THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 30, 1995 TAG: 9508300034
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY BERNICE GROHSKOPF
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
YOU MAY NOT learn any more about Italy from Tim Parks' ``An Italian Education: The Further Adventures of an Expatriate in Verona'' (Grove Press, 338 pp., $22) than you have learned about France from Peter Mayle's books on Provence, but you will learn about the author, an Englishman, his Italian wife, Rita, and their family.
When the book opens at a beach in southern Italy, their son, Michele, is about 2; a second child is on the way. The beach scene, vividly described, is much like any beach in the United States or probably anywhere. At the end of the chapter, Parks swims out beyond the rocks and as he floats in the water, reflecting on Italy, he decides that it is, ``for all its faults . . . one of the most civilized places in the world for a child to grow up. I shall write a book about it, I tell myself. Since that appears to be what people expect of me. . . .''
Parks doesn't say whom, but perhaps one ``people'' was his agent, who had an eye on the series of successes by Mayle. But Parks, who has lived in Italy since 1981 and is the author of ``Italian Neighbors,'' admits that he's ``always been suspicious of travel writing.''
His discomfort in writing this book seems evident as he makes a valiant effort to provide an accurate picture of everyday family life in Verona, including an account of his wife's second pregnancy, informing you that having more than one child in Italy is regarded as unnecessary.
There's a description of the drive to the hospital, the usual arrival formalities despite Rita's advanced labor, the indifferent nurse and the consequent mix-ups, all reported in detail, as though this were a rare event. There's a visit to the supermarket, a full account of Parks' dealings with real estate people in Italy, whose difficulty in distinguishing fact from fiction is no different from their American counterparts.
You are told about wakeful nights with Stefi, the new baby, a visit to the pediatrician, a family vacation in the mountains, the complications of gaining admission to a state-supported nursery school, a search for a baby-sitter, the intricacies and dishonesties of Italian bureaucracy, the surprise (and not entirely welcome) visits from the grandparents. And so on.
What is most remarkable is that Parks, a professional writer who has published seven novels as well as translations of notable Italian authors, has described these situations in the life of a young family as though he were providing a handbook on the customs and mores of some remote exotic tribe. Son Michele is in diapers at the beginning; he is 8 at the end, when a third child is on the way.
Parks is a good writer, an observant reporter, a devoted family man who seems enchanted by his children and probably a thoroughly likable person. But as he plods ahead dutifully determined to finish the book, the strain is evident. Early on he confesses: ``You think you will write a book, but then you think again.'' And later: ``I'm at that stage in a book where you stop and wonder what kind of impression you're giving.''
Clearly, writing this six-year history was a chore for him and his weariness, compounded by the new baby's wakeful nights, may excuse this puzzling sentence: ``I very often, and especially in the first sleepless months of Stefi's life, would find myself typing with a cot on the desk beside me.'' Another puzzle is why a man who seems like an intelligent, sensitive person, occasionally lapses into bad taste, such as making a pun on ``whopper'' and ``Wopper.'' Even more disturbing is his attempt at humor when he describes the walk of a polio victim who required a built-up shoe, as ``lurching,'' or his comment on ``the clonking of the prostatic cripple upstairs crutchbound for the bathroom.'' Where was his editor?
Parks provides some Italian words and phrases, along with a few charming songs and proverbs that the average visitor to Italy may or may not find useful. MEMO: Bernice Grohskopf is a free-lance book reviewer in Charlottesville who
specializes in 19th century British literature. by CNB