The Road to the Land of Red Onions

 

Rain.How long has it been since it rained the last time? Oh, dear, more than three
months ago. Since that timid, delicate drizzle of May the 19th, we have been
haunted by an incessant, suffocating, dehydrating, I-am-about-to-faint heat. Hence;
it should have been quite natural to choose as destination for the upcoming holidays
some refreshing places such as the Dolomites, Iceland, the Norwegian fjords etc. .
Anybody would have acted that wise, anybody but me. As this year it was my turn to
spot the location and being, honestly, quite fed up with going to the Dolomites, I
deliberately ignored my husband’s imploring eyes and since I am no Heidi, I was
determined, it would have been South, and deep South this time: Tropea, Calabria,

Can you guess, which is mine?

Light luggage and off we went. It is quite a long way, since Tropea is 700 kilometers far from Rome, yet we were particularly looking forward to being finally driving along the famous motorway A3 Salerno – Reggio Calabria. That fame had been earned by the world record waste of money and the prodigious length of time to have it completed: more than 40 years. For such a brilliant record we are mostly indebted to the Calabrian mafia, called N’Drangheta, of course. By the way; I cannot but rejoice by writing that I belong to that lucky generation that may say to have witnessed the end of it, as the motorway was declared eventually terminated only few months ago. After such an effort at the cost of 5.6 million euros per kilometer, what would you have expected it to be like?

Tropea red onion

Well, at that cost I would have supposed to see it supplied with any possible modern
device, Wi-Fi , service stations with jacuzzi and well-trained staff ready to massage your stiff neck after long driving hours and, why not, brass bands with singing festive children throwing rose petals at you at the moment of your departure as sign of gratitude for all the money given away in taxes all these years. That I would have expected. At least. On the contrary, we discovered it to be quite a narrow, neglected motorway. Still. After the first 53 km the three lanes become two and after a while, the emergency lane suddenly disappears never to be seen again, or at least we lost the sight of it. And for what concerns technology, I guess when long
time ago Italian novelist Carlo Levi  entitled his book “Christ stopped at
Eboli“, this choice must have been justified by the fact that right at Eboli, all the radio signals suddenly die out to be picked only intermittently every now and then. As for the service areas, there are just few of them and, as you can imagine, crowed by multitudes of thirsty, hungry people and tired, yelling kids. Nevertheless, after almost 500 km we had to stop, so we resolved to make our way to the bar for a little refreshment, which we did exactly with the same attitude Mr Darcy and Caroline Bingley attended the ball at Longbourn.We quitted as soon as possible, of course. After one hour’s driving when we started to notice stalls with piles of red onions along the way, we understood that our destination was now close.

The crystal clear water of Tropea

I guess you may have understood that Calabria is one of the poorest Italian region with little industrial development . The local control of the Mafia, and the ineffective policies in the course of the past decades have kept this land backward. Even if it is blessed by amazing rocky and sandy costs touched by a clean, blue sea, still tourism is having difficulty in taking off for the lack of adequate tourist facilities but Tropea is one of the few exceptions. At the end of the motorway we truly found our treasure.

The coastal cliff of Tropea

 

 

 

 

 

One of the many charming restaurants in Tropea

 

 

The little town sits on top dramatic coastal cliffs in the gulf of St. Euphemia and the legend says that it was Hercules who, returning from Spain stood on the Coast of Gods and made Tropea one of his ports.    We walked through the charming old town through an incredible maze of lovely lanes, restaurants and cafes till we reached a place where we could experience the most stunning and breathtaking views of the sea and beaches. Here are some pics of the sea:

And at sunset you could also see the island of Stromboli :

Stromboli

And if you feel like having an ice-cream:

We were so glad to see such beauty and organization that we often used many words of deserved praise with the locals and what I loved the most was to hear them proudly say, particularly from young people, that much more can, must be done. It’s the dawn of a new,  substantial change, I’m sure. I heartily wish them so.

A picture of me.

