by Beppe Severgnini
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Product Description
Join the bestselling author of Ciao, America! on a lively tour of modern Italy that takes you behind the seductive face it puts on for visitors—la bella figura—and highlights its maddening, paradoxical true self
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 Who cares if the beautiful girls hawking cell phones in airport kiosks stick you with an outdated model?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.”
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Average Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 another tourist menu, 2008-03-26
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 of every chapter supposed to cover one destination or the other, the author sometimes mentions a few very general things about it, without any "commitment" to a concrete description of anything, and, after which, he launches into talking about topics such as cars parked in a certain way, how italians regard this or that, italian attitudes and beliefs towards something or the other, etc..etc.. The repetition of the name of a specific destination in the first pages of "its relevant chapter" seems to serve the sole purpose of make-believe that the author is talking about that particular destination, while he is, in fact, talking about very general things that could apply anywhere in Italy!
The fact is, this book is NOT about any of the destinations it promises to portray, it is about the author's view of Italians. Why he packaged the book as to pretend it tours the country north to south, is open to conjecture. My guess would have been, "either he is not very clear in the head, or, he is deliberately misleading"; however, reading on the back cover that he has worked as a columnist for places like the newspaper "corriere della sera" and "the economist" eliminates the "not-clear-in-the-head" bit. He is simply misleading. His book is the equivalent, in the writing world, of the "tourist menu", which, anyone who has been a tourist knows, is usually a rip-off.
Had the author been HONEST about his intentions and not pretended the book was something it wasn't, I'd have given it two stars. Apparently, the "tour of Italy" pitch held the promise to sell more. That such a "tour" did not exist, did not seem to perturb his conscience one bit, apparently, he trusts his own powers of bluff too much and the intelligence of the readers too little to believe that they will actually notice there was no tour.
Taking inspiration from his writing, in his referencing of certain practices as manifestations of "the italian mentality", I'd venture to say that his bluff is probably testimony to the magnitude of his mother's faith in him, and how that affected his faculties of judgement with regards to everybody else. Or, maybe there is no inflated faith in his own powers, but that he just doesn't care, as long as the book sells. Certainly writing headings that promise coverage of all the mouth-watering destinations of Italy would sell, and, who cares that the product does not deliver once the money is had?
This is worse than a "tourist menu", it is the equivalent of ordering a plate and get something completely different in its place, only after having paid in advance with no money back guarrantee.
Then, a word to his "sense of humor": it is SO forced that it can easily bring about adverse side-effects to the reader. Had the author let go of what seems like a compulsion to be funny, maybe he'd have actually managed to hit on something funny every now and then, as it is, there is nothing at all "natural" about his "humor", you can feel the effort reeking off his lines, an effort that is infectious and exhausting, resulting in the very opposite effect of what natural humor would have produced. There is a very clear self-consciousness about his "jokes", you could almost see between the lines the words "see how funny I am? See how smart I am?" (Yet another symptom of the power of MAMMA's faith in her son?)
The most annoying bit, however, was an alleged "letter from Britain" on the last pages of this book, supposedly from "British friends" with whom the author "toured those ten days", and who are making remarks about all the gems of insight and wisdom he imparted upon them throughout "the tour". By some fascinating "coincidence", both the writing style of his "British friends" and "their" sense of humor are the exact labored ones as his, even the range of vocabulary and expressions are the same...hmmmm.... readers are not supposed to notice that either...
Ah well, I guess it all fits now, imaginary friends go on imaginary tours, which we, in turn, are supposed to imagine...
The book's intended market are italian airport shops, promising a "piece of Italy" to visitors who crave more, but where what they actually get is the worst of what Italy sometimes offers its countless lovers, the "no-promises-shall-be-kept" bit.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 La Bella Figura, 2007-10-26
As an Italian I enjoyed the book greatly. It is witty, inteñigent and very true.
1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Such a tremendous disappointment!, 2007-09-22
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 reading along and reading along waitng to get to the good part, but hey, there is none! Skip this book completely and everything written by this author, Beppe Severgnini. Sorry he's just way too boring and NOT FUNNY!!
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
A Poor Book, 2007-09-01
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 Through Time and Space Across Italy or for entertainment Bill Bryson Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe or Tim Moore's Continental Drifter.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Another useless generalization, 2007-08-03
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 reading, for sure, but do not assume anything written in it is what you will actually see in Italy. It is just like somebody wanting to explain you as Americans really are in a few hundred pages with the only authority of being American (and maybe just from New York), and still pretending to understand it all.
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