Tobias Jones
Born
The United Kingdom
Twitter
Genre
The Dark Heart of Italy: An Incisive Portrait of Europe's Most Beautiful, Most Disconcerting Country
31 editions
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published
2003
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Ultra: The Underworld of Italian Football
9 editions
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published
2019
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Blood on the Altar: In Search of a Serial Killer
16 editions
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published
2012
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A Place of Refuge: An Experiment in Communal Living—The Story of Windsor Hill Wood
8 editions
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published
2015
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Utopian Dreams
8 editions
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published
2007
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The Salati Case (Castagnetti, #1)
7 editions
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published
2009
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The Po: An Elegy for Italy's Longest River
4 editions
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published
2022
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Death of a Showgirl (Castagnetti, #3)
4 editions
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published
2013
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White Death (Castagnetti, #2)
6 editions
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published
2011
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The Night for Knights
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“Anyone who has lived here for long enough has seen it all before: opposing sides of the political spectrum ferociously criticising each other, getting hot under the collar about this and that, bringing up all sorts of allegations and innuendos. Then just as it looks as if the argument is about to get physical, harmony breaks out. A dialogue is opened, an accord or a compromise is found. And suddenly, just as quickly as it came, all that fiery rhetoric subsides and everyone realizes it was all synthetic, put on for show when all along some deal was imminent anyway. It's as if every politician is merely an actor in a little theatre, and as soon as the curtain falls and the public can't see them any more they all slap each other on the back, tot up the takings and go out for an expensive meal.”
― White Death
― White Death
“The noise of horns and radios and shouted insults was part of the soundtrack of the capital (Hard-boiled P.I. Casta, on Rome, Italy)”
― Death of a Showgirl
― Death of a Showgirl
“I realise I have become something I never thought possible: patriotic and proud about being an adopted Italian. In more honest moments, I realise that I might never quite be able to leave the country. That longing to leave, and the inability to pull yourself away from the bel casino, the 'fine mess', has been written about for centuries. Using the usual prostitution metaphor, one of the country's most important patriots, Massimo D'Azeglio, wrote: 'I can't live outside Italy, which is strange because I continually get angry with Italian ineptitude, envies, ignorance and laziness. I'm like one of the people who falls in love with a prostitute.' That, in fact, is precisely the feeling of living here: it is infuriating and endlessly irritating, but in the end it is almost impossible to pull yourself away. It's not just that everything is troppo bello, 'too beautiful', or that food and conversation are so good. It's that life seems less exciting outside Italy, the emotions seem muted. Stendhal wrote that the feeling one gets from living in Italy is 'akin to that of being in love', and it's easy to understand what he meant. There's the same kind of enchantment and serenity, occasionally insecurity and sadness. And writing about the country's sharp pangs of jealousy and paranoia, Stendhal knew that they exist precisely because the country's 'joys are far more intense and more lasting'. You can't have one without the other.”
― The Dark Heart of Italy: An Incisive Portrait of Europe's Most Beautiful, Most Disconcerting Country
― The Dark Heart of Italy: An Incisive Portrait of Europe's Most Beautiful, Most Disconcerting Country
Topics Mentioning This Author
topics | posts | views | last activity | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Around the World ...: Italy | 56 | 1231 | Apr 08, 2023 11:30AM | |
Colosseum. Sfide ...: La sfida infinita... o quasi (Ed.2024) -marzo- | 25 | 19 | Apr 04, 2024 09:03AM |
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