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The Perfect Anthem

Empress Sissi

There is one thing that characterizes Italian summers more than the heat, that this year, let me tell you, has reached unimaginable, long-lasting pitches:  the broadcasting of Empress Sissi’s saga on tv. Every summer, in August, and since I was a child as far as I can remember, here comes the moment to sigh upon the romantic and fortunate story , only in fiction, of course, of the beautiful Elisabeth of Bavaria and emperor Franz Joseph of Austria. There is something in this period drama that enthralls you so much, that  even if you have seen it one hundred times at least and you know every single line of every character, as in my case, you cannot but watch it again. Hence; my husband and I found ourselves watching it again willy-nilly, as tradition requires, and I have to say that despite the incessant heat that was making us turn rapidly from a liquid into a gaseous state, we found it after all, how can I say, quite refreshing. When, almost at the end of the episode, Sissi reaches her husband to be on a river boat and the Austrian anthem is played to welcome the Duchess to her new homeland, my husband’s remark arrived, and it was not at all unexpected as I know the man too well: oh, this is a serious anthem.

My husband Mr Run ( now Mr Injured and even sometimes Mr Disappointment as the good effect of the endorphins vanished long time before the heat) is one of those who dislikes our anthem ” Fratelli d’Italia” also known as “Mameli’s hymn”  and belongs to that line of thought which would see positively its replacement.  Apart from the words, he particularly criticizes the melody, as ” Fratelli d’Italia” is a march, as I hope everybody knows, and lacks of that degree of solemnity that an anthem, in his opinion, requires. Verdi’s ” Va pensiero“, for example, the beautiful chorus from  the third act of Verdi’s opera Nabucco, has been suggested by many every now and then as a good candidate for the new Italian anthem. Now, I agree, the air of “Va Pensiero” is powerful, solemn, touching, but, why I should  feel like mine the words spoken by some Hebrew slaves, who are missing their homeland and dream to go back, I do not fully understand. What has it to do with us? 

Badly  done, Stefy! Badly done! I can hear some reproaching voices ( oh, I can’t get rid of that Mr Knightley, your fault Chris), as I ought to say at this point that this choir has often been considered a metaphor for the Italian condition during Risorgimento, that period of the nineteenth century when Italian nationalism spread. Italy was subjected to the Austrian domination in the North, exactly when Sissi was empress. Verdi’s air is even played in a defiant way in the third episode of the saga, when Sissi and her husband attend the opera house in Milan. Verdi has always been considered a symbol of Risorgimento as well and his name was used to make the anti Austrian  slogan ‘Viva VERDI!’  as acronym for “Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re D‘ Italia” (Long Live Victor Emmanuel King of Italy). This line in particular : “O my country, so beautiful, and lost” might refer both to Jerusalem and Italy as well. Despite all this; I don’ t feel at ease singing about metaphors and furthermore, why the period when we were controlled by foreign powers should be remembered in our anthem, and besides sung by people who had been enslaved, hence losers, I don’t quite understand. Anthems should be the expression of the essence of a nation both in music and words, and since we achieved our independence as a country eventually , “Va Pensiero” can’t do.

Goffredo Mameli

Somebody may rightfully remark that even “Fratelli d’Italia” mirrors the essence of Risorgimento as it aims at raising the depressed spirits of the Italians worn out by centuries of foreign control and fight, I know. However; there is something more in this hymn and this something can be found right at the very beginning of the first line ” Fratelli d’Italia, l’Italia s’e’ desta” (Brothers of Italy, Italy has woken):  we all ought to fight as brothers to overcome centuries of oppression. Goffredo Mameli, the author of the anthem, wrote with the ardent passion of a young patriot ( he died only at the age of 21 for the consequences of a wound) who understood how important was to re-create the bond of brotherhood in a divided and humbled country to be victorious again. He reminded the Italians of their common glorious past, whose memory should have fueled the present, thus exciting their fresh spirits to fight.That was the only key of victory. The only way to build a future as a united country.

After 157 years since unification was reached, I have to say that the process to achieve that degree of brotherhood Mameli had in mind, is still in being. There is still a wide gap between north and south, and separatist movements are growing in number and some of them are dangerously expanding. It is as if we were not going together to the same direction and with the same speed. That’s why the message of “Fratelli d’Italia”  is still topical and for what concerns the issue of solemnity, well, I don’t think that a solemn air would really mirror our true nature and that from north to south I dare say. One thing, at least, we have in common.

