Rating: 
Summary: A Journey Into Latinization
Review: I borrowed this book from a British friend after my first trip to fascinating Italy. I read it in one sitting- just couldn?t get enough of Park?s (VERY dramatic ) accounts of his move into a culture of wild Latins who waste no time with proper rules of conduct and infinite responsibilities, but instead rejoice in a world of emotional chaos and random events. Being Latin myself, I can trace Parks? transformation into a true specimen of our kind. His journey into Latinization encompasses some very familiar events: learning to deal with strangers? hysterical displays of unresolved issues in a most kind and sympathetic manner, cohabiting with invincible insects and volunteeringly engaging in the murder of a harmless animal for the sake of restful sleep.
Fellow Italy lovers-you MUST follow Park in his adventure. His bitter and skeptical narrative provides us indispensable pieces of the puzzle of what it takes to develop a real passionate and impulsive Italian character. If nothing else, you?ll certainly get a good laugh out of it!
Rating:
Summary: A Journey into Latinization
Review: I borrowed this book from a British friend after my first trip to fascinating Italy. I read it in one sitting- just couldn't get enough of Park's (VERY dramatic ) accounts of his move into a culture of wild Latins who waste no time with proper rules of conduct and infinite responsibilities, but instead rejoice in a world of emotional chaos and random events. Being Latin myself, I can trace Parks' transformation into a true specimen of our kind. His journey into Latinization encompasses some very familiar events: learning to deal with strangers' hysterical displays of unresolved issues in a most kind and sympathetic manner, cohabiting with invincible insects and volunteeringly engaging in the murder of a harmless animal for the sake of restful sleep.
Fellow Italy lovers-you MUST follow Park in his adventure. His bitter and skeptical narrative provides us indispensable pieces of the puzzle of what it takes to develop a real passionate and impulsive Italian character. If nothing else, you'll certainly get a good laugh out of it!
Rating: 
Summary: This is really us!
Review: I bought this book when I was homesick (I am from Verona leaving in the US). Reading it made me feel so much better that I abandoned the idea of being depressed. The author does an excellent job at describing how we think in Verona and how people live in the small towns around it. I could see exactly the expressions of the faces of the carachters in the book while I was reading, and sometimes I would be amazed to discover the author's perspective of the reason we do things like always wear slippers in the house, etc... I bought this book for my boyfriend and I highly recommend this book to anyone who's partner is Italian because it pictures extremely well how Italians are like and why.
Rating:
Summary: Witty, without any treacle
Review: I enjoy _Under the Tuscan Sun_ when I'm in the mood for a touch of poetry, as melodramatic as the book sometimes gets, but I have never made the mistake of believing that it describes the reality of living in Italy. With Tim Parks, however, what I get is a sympathetic, yet not rosy-clouded story about why he decided to make Italy his home, and what happened after. Told with humor, a good eye for dialogue and character, and with an underlying affection for his adopted country that comes through. Yes, the incident with the dog threw me a little, although I'm not sure it wasn't a bit of hyperbole to emphasize how miserable it is to have a howling dog outside your window at all hours. I also realize that my American attitude towards pets can be very different from the Italian attitude, as the abandoned dogs at Pompeii demonstrate. Either way, it shouldn't be enough to spoil the book for you, especially since the dog is not harmed.
Rating:
Summary: An entertaining and informative book
Review: I enjoyed the book a lot - it gives you some insight onto modern Italian life and at the same time is enterntaining.
Rating:
Summary: Successful ex-pat view of foreign climes
Review: I found this to be the most successful of the "ex-pat" books I have read. Parks has chosen to live in Italy, and has both a love and respect for his wife's homeland, and another cultural perspective with which to look at its foibles and frustrations. Unlike Peter Mayle who seemed in A Year In Provence to be laughing AT some of the locals, and who was somewhat removed from daily life, Parks is fully immersed in everyday, workaday life, and in raising children, getting to know and battle with bureaucracies, admiring education systems etc. And unlike that great phoney Frances mayes, the Tuscan dilettante who jets in each summer to dabble in cute stone-villa Italy, Parks has to come to terms withh being a 'local' whist still being a straniero.
Rating:
Summary: A nice description of a part of Italy
Review: I have lived in the US for about 10 years, but I was
born and raised in Veneto, the region Tim Parks talks
about in his book. I find his descriptions of aspects
of life so close to reality that at times he made me
feel homesick. The touch of his pen is elegant and his
characters so real that I could have changed the names
and he would have been talking of people I used to know.
This is not a book about Italy but rather a book about a
specific part of Italy, Veneto. Also, no attempt is made
to explain the roots of sociological facts. For example,
Parks touches upon forms of racism towards the people
coming from the Southern part of Italy but makes no effort
to go to the roots of that sentiment.
If readers were to come out from reading this book with
the impression that there is a single Italy, that would
be the wrong thing. There are almost as many Italys as
there are regions. And some of the characters Parks brings
to life could not be found in Sicily, for instance.
Parks is overall very respectful of his adoptive country,
although some criticism to the Catholic Church is here
and there to be seen. It is a little bit unfortunate that
he fails to elaborate on the fact that Catholicism is very
much an integral part of today Veneto's cultural
inheritance and contradictions not too differently of what
it could be said to hold true for Ireland.
A more extensive analysis of Italy is available in a recent
book by another Englishman, Paul Ginsborg, who in his Italy
and Its Discontents, 1980-2001 analyzes the impact of
Catholicism in today Italian society. But, this last book
does not belong in the realm of fiction.
The episode about the dog, Vega, is likely to impress
a part of the American public in a negative way, but
it is not really typical of Veneto or Italy in general.
I can say that Italians love their pets, but are less
inclined than Americans to "humanize" them as the circle
of friends is closer and loneliness less of an issue.
The author does not fail to catch these aspects even if
he is not explicit about it.
Overall, I think that the book is excellent and I wish
that many people from Veneto could read it and see
themselves in the eyes of an Englishman. They would
have a lot to think about.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Enjoyable, especially for those who know Verona.
Review: I read this book while I was living in Verona. It was interesting to read the perspective of an outsider to the city, Parks has a style which is easy to relate to, unfortunately his honesty re: what he saw lead to him having to leave Verona...I think he told too many secrets.
Rating: 
Summary: Minority opposition
Review: I see that I'm definitely not in the majority, here. I found Tim Parks' book to be an immense disappointment. As an American who's been living in Italy for nearly 12 years, I found very little I could relate to from my own experience. I was horrified at the plotting to poison the neighbors' dog (who was sadly mistreated), for instance. While his descriptions of certain frustrating aspects of contemporary Italian bureaucracy, housing, etc. are spot-on, unlike other reviewers I often found his tone to be patronizing towards the Italians he encounters in everyday life. An Italian friend, fluent in English, loaned me this book without giving me any hints as to what she thought of it; after I'd finished, she was relieved to find that I was as taken aback as she was at his characterization of his adopted country. "I would be terribly if every expat felt this way about Italy!" she told me. As much as I have enjoyed his fiction, Tim Parks' nonfiction left me cold.
Rating:
Summary: The best possible introduction to Italian life.
Review: I was still reading this book when I arrived in Italy, and what a difference it made to my visit! I felt so at home, and enjoyed every minute, as if Tim Parks had personally introduced me to all his friends and neighbours. I found this book a delightfully good read, and look forward to reading the sequel. I've started on his novels now, too.
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