Tim Parks è uno scrittore inglese nato nel 1954, che si è trasferito in Italia, dove abita tuttora, nel 1981. Ha scritto numerosi romanzi e alcuni libri, Italian Neighbours (1992), An Italian Education (1996), A Season with Verona (2002), Italian Ways: on and off the rails from Milan to Palermo (2013), in cui racconta le sue esperienze di vita in Italia e le sue impressioni del nostro paese con un'acutezza straordinaria. Il suo ultimo libro di saggistica, Where I am Reading From: the changing world of books (pubblicato da Harville Secker, 2014), è una selezione di articoli scritti per il New York Review online in cui presenta una serie di riflessioni sul romanzo, sul mercato dei libri, sullo scrivere in genere, sulla traduzione, e ve lo consigliamo vivamente. Vi proponiamo in basso uno degli articoli del libro, in cui menziona Eco, Baricco, la Ginzburg e Verga, The Dull New Global Novel, che è davvero interessante:
Not all writers share the same sense of whom they are writing for. Many may not even think they are directing their work at any audience in particular. All the same, there are clearly periods in history when, across the board, authors' perceptions of who their readers are change, something that inevitably leads to a change in the kind of texts they produce. The most obvious example was the period that stretched from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century when writers all over Europe abandoned Latin for the vernacular. Instead of introducing their work, as before, into an international arena presided over by a largely clerical elite, they 'descended' to local and national languages to address themselves to an emerging middle class.
Capita spesso, quando si sta riflettendo su un certo tema, che il tema spunti un po' dappertutto, e questo ci è capitato la settimana scorsa guardando il programma della ABC The Mix. Infatti, durante programma, il presentatore, James Valentine («Giacomo Valentino») chiede a Steve Kilby, la voce principale (il «lead singer») del gruppo The Church, e a Stuart Coupe, giornalista musicale, se ci fosse davvero un «sound australiano» che contraddistinguesse i gruppi rock australiani degli anni '70 e '80. La discussione che ne segue è interessante. Ecco il segmento:
Se Where I'm Reading: The Changing World of Books è interessantissimo, il penultimo libro di saggistica di Tim Parks, Italian Ways: On and off the Rails from Milan to Palermo (Harville Secker, 2013) è straordinario e, per chi è interessato all'Italia, assolutamente da leggere. Nel libro il signor Parks racconta la sua esperienza ventennale dei treni italiani, dovendo fare il pendolare tra Verona, dove abita, e Milano, dove insegna, e ci racconta del viaggio intrapreso nel 2012, in treno ovviamente, da Milano a Palermo ed infine ad Otranto, in Puglia. Ma il tema dei treni, è semplicemente lo spunto geniale per raccontare l'Italia con i suoi pregi e difetti. Scegliere un brano in particolare da proporvi è un'impresa difficilissima perché quasi ogni pagina contiene delle osservazioni molto belle e incisive. Nel brano in basso, in una scena familiare a tutti coloro che hanno preso un treno frequentato da pendolari, il Signor Parks, che vuole godersi il viaggio e leggersi un libro in santa pace, si ritrova in una carrozza piena d'Italiani che…parlano:
At 7.40 the train stops in the town of Brescia. This is Lombardy now. Suddenly a middle-aged man a few seats down from me comes to life. He jumps up, slams open the window, and is leaning out, beckoning to friends on the crowded platform. 'Qua, qua. In fretta!' Here, here. Hurry! He is saving seats for them, a coat on one, a bag on another, a newspaper on the next. In less than five minutes the train is crowded, it's packed. People are standing, pushing. No one can find space for their bags. Worse still, everybody is talking. Everybody seems to know each other.
Ecco un'altro bel passaggio del libro che parla dei ragazzi del Sud che vanno a casa per la pausa estiva, dopo la quale riprendono il treno per tornare al Nord:
It's so much more intense down here, the emotions on these platforms where Trenitalia hits its southernmost buffer and releases these Mediterranean children from the prison of the train into the loving clutches of mamma e papà. The sense that one has to go north for a serious career, or at least the start of that career, increases the south's perception of itself as forever the victim, abandoned, even punished by the callous and confident north. Poor us, poor us! And this winds up the emotions of greeting and parting; when perhaps the truth for many of these kids is that the south's asphyxiating family traditions, its asphyxiating adoration of its offspring, is as much the trigger for departure as anything else. True, the economic situation is dire. Youth unemployment is almost 50 per cent in the south. But many of these young men and women, after being spoiled silly in the summer weeks ahead, eating heavily and scorching themselves on perfect beaches, will be only too glad to be on the train again in early September. Then the carriages will be already there, waiting on the platform, and Father will quietly carry the bags on board, find the prenotazione obligatoria, hoist his daughter's heavy bags full of gifts onto the luggage rack, exchange a last embrace. The son will cross the aisle to wave to his mother standing on the platform and looking up at the window. She looks small and rather pathetic down there, her tired face upturned with a mole at the corner of her mouth; and he looks scandalously healthy after his days of seaside idleness, glowing with sunshine and sleek with pasta and pastries. It's embarrassing because no one can speak now. The windows are sealed. They can only look at each other through the greasy carriage glass. But you can't just turn away and sit down. You have to wait until the train moves. Papà has his arm around Mamma's shoulder and she is trying not to cry, or giving that impression. Really the boy is already gone, but, unfortunately, he isn't gone, the train should have left but it hasn't and Mamma is standing there on the platform and won't go away. He smiles, wishing she would leave, and showing her the palm of his hand, waves it a little from side to side in stifled farewell. Then she really does begin to cry and his father exchanges a pained look of weary complicity until, at last, again with that heartrending slowness that only a long train weighing hundreds of tons is capable of, the carriage begins to move, Mamma is inching away. She's waving and trying to laugh through her tears now. The motion brings relief and he can wave back properly unembarrassed before the quiet passengers around him. Mamma is gone. Papa is gone. Taranto. Reggio Calabria, Bari, gone. It's back to reality, adulthood, the north, greyness, Milan.
Per finire, ecco due bei podcast di Tim Parks in conversazione con Rick Steves, che potrete trovare su iTunes [Rick Steves' Audio Europe] in cui il Signor Parks parla del suo libro, entrambi offrono consigli per coloro che viaggeranno in treno in Italia e, nel primo podcast, ci sono interventi da parte di alcuni ascoltatori. Eccoli e buon ascolto:
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AuthorAt Italia 500 we've been offering Italian courses, in Sydney, since 1995 and one of the most beautiful aspects of learning Italian is that it opens the door to a culture of unrivalled richness and diversity. In this blog we'll be sharing some of our favourite books, movies, places in Italy to visit, music, links to podcasts, information about local and international Italian themed events, and the odd "personal" view, in the hope that it will encourage you to delve further into a culture which continues to inspire us and millions of people all over the world. Archives
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