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November 22, 2006

Enough of the Moaning

A foreign journalist (whose name escapes me now), in the pages of the excellent Internazionale magazine, over the summer lamented the top-heavy nature of the Italian media - or the over-importance it gives to the ruling institutions. For example, it's enough that Italian President Napolitano opens his mouth and it will be reported with fanfare on TV and in the print media; Enough that the Pope remarks that we should give peace a chance, and one can expect a newsflash; Enough that one politician make a statement, and one can expect 20 minutes of the news to be taken up with the responses of his peers.

This inevitably leads humble bloggers such as this monkey, who comment on the 'news' to concentrate on the squabbles, ironies, contradictions, and deficencies of Italy's power structures. Something which sadly leaves little space for describing why Italy is still a wonderful place to live.

Culture is one of the reasons. There are fantastic writers, film-makers, song-writers producing work in Italian that, sadly, often fails to leap over the language border. It was with great delight that this monkey got his hands on the latest novel from Niccolò Ammaniti (somewhat unfairly dubbed 'the Italian Ian McEwan'). Ammaniti shot to international prominence (or as close to it as an Italian author can get, given no-ties to the commonwealth to interest 'Anglo-Saxon' readers) with Io non ho paura (I'm not scared, published in English by Canongate).

Whereas Io non ho paura was dominated by the golden colours of Southern Italy, his latest novel Dio che comanda (God who commands) opens with a snow covered urban periphery, and a 13 year old sent out by his alcoholic father on a night-time mission to silence a continuously barking dog - with a bullet. Captivating stuff.

There's plenty of great writing going on in Italy at the moment - for example Sandro Veronesi, winner of this year's Strega prize, or the shadowy Bologna-based collective Wu Ming.

So tune out the background noise of priests and politicians pontificating, and curl up with a good book.

Posted by 3Monkeys at November 22, 2006 06:52 PM

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