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La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to the Italian Mind
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 945.093
EAN: 9780767914390
Edition: 1st
ISBN: 0767914392
Label: Broadway
Manufacturer: Broadway
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 240
Publication Date: August 15, 2006
Publisher: Broadway
Release Date: August 15, 2006
Studio: Broadway
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Editorial Review:
You won’t need luggage for this hypothetical and hilarious trip into the hearts and minds of Beppe Severgnini’s fellow Italians. In fact, Beppe would prefer if you left behind the baggage his crafty and elegant countrymen have smuggled into your subconscious. To get to his Italia, you’ll need to forget about your idealized notions of Italy. Although La Bella Figura will take you to legendary cities and scenic regions, your real destinations are the places where Italians are at their best, worst, and most authentic: The highway: in America, a red light has only one possible interpretation—Stop! An Italian red light doesn’t warn or order you as much as provide an invitation for reflection. The airport: where Italians prove that one of their virtues (an appreciation for beauty) is really a vice. Who cares if the beautiful girls hawking cell phones in airport kiosks stick you with an outdated model? That’s the price of gazing upon perfection.The small town: which demonstrates the Italian genius for pleasant living: “a congenial barber . . . a well-stocked newsstand . . . professionally made coffee and a proper pizza; bell towers we can recognize in the distance, and people with a kind word and a smile for everyone.”The chaos of the roads, the anarchy of the office, the theatrical spirit of the hypermarkets, and garrulous train journeys; the sensory reassurance of a church and the importance of the beach; the solitude of the soccer stadium and the crowded Italian bedroom; the vertical fixations of the apartment building and the horizontal democracy of the eat-in kitchen. As you venture to these and many other locations rooted in the Italian psyche, you realize that Beppe has become your Dante and shown you a country that “has too much style to be hell” but is “too disorderly to be heaven.” Ten days, thirty places. From north to south. From food to politics. From saintliness to sexuality. This ironic, methodical, and sentimental examination will help you understand why Italy—as Beppe says—“can have you fuming and then purring in the space of a hundred meters or ten minutes.”
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - another tourist menu
While this book claims to be a "hilarious tour of Italy", and that it covers "thirty places in ten days", and while its table of contents contains titles such as "day two: in Milan", "Day seven: in Naples", "Day eight: in Sardinia", giving the impression that the author is covering all these places, the content barely contains ANYTHING at all related to them, suggesting the author has not left his seat nor even had the grace to research his destinations in "google earth".
At the start ... Read More
Rating:  - La Bella Figura
As an Italian I enjoyed the book greatly. It is witty, inteñigent and very true.
Rating: - Such a tremendous disappointment!
La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to the Italian Mind
I, for one, love everything Italian. So it's easy to see why I picked up this book with its very engaging, colorful cover. In the past I have read many funny books and articles on everything from Italian driving to trying to get a phone installed in your new Italian apartment.(Forget it!) So when I picked up this book I was ready for a humorous read. Well, what a tremendous disappointment. The writing is flat and uninteresting. One finds themselves ... Read More
Rating: - A Poor Book
I wish I had read more reviews before purchasing this truly dreadful book. I can only assume that the various newspaper critics that are quoted on the back cover were personal friends. He states correctly in his appalling offering that it appears to have become a pass time of uninspired anglo saxon authors to write about Italy. He should have known better than adding to the marass of garbage himself. I would recommend Matt FreiItaly - the Unfinished Revolution, Tobias JonesThe Dark Side of Italy. Travels ... Read More
Rating: - Another useless generalization
Another useless generalization, and a series of stereotypes, for the Anglo-Saxon audience that, however, seems to love this type of literature. The usual trivialities written by somebody who seems to understand it all (good for him). As usual, realities are different, more complicated, and moreover more varied. The South is once more treated with superficiality, lack of real understanding, and a subtle prejudice, as it is usually the case in this type of books written by northerners. It can make an amusing ... Read More
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