Extraordinary Women is a hard book to rate because it is so very uneven. There is some brilliant writing, evocations of an unforgettable place, exquisExtraordinary Women is a hard book to rate because it is so very uneven. There is some brilliant writing, evocations of an unforgettable place, exquisite sentences. But also much that is pedestrian, a sense of large-scale padding, characters that are not interesting and rather interchangeable. My feeling that the book is about twice as long as it should have been.
For example, there is a gratuitously detailed description of a drunken party that goes on for literally scores of pages. ...more
This book is a real treasure for the aficionado of old photography. It's a beautifully made art/travel/Italy book printed by Jarrold & Sons in NorwichThis book is a real treasure for the aficionado of old photography. It's a beautifully made art/travel/Italy book printed by Jarrold & Sons in Norwich in 1960. Only 3 color plates, but 168 of those wonderfully historic black-and-white "photogravure" images of the kind that you would find in the coffee table books of the 1950s.
I really think the ubiquity of high quality color photography - now accessible from our pocket phones - is changing the way that we perceive the world. It's so easy for us - for anyone - to make high quality reproductions of reality - but ever more difficult for us to appreciate the value of what we see. Books like this take us back to a society that didn't have I-phones or androids, but which may have seen more, remembered more, valued more of the heritage of the past and the treasures of the natural world.
I'm not saying that it was better, but it was different....more
Though this book is not particularly good, Cardinal Alberoni is himself interesting yet obscure. He was a poor northern Italian boy from Parma who rosThough this book is not particularly good, Cardinal Alberoni is himself interesting yet obscure. He was a poor northern Italian boy from Parma who rose to a position of some international prominence as friend and adviser to the Duke of Vendôme, a great French General of the War of the Spanish Succession. Later, after a mission to Spain, Alberoni entered the service of King Philip V of Spain, helping to arrange his marriage to the Parmese princess Elizabeth Farnese. There in Spain, he eventually became the King's chief minister, and was awarded by the Pope with a Cardinal's hat.
When I saw this book at a used-book store in Kansas, I was not sure whether or not I had ever heard of Alberoni before.
Simon Harcourt-Smith (1906-1982) was an author of popular history and biography who served in the British Foreign Service. "Cardinal of Spain" was published in 1944, which may help to explain some of the looseness and infelicities of its writing.
There are a lot of interesting tidbits here. Berenson, a prominent art historian of the Italian Renaissance, was born in a Lithuania shtetl in the yeaThere are a lot of interesting tidbits here. Berenson, a prominent art historian of the Italian Renaissance, was born in a Lithuania shtetl in the year that the American Civil War ended, and was active mentally until the end of his life. This collection of diary entries covers the years from 1947 to 1958, when he was between 81 and 92 years old. His mind was active and sensitive and curious through the entire period of this book: we should all be so lucky! And Berenson is also an effective teller of the indignities and annoyances of aging as well: the weakness, the forgetfulness, the loss of faculties. Getting old sucks - even for Bernard Berenson, living at a fabulous Tuscan villa surrounded by timeless art, waited on by faithful servants and in the company of a patient, devoted, and cherished life-partner.
This book was published only five years after "BB"s death, and I suspect that there were a lot of passages that were too indiscreet to be published at the time. Which is a shame. It's also a shame there is so much repetition in the published diary entries. The book would be twice as good if it were half as long. When Berenson has something interesting to say, he's very interesting: he served as a fascinating link between worlds of literature, art, and scholarship from the late 1880s to the late 1950s. Oscar Wilde was a friend of his; Berenson was taught at Harvard by Henry Adams; he became the art adviser for Joseph Duveen; he was Bertrand Russell's brother-in-law. In the 1950s, all sorts of people who were passing through Italy stopped to see him and pay him homage: the range of contacts goes from Harry Truman to Ray Bradbury to Henri Matisse to the former Queen of Romania....more
Unfortunately, the platitudes outnumber the brilliant passages. This is really a series of short stories, set in occupied Naples in sumWildly uneven.
Unfortunately, the platitudes outnumber the brilliant passages. This is really a series of short stories, set in occupied Naples in summer 1944, inter-woven with a series of first person narratives about Burns' own experiences in North Africa and Italy during the war. These "promenade" sections particularly tedious to me. Throughout, Burns often strains to be profound, making broad generalizations about Americans and Italians that seem more suitable perhaps for a sociology textbook. Mr. Author, please show, don't tell us!
Among the short stories, "Momma," set in a Neapolitan "gay bar" frequented by American servicemen, is quite good. I also liked "Queen Penicillin," which relates the experience of a GI undergoing treatment for syphllis. Perhaps they could be anthologized, because they could really stand on their own....more
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