P.S. Mr Run wishes me to inform you (in case you are interested, of course), that the thought of “Va Pensiero” as Italian anthem has never crossed his mind, particularly as it has recently become the anthem of the major separatist movement of the north. He adds that if he could, he would pick “Jerusalem” the unofficial British anthem.

 

 

A Matter of Age

No wonder Jane Austen and her sister never married . If your imagination
keeps giving birth to amazing, charming, deserving young men, how can it be possible
to avoid the inevitable disappoint of harsh reality? Much better to end up an old maid.
Emma’s Mr Knightley is another Mr Perfect of Jane Austen’s fine gallery of men: rich, sensible, caring, sporty, quite the gentleman and if it were not enough, even handsome.
However, there is something not fully convincing about him, let’s call it a slight
imperfection especially at the eyes of a modern reader: the question of his age. At 37
he might be with reason considered too old as a life partner for Emma who is only 21.

In the previous post I explained Jane Austen’s choice of an experienced man at the side of her heroine with the necessity of a guide for a spoilt and still childish young woman
like Emma, and, of course, it has been rightly pointed out among the comments that such a difference of age in a married couple was not at all not something extraordinary at those times. By the way, the fact that this difference somehow mattered can be noticed in the passage where a possible attachment between Jane Fairfax, who is more and less Emma’s age, and Mr Knightley is talked of with positive remarks upon the whole, but for their difference of age, an issue that, of course, would have been easily overcome, considering who he was.

A modern reader might also turn up his nose at the point when Mr Knightley confesses he had been in love with her at least since she was thirteen. Thirteen?! Well then, when she was 13, he must have been 29, and nowadays there is a precise word to spot such an
interest toward a young girl and laws to protect her, but let’s leave this hero
safely to his time, we wouldn’t wish to ruin his impeccable reputation of righteous,
trustworthy gentleman. After all,these kind of matches did happen and even among well-known people. An example? Edgar Allan Poe.

If you are still wondering about Mr Knightley’s feelings toward a girl of 13, who was also his
sister-in-law, well, you should know that at the age of 26 Poe married his cousin,Virginia Eliza Clemm, and she was 13! Virginia was only seven years old when she met him the first time, that is, when her widowed mother Maria had then allowed Poe, who was 20 then, to stay with her family. Virginia saw her cousin with the girlish eyes of love and spent a lot of time with him. She even helped him in his love affairs delivering his letters of ardent admiration to a neighbor, until one day, his affections for her little cousin changed and decided to marry her.

Reality is always quite different from fiction. Of course, there was not the general approval at the announcement ( and if I do remember well, neither John Knightley was that enthusiastic once received the happy news from his  brother) as her mother Maria didn’t approve the match because of their age difference, and besides, Poe was practically penniless.  Regardless of family ‘s opposition, the couple did follow the example of many characters of Austen’s novels and eloped in Baltimore on September 22, 1835 to be married  in Richmond, Virginia, on May 16, 1836. The wedding was held at a boarding house, where the couple and Virginia’s mother stayed the night: a desperate attempt to preserve her daughter’s reputation.

What kind of marriage was it? Confused. The couple never had any children and it seems that their bond was more like brother and sister than husband and wife. By the way, Virginia adored him, but he was not indifferent to women’s charm and she was fine with it. Of course he was a women’s favourite. Poe’s friendship with the married 34-year-old poet Frances Sargent Osgood, for example, turned on the jealousy of another woman, Elizabeth F. Ellet, a fellow poet who had a crush on him, so that she started to spread rumors about their affair and Poe’s “lunacy.” The scandal which followed affected Virginia so deeply that on her deathbed she declared Elizabeth Ellet her murderer. Virginia died at the age of 25 of tuberculosis after 11 years of marriage and her afflicted husband “ used to cry over her grave every day and kept it green with flowers.”  It seems he had loved her very much, in his way, of course, which is not the way Jane Austen would have ever dreamed of, but it was intense, maybe selfish and desperately real.

Faultess Despite Many Faults

“I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like”, was Jane Austen’s famous comment about the main character of her novel, Emma. I have to say that this remark fitted pretty well my first reading of the book.  It was more than twenty years ago now and still I can remember how I was annoyed by her match making efforts and all that never-ending tittle-tattle about it. When I finished it, I quickly put it back in the library, never tempted to touch it again, till recently, my good blog friend Chris (Calmgrove) posted not one, but three enthusiastic reviews on the book one after another. Such genuine display of admiration and praise convinced me eventually to give the novel another try. Hence; I would rephrase the incipit  as follows:“I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like” the very first time you are acquainted with her, but you will change your opinion as soon as you will give her/yourself another chance.

Therefore; I would like to focus my attention on the main character here, as this time I couldn’t but notice some features in the making of this heroine, which I had previously missed, but that now made me better appreciate the exquisite wonder of Jane Austen’s craft even in this novel. I shall start by saying that Emma is very different from almost all the other female characters of Jane Austen’s world, who are mostly concerned in one way or another with one issue only: marriage. In this story there are not the threatening shades of a Mr Collins or a Mr William Elliot ready to dispossess the lady in question of her inheritance as soon as her father ceases to be, thus making marriage a necessity. There is no such danger at Hartfield, as Emma is the mistress of the house, the heiress with a fortune of 30.000 pounds. Furthemore she is” handsome, clever, with a happy disposition” with some little faults, by the way: ” the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself“. However, how can it be that such a young woman at the age of 21 still knows nothing about love? As far as we know, she has never been the protagonist a love reverie typical of her age but rather she prefers to fantasize on other people’s chance of making a match, pretending to be their Cupid, as if they were her dolls in Highbury playground. To her friend Harriet Emma confesses, that she will never marry and she is not afraid of being considered an old maid like Miss Bates, she will never be like her, because she is rich, showing that she is well aware of her social status and what is due to her.

So, if on the one hand we may say that she doesn’t need to marry, on the other we wouldn’t be too far from the truth if we added that she can’t as well, or better she feels she can’t. She has been looking after her old father since her elder sister’s marriage and he depends upon her. It is interesting here the parallelism with old maid Miss Bates who, just like her, is in charge of her mother, but without the comfort money can give. By the way, Mr Woodhouse is a hypochondriac “ easily depressed…hating change of any kind“, particularly any change in the vast, amazing world of human experience, whether it may be a short trip to Box Hill, for example, or an attachment to a man, especially if it regards her daughter. Emma is quite provincial, indeed. She has never travelled or seen the seaside as she says to her nephews, she has never been to London where her sister lives, she has never experience the feeling of love. When, eventually, she imagines herself intrigued by Mr Churchill, Mrs Weston’s step-son, who is so much talked of in the small circle of Highbury even before being introduced to everybody, she confesses to herself that she doesn’t want to fall to the temptation of even thinking about him. Hence; somehow Mr Woodhouse manages to keep her at the pubertal stage of her life.

Having lost her mother at a too young an age and having been in charge of her father for some years, the two figures who have guided her during her adolescence are Miss Taylor, her governess and Mr Knightley, her brother-in-law 16 years older than Emma. As surrogate father and mother, they are often engaged on parental like discussions on Emma’s education as they  seem to have different points of view about it. The proof that she needs guidance can be seen soon after the loss of one of these two figures, that is, when Miss Taylor marries Mr Weston. At first Emma tries to replace her company with Harriet Smith, but she is socially not her equal and too young to have any influence on her at all, then she starts to misbehave under the influence of young Frank Churchill. Mr Knightley often tries to correct her lecturing and scolding her, but he understands that his role, as it has been till then, cannot fit him any longer, as, despite his sharp insight and the goodness of his advice, his reasons are not entirely honest as he has found himself in love with Emma and  jealous of Frank Churchill . That is why Austen gives him  the task to guide her from adolescence to womanhood but no longer as a brother or friend but as a husband and what a husband, since Donwell Abbey, his estate, includes most of the property in Highbury. Ah, Lucky Emma!