MEMORIES OF MISTRESSES: Reflections from a Life

by Luigi Barzini ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 7, 1986

Twenty-two essays on everything from the Italian mistress to the American technocrat, by the ever-charming, ever-wise, often brilliant author of The Italians (1964). Barzini died in 1984, but his memory lives on in these posthumously published works as a preeminently astute observer of cultures, particularly that of his native Italy. As elsewhere, his writing here is both literary and personal, literary in that it gracefully mixes anecdote and idea with little attempt to distinguish between private conclusions and historical facts; personal in that the author almost always appears as a character. Thus we accompany him on a trip to Sicily to visit the widow of Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa, who helps him reconstruct the life of her now-famous husband whose one novel, The Leopard, was published after his death; we return with Barzini to the United States, where he had lived and worked as a young journalist; we accompany him to some old friends on the island of Formosa, and learn a little history on the way; we suffer with him through the painful heart attack that took him by surprise at his writing desk in 1960. Particularly moving is an essay, ""A King's Last Night,"" in which Barzini recalls eating supper with Italy's last monarch the night before he left his homeland forever. ""Umberto half closed his eyes and named all the villages along the northern coast of Sicily, one after another, without missing a single one. And he described some of them, to make us see them again. . . We had a feeling that he knew all his country, yard by yard like this."" Some Italians have criticized Barzini's generalizing tendencies. Others have questioned his frank love of everything aristocratic or rustic (which translates into a distaste for everything bourgeois). But his honesty, intelligence and good writing always make him a pleasure to read. A fine collection, of interest to anybody with a cosmopolitan bent.

Pub Date: Jan. 7, 1986

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1986

Categories: NONFICTION