to Milan, Rome to Palermo, and right down to the heel
of Italy.
Parks begins as any traveler might: "A train is a train is a
train, isn t it?" But soon he turns his novelist s eye to the
details, and as he journeys through majestic Milano Centrale
station or on the newest high-speed rail line, he delivers a
uniquely insightful portrait of Italy. Through memorable encounters
with ordinary Italians conductors and ticket collectors, priests
and prostitutes, scholars and lovers, gypsies and immigrants Parks
captures what makes Italian life distinctive: an obsession with
speed but an acceptance of slower, older ways; a blind eye toward
brutal architecture amid grand monuments; and an undying love of a
good argument and the perfect cappuccino.
Italian Ways also explores how trains helped build Italy and how
their development reflects Italians sense of themselves from
Garibaldi to Mussolini to Berlusconi and beyond. Most of all,
Italian Ways is an entertaining attempt to capture the essence of
modern Italy. As Parks writes, "To see the country by train is to
consider the crux of the essential Italian dilemma: Is Italy part
of the modern world, or not?""
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