With even longtime friends such as Italian newspaper Il Foglio suggesting it is time for Silvio Berlusconi to leave the banquet table, Italy may finally break off its 15-year co-dependent relationship with a narcissistic partner. Instead of focusing on the jockeying among the motley crew of Berlusconi successors, Italians would do better to study some popular books on narcissism. Authors such as Sandy Hotchkiss (“Why is it … Continue reading Therapy

Lately I have sympathized with whoever said, “Whenever I hear the word ‘culture’ I want to pull out my revolver.” Despite its sinister context — the phrase is usually attributed to Nazi propagandist Josef Goebbels — it expresses the sense of loss, disappointment and frustration that have accompanied too many recent encounters with books, art and theater. Too few things speak to me anymore. Culture … Continue reading Revolver

In the 1950s, American sociologist Edward Banfield coined the term “Amoral familism” to describe the social structure of southern Italian village in which family ties dominate and eventually strangle other socially useful institutions such as government and the rule of law. Director Paolo Virzì’s trite film gives Banfield’s term new meaning. Flashing back and forth between 1970s Livorno and today, it follows the family of … Continue reading La Prima Cosa Bella (The First Beautiful Thing)

The other day I met someone whose sister had become a Japanese citizen. This information unsettled me deeply. So deeply that even after several days, I was still disturbed by her renouncing American citizenship and taking a Japanese surname. The last bothered me so much that I checked it out. Although taking a Japanese name from an approved list is no longer required, Japan does … Continue reading Turning Japanese

This summer, my son worked with Libera, the anti-Mafia organization founded by Don Luigi Ciotti, an activist Catholic priest. Last summer, he spent 30 days in a canoe in Northern Saskatchewan. It seems that jousting with left-leaning, anti-American “no-globals,” bearded and aging sessantottini and priests while harvesting eggplant in Calabria was a bigger challenge than canoeing across the tundra. A recurring theme of conversation among the Libera … Continue reading Senso Civico

here are people who use the Bible as an oracle, opening it at random to find illumination when needed. Lately, I have found Tony Judt’s masterful study “Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945” useful this way. No matter which of its 800 pages I open, I find insight. The Greek debt crisis? The British election? Tony has the answer. The other day he helped … Continue reading Quaking

Last night I went to a cocktail party for Imarika, my friendly corner dress shop. The Bevilacqua family who owns Imarika invited clients, designers, friends and family for an evening of food and jazz at Milan’s Villa Necchi-Campiglio. Imarika entered my life about 20 years ago. A few stolen minutes at their windows were contact with the store of my dreams. Its minimalist concrete and glass … Continue reading The Store

I finally read “Eat Pray Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert. As a colonial fantasy about Italy, it is no better or worse than any other of its genre. Yes, you heard that: Colonial Fantasy. Gilbert and others like her — middle-aged American women with failed relationships — have more in common with the Foreign Legion volunteer or East India Company agent than you think. Both escape … Continue reading Taking Italy

Economist Andrea Ichino is the co-author, with Albert Alesina of “L’Italia Fatta in Casa,” which attempts to assess Italy’s gross national product in terms of the value of goods and services produced in the home and family context, outside the traditional confines of the industrial marketplace. For example, most Italian child and elderly care is managed by families instead of being farmed out to third-person … Continue reading Family Values

If you didn’t know the story would end so shockingly, you might call Elon’s book a joy. From the start, when philosopher Moses Mendelssohn enters Berlin in 1743 through the gate reserved for Jews, until Hannah Arendt flees the city by train 1932, Elon’s fine work — his last; the Israeli writer died in 2009 — reads like a Balzac novel. He follows Jews from … Continue reading The Pity of It All: A Portrait of Jews in Germany 1743-1933