The Other Side of the Tiber
Reflections on Time in Italy
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A moving and illuminating memoir about a singular woman's relationship with a fascinating and complex country
A fresh, nuanced perspective on a profoundly perplexing country: this is what Wallis Wilde-Menozzi's unique, captivating narrative promises—and delivers.
The Other Side of the Tiber brings Italy to life in an entirely new way, treating the peninsula as a series of distinct places, subjects, histories, and geographies bound together by a shared sense of life. A multifaceted image of Italy emerges—in beautiful black-and-white photographs, many taken by Wilde-Menozzi herself—as does a portrait of the author. Wilde-Menozzi, who has written about Italy for nearly forty years, offers unexpected conclusions about one of the most complex and best-loved countries in the world.
Beginning her story with a hitchhiking trip to Rome when she was a student in England, she illuminates a passionate, creative, and vocal people who are often confined to stereotypes. Earthquakes and volcanoes; a hundred-year-old man; Siena as a walled city; Keats in Rome; the refugee camp of Manduria; the Slow Food movement; realism in Caravaggio; the concept of good and evil; Mary the Madonna as a subject—from these varied angles, Wilde-Menozzi traces a society skeptical about competition and tolerant of contradiction. Bringing them together in the present, she suggests the compensations of the Italians' long view of time. Like the country, this book will inspire discussion and revisiting.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wilde-Menozzi guides the reader along her slow perambulations through Italy, from Parma to Mandu-ria. Her loving remembrances meander much like the Tiber. She reconstructs the scenes that shaped her love for the country: her first trip to Italy, encounters with the legacy of earthquakes and volcanoes that irrevocably altered the human landscape, reflections on the power of the Slow Food movement which helped her redefine eating habits and transformed the pace she uses to approach new experienc-es. She visits the frescoes of both San Giovanni Evangelista and Santa Maria Assunta in Parma, paus-ing to meditate on the overwhelming power of the depiction of Mary, "bathed in a vision that all but put a woman on par with Christ." Her encounter with the Tiber launches her into exalted reflections on the capacity of the river to shape her life: "I visited the Tiber almost daily, like a shrine . The Tiber, though held by its banks and borders, told an unshapable story every day. I absorbed the wide perspec-tive of what it means to live the experience of an ancient river. Two observations that have stayed with me: It's never empty and never pitch-black." Part memoir and part travel guide, Wilde-Menozzi's ru-minations creates a vibrant excursion through her adopted homeland.
Customer Reviews
Not my cup of tea.
I’m conflicted about this book. I can totally see the beauty in the writing and the stories, but it just didn’t do anything for me personally. The entire time I was reading, I could admit that the sentences were beautifully formed and amazingly written, but I only understood about 60% of each line. It was almost too complicatedly written for a memoir/travel book. For me, travel books should make me exciting about the place it’s describing. The book should be written in a way where I feel like I’m actually there, experiencing this new place. When I’m done with a travel book I should feel like I’ve been to that place and have no reason to go back because I’ve experienced it all.
Although some lines do a really good job of creating the mood of being in a new, foreign place, most of the time I was just trying to figure out what was going on and what the author was describing or talking about. Wilde-Menozzi tried to find a deep meaning in every little thing and for me that gets a bit ridiculous. Something’s just are, and they don’t need to be described and analyzed for 3 pages.
On the technicalities of the book, I really wished that the pictures had captions or at least a title so I would know what exactly I was looking at. Sometimes I was able to use context clues and mostly make an educated guess, but I would much rather be told in certainty what the picture was of especially when it came to the pictures of the statues or paintings. But having pictures in the book was really awesome and I think it definitely added another layer to the story which I appreciated.
The organization of the book was also done in a really interesting way. It was organized by subjects, like memory, elders and newspapers, to name a few. It did help with the flow of the story and kept things moving and it really helped me to finish the story. Writing it not in a chronological way is different and for the most part I appreciated it, but towards the end, when I realized that I hadn’t learned much about the author or her trips, I found myself wishing for more order.
I wanted to know more about Wilde-Menozzi herself. Halfway through the book I decided to start a list of all the things I learned about her, and sadly the list only comprised of 6 facts. I read a lot about the artwork in Rome and Italy. I read a lot about the politics and the religion but I didn’t read a lot about her. And while those things do interest me, if she didn’t want to talk about herself, I would have wanted to read more about life in Italy. Not the history of it, or the politics or religion. I want to read about what it was like to be a young woman in her 20s living in Italy and Rome. I don’t want an entire book analyzing things. I want to read about life. When Wilde-Menozzi did talk about life it was the best parts. Her describing her neighbors in the courtyard and her students where my favorite parts. I just wish I got more of that, instead of the little bits and pieces.
Basically this book talks about four things: art, religion, history and politics. With all this being said though, it wasn’t a terrible read. I finished it, and I enjoyed it. I didn’t love it, I probably wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, but it was good. I was satisfied, hence the three stars.