My teenage daughter received this graphic novel as a gift. I started reading it over her shoulder on the plane and was thoroughly taken in. Now an animated film of critical success, the book recounts the Iranian revolution and war with Iraq through the eyes of Satrapi, member of a historic, cultured and liberal Iranian family. The title itself reminds us of Iran’s, glorious, imperial … Continue reading Persepolis

Lately the products of Yale Law School have not done much for creating harmony between America’s uneasy races. Lucky for Yale that law professor Carter may be able to mend the Clintons’ damage and still have something left over to redress several centuries of bad blood and bad behaviour. That said, reducing Carter’s crime novel to its nuanced teachings about race relations is limiting; limiting … Continue reading New England White

More personal and political, this time during Stalin’s purges. Serge, Trotskyist, anarchist, theorist and novelist, is that rare thing; a forgotten literary cult figure who really does not deserve to be forgotten. Exiled and miraculously surviving, Serge for many years was a Cold War personality that all wished would go away. Serge’s works exposed the folly and failure of the Bolshevik revolution in ways so … Continue reading The Case of Comrade Tulayev

Before national elections in April, I was surprised several times when friends, all intellettuali di sinistra, fashionable leftists, added a new idea to the classic after-dinner political rant. After exhausting the usual laments about Italy’s shortcomings, they declared that the only solution was a dictator with a mano forte — the big fist. The idea was that only a unilateral supra-parliamentary force would cut through the mess and … Continue reading Mano Forte

This spring, we visited a friend in Calabria. As in past trips, we refreshed ties with friends and met relatives. This time, though, we added a horse trek in the Aspromonte, Calabria’s mountainous spine. We drove down to Reggio’s outskirts along rough, two-lane roads, lined with olive and citrus trees, and spotted with squashed oranges. The autostrada to these parts only began operation 1974, finally linking Calabria … Continue reading Past, Present, Calabria

Milan’s chronic inability to inspire passion is an old theme. I am not alone in finding it felt soulless without a visible identity or graspable spirit. None of the unual explanations — the city’s dedication to work and its focus on the here and now — satisfy me. They seem more effect than cause. On reflection, it occurred to me that the cities that I … Continue reading Dreaming of Waterland

For two decades now, I have failed to convince Italian friends that I not a natural convert to their political right. Somehow they think my traditional style and my political background as an economically conservative (free-market liberal for Europeans) but socially liberal Rockefeller Republican background translate into enthusiasm for Silvio Berlusconi and his right coalition Popolo della Libertà. My failure explains why I was recently invited … Continue reading The Dinner Party

March brings to fruition our household’s major fall project; my 15-year-old son’s application to “highly selective” American boarding schools. This isn’t the place to discuss the project’s merits or implications. But it has given us all much to think about. My mother-in-law warned that my son may stop loving me if he goes away. Other mothers were suspicious at the apparent ease with which I … Continue reading Privileged Duty

Readers may recall my first column in this magazine in which I discussed how my car’s satellite navigation system affected my sentimental life. Since then, it has also taken the drama out of my weekends — namely my children’s rugby or volleyball games. Pre-GPS, we were (regardless of extra time allotted for being lost and late) invariably lost and late. We roamed the fog of … Continue reading No Exit

Smiley, winner of a Pulitzer prize and author of over a dozen books, took a year off from her own writing to read one hundred novels. But her break was only that and she soon returned to writing; this book is the result. In two parts, the first is a 13-part essay on novels — their history, their psychology and art — and on their … Continue reading 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel