Thin Paths: Journeys in and around an Italian Mountain Village by Julia Blackburn (5-Jul-2012) Paperback

by Julia Blackburn

Excellent Book

Genres: Nonfiction, Italy, Travel, Memoir, Nature, Italian Literature, Biography

Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Julia Blackburn is the author of several other works of nonfiction, including Charles Waterton and The Emperor’s Last Island, and of two novels, The Book of Color and The Leper’s Companions, both of which were short-listed for the Orange Prize. Her most recent book, Old Man Goya, was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award. Blackburn lives in England and Italy.

Reviews

[Kathleen Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Julia Blackburn's work - her memoir 'Daisy Bates in the Desert' is one of my favourite books. Add to that the fact that I live much of the year in an Italian mountain village not far from Julia's home in Liguria and you can see why this book was a must for me to read.

My partner loves climbing mountains, so we've been exploring the 'thin paths' that spread like a spider's web over the slopes for several years now. These paths are very old, some of them are paved and walled and date back to Etruscan or Roman times. Often they lead to abandoned hamlets of stone houses high on the mountain-side - now ruined and overgrown, but which used to be inhabited every summer when livestock was brought up to the high summer pastures. Some were permanently inhabited by people who lived, precariously, off the land. Oddments of furniture still rot in rooms exposed to the elements, cattle chains and implements dangle from rusty hooks. You get glimpses of an old way of life, gone for ever.

There are also other, less pleasant, memorials here. Crude metal crosses, shrines, stones roughly inscribed with names, that mark the places where men were killed during the brutal civil war in 1944/5 between the fascists (both German and Italian) and the partisans (mostly peasants trying to protect their homes, crops and their way of life). Communities up here are scarred forever by it - still living beside families who took the other side, or who betrayed friends or relatives. Terrible things happened which those over 70 still remember witnessing.

Julia records her own exploration of her village in Liguria and the paths that wind their way up into the mountains. She records her neighbour's stories; finds the caves they hid in, visits the ruined villages where they were born. At one point she discovers an entire abandoned hamlet with clothes still in the closets and crockery in the cupboards, left to mice and bats and the predations of the weather. She has encounters with wild boar, salamanders and snakes. The book began as a series of pieces commissioned for BBC radio and is composed of journal entries and essays which some reviewers have criticised for being too fragmentary. It's true that it leads to a certain amount of repetition, but I didn't find that a problem.

What does come out of the book is the terrible hardship of the lives these people lived. Yet they loved the landscape so much they were often unable to settle in the coastal towns they moved to after the war to get work.

Definitely recommend this book as a window on Italian life.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful and delicate evocation of a specific region, its landscape, wildlife and people. Over the course of a decade living there, Blackburn integrates herself into the community and gently explores the lives, past and present, of its inhabitabts. She mostly reserves any judgment and just lets them tell their own stories, hinting at past trauma and suffering during World War II. The nature writing in particular is lovely, with an amazing and hilarious chapter on her experiences with the local insects.
But in the end its the collection of local characters and their combination of melancholy and determined resilience that lingers in the mind.

[Anita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tot ruim over de helft heb ik het gelezene als het ware voor kennisgeving aangenomen. Ik werd niet echt geraakt, kon geen verbindingen leggen, kon de Italiaanse bewoners niet uit elkaar houden ondanks het handige lijstje voorin. Maar gaandeweg werd ik in het zorgvuldig opgebouwde web gevangen. Julia Blackburn weeft haar thin lines methodisch, kalm en onverstoorbaar tot je midden in de wereld bent die ze je wil laten zien. De microwereld van alles wat kruipt, krioelt, zwemt, groeit, bloeit onder onze ogen, de wereld van de dieren van bos en lucht en berg. En de mensenwereld met familieverbanden, hun huizen, hun dieren, hun werk en het voedsel dat ze toebereiden. Hoe ver verwijderd van de bewoonde wereld de verzameling dorpen ook lijkt toch is die wereld niet zo ver weg. Ook hier weer zoals in Treindromen en Hofstede wordt het verhaal verteld van een afgelegen wereld waar gaandeweg de twintigste eeuw tot ontwikkeling komt. Een grote rol is in dit boek weggelegd voor de verschrikkingen van WO II maar ook de technische uitvindingen en vernieuwingen worden juichend binnengehaald dan wel betreurd. Er komen wegen, die het isolement doorbreken, maar tevens het leven in de hooggelegen dorpen onmogelijk maken. Dat wat verloren is gegaan aan een manier van leven door de rationele oplossingen van onze tijd heeft JB blootgelegd.
Aan het einde kiest ze een aantal verlaten plaatsen uit, die ze met Herman gaat opzoeken om samen de nacht door te brengen, waarna ze de dorpsbewoners die haar hun verhalen hebben verteld uitnodigt voor een gezamenlijke lunch. Op dat moment was ik helemaal verkocht. Dit was geen gemakkelijke tocht maar stap voor stap een verrijkende ervaring. Ik moest heel vaak denken aan de land-art kunstenaars zoals Richard Long en Andy Goldsworthy. Zowel wat betreft de methodische planmatige aanpak als ook vanwege de nadruk op het vergankelijke.
Het boek is verlucht met veel foto's. Aanvankelijk ervoer ik ze als onbevredigend vaag net als de lokatie van het dorp, ongeveer precies wist ik het wel en dat bleef het ook: ongeveer precies en met die onbestemdheid heb ik me verzoend.
Met de vrijblijvendheid niet en daarom vier sterren en geen vijf.

[Bert · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Smalle paden' meandert als een smal weggeltje langs een heuvelflank vol geschiedenis en herinnering. In de ene bocht ontmoet je de oude bewoners van een vergeten dorpje, achter een volgende bocht schuilt het verleden van de partizanen. Blackburn gidst je over het pad, met stevige maar warme tred. Haar enthousiasme en nieuwsgierigheid springen als vonkjes op je over. Maar nergens laat ze je toe het pad te verlaten, om een klein plantje of voorwerp uit de berm te pulken, of om van een weidser uitzicht te genieten... alsof ze jou niet al het moois gunt dat zich onder de loverdaken van de bomen langs de paden schuilhoudt, maar de kleinste kostbaarheden voor zichzelf houdt. In haar liefde voor de plek. In haar diepste herinnering. In haar plannen voor een volgend boek misschien...

[Rob Cawley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because I know the author and have a close knowledge of the subject of the book. Whereas I take much of what I see in the Ligurian Alps at face value, Julia has the skill to scratch well below the surface and reproduce her research in an entertaining and revealing way. I will have a totally different perspective from now on.

[Sophy H · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been on a bit of a Blackburn run lately after being mightily impressed by Time Song: Searching for Doggerland.

Thin Paths is an odd little book. Blackburn documents the lives of the Italian inhabitants of the terraced villages that neighbour her in Northern Italy. She meets people when she first moves there with her husband and over time comes to know them intimately. She interviews them, takes notes and tells their stories. As many of the villagers are in their 70's and 80's, the stories are I have to say, are mostly tragic and poverty-stricken, dominated by fascism, the war, tyrant landowners and domineering men. Interspersed with their stories is Blackburn's account of living with her husband's cancer diagnosis and treatment. The writing can be a bit heavy at times.

There are some beautiful descriptions of the landscape and some touching moments of human expression, but overall I'd say this one is a little dry. Not a keeper for me.

[Elizabeth Knox · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite work of non-fiction.

[Sam Schulman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book, far from the "making pesto with the natives" sort of book that Englishmen write about Italy and the south of France. Blackburn reunites with her 60s boyfriend at the beginning of middle age when he, a Dutchman, has bought a wreck of a house in the moutains behind San Remo near the French border, whose inhabitants seem to have been indentured to their landlords until WWII in a way untouched by Napoleonic/Liberal 19th century reform. They called themselves half-people, because they were in a state of permanant sharecropperhood, where half of everything went to the landlord, and there was no escape. Blackburn learns Italian, and finds that the local women are not only willing but eager to tell them their stories and the stories of their families - "I don't want all these memories to die," one tells her. They are of the generation who were small children in WWII, but big enough to remember it well - born around 1935. Their stories are haunting in themselves; Blackburn's haunting by them is superb, and her desire to locate them in the landscape which she explores lovingly and beautifully is a complete success. You finish the book and realize that you want to be her, that her curiosity and possession of the world in which she lives in is the right way to live; your way - whatever it is - is not.
But you won't envy her - well, you might envy her husband who has married someone who can completely steel herself not to mind bugs of any kind, even though she minds them very much.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

De vierde ster is er één voor de herkenbaarheid: het volgen van een waterbuis op de hellingen van Ligurië in de hoop zo terug in de bewoonde wereld te belanden, de zee die je enkel als een driehoek in de verte ziet, de oude watermolen waar de olijven geperst worden... Een uitnodiging om de Middellandse Zee even achter je te laten en één van de smalle bergwegen te nemen naar plaatsen waar de natuur (ook heel mooi verfilmd in 'Io sono l'amore') nog de bovenhand heeft.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully writtenbut melancholy memoirs of life in a Italian village

[Tammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you (again!) Fabrizia.

Beautiful.

And also very sad. The war memories.

But mostly beautiful.

[Fred Frisbee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up randomly from the library because I was going on holiday to Italy and wanted something Italy related to read.

It was one of the most beautiful books I've read about the inhabitants of a series of villages which are slowly becoming abandoned as the young move out.

The individuals take center stage to the extent you don't really understand the authors journey apart from the big incidents cancer scare etc.

The main themes I got were:

The challenges of growing old especially when you are unable to do what used to do and your world shrinks. I think the main message was it was important to find your peace and too fight it but with the understanding you will eventually lose.

Secondly it was a great time capsule of what life was like back at the start of the 20th century with the paderes the lack of any belongings and the lack of education and health services. Also how hard it was to survive. I don't think anyone looks back on those aspects very fondly although they miss the sense of community. Also wild that they grew up speaking their own dialect and italien is a foreign language to them

Finally how horrible the secondnworld war was. The atrocities committed by mostly the facists scarred everyone it seems like and just reminds how horrible war is and how its is often the defining moment of these peoples lives

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved my time with this book. I came to it after reading the author’s more recent book on Doggerland, and I was happy to see many similar threads woven through this book: the traces the past leaves on a landscape, the ceaselessness of change, the fascination with the old ways of doing things.

But what I really loved were the characters. All of these elders in this mountainous Italian village really came alive! Julia Blackburn so wonderfully captures these stories from the old times, while deftly interweaving her own experiences of her many years in the village. The final product is this great blend of memoir and oral history that I found quite mesmerizing and often moving. Even having only spent a few days in an Italian mountainside village myself, I could see the landscape and all the informal paths she walked so clearly. The black and white pictures were helpful visual anchor points as well.

Just a heartwarming book, though there is plenty of sadness. An old way of life is clearly on its way out. But Blackburn writes on the side of celebration, choosing to see this gift of the present, and the time she gets with these interesting people, as cause for good cheer.

[Raf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite interesting read as I live in the "castle-like village" nearby now. Some good leads to follow up on with research and oftentimes I had been asking if I didnt actually see this already while on one of my hikes. Gave me a quite good idea how life probably was here in older times and the characters where portrayed very lovingly and with care. Definitely an entertaining and worthwhile read!
No 5 stars rating though as sometimes I couldnt really get warm with the style of some of the texts...dont know why but could be due to the journal-nature where the journal-writing author herself was too much not filled-out in the book so there was a strange distance. If I could I would have given 4.5 stars though as in the end quite liked it overall

[Jessica Duffy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gentle and melodic insight into life in a half abandoned Italian mountain village. The characters and their tough life stories brought to life with respect and kindness. The descriptions of the mountains and the nature in and around their village are beautiful. I wish the book were longer or had a follow up so we got more than a short glimpse into the history of the people and this area. We hear about the facists and the partisans fighting at the end of word world two but not of very much after this time period. Sadly many of the remaining villagers were in their 80s and not much was told of who else lived there or may be able to keep it going. Still, it was an enjoyable read and a fascinating insight into mountain life.

[Agnes Goyvaerts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed and found this memoir very interesting. Reading about the way of living before the war, and learning about the 'mezzadri' the half-people that were under the tyrannical power of the 'padrone' was an eye opener. The author gave a vivid picture also of the life of the village people, the partisans and the fascists.
By the end of the book I felt that I became quite familiar with the lay-out of the mountainous area and the trees and plants growing there. The stories that the elderly village people told the author were amazing and vividly retold.
All in all I would definitely recommend this book.

[Randal White · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this little book. The author writes about an almost forgotten part of Italy. Until a road was built into it in the 1970's (?), entire villages and homes were isolated and separated, connected only by "thin paths". Blackburn excellently describes the physical area, and the nature found within it. But where she excels is in describing the people left there, and their histories and memories. I had no idea of the suffering those people experienced during the second world war! Totally heartbreaking. I'm grateful for having the chance to read it!

[Isobel Ely · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blackburn has written such a beautifully delicate collective history. Each sentence was perfect, and I felt transported to the Italian mountains amidst the flora and fauna. You feel as immersed as the author, in the past present and future of the unique setting embalmed by the stories its characters. So well written, I thoroughly enjoyed.

[Eefje · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book reads like hiking up a steep hill. You take small steps into seemingly separate stories, however de stories continue to tremble on in a lovely slow pace while balancing heavy emotional parts with lighter ones. Also makes me think of calm rippling water..

Might this be what Kiek means when she writes “your writings differ from each other while keeping the unmistakably Julia-ness”?

[James Vasey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A poignant tale of a one couple's escape from the rat-race to an Italian mountain idyll. The author attempts to record the memories and knowledge of what is almost certainly the last generation of self-sufficient Europeans.

[James Vasey]

Walk the mountain paths of Liguria with Julia. Meet her neighbours who become friends. Enjoy a rare insight into their existence, hear stories of past times and people. Packed with fascinating detail of Italian country life this is a very real, often meloncholy and occasionally uplifting memoir.

[Rachel Salmon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Delightful read! And interesting history.

[Margery Osborne · Rating 5 out of 5]

thought this was excellent

[Tan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful, nostalgic, a portrait of a life nearly in ruins and condemned to the past. Quite an unexpected book.

[Penny · Rating 3 out of 5]

3½ stars
Enjoyed this account of an English woman who married and moved to a tiny village in the Italian Mountains. I admire the way she became part of the community. I also liked the way she was honest and realistic about her life and that of the villagers - it was not written through rose coloured glasses.
Not sure I could deal with the scorpions in quite the way she does!
The book was beautifully written but I wish there had been more about the author's current life and less about the history of the village and its people. I found the 'up to date' side of the book far more interesting and compelling than the history part, a fact that surprised me. But Blackburn has her own tale to tell, and it isn't told here.

[Ruth Brumby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just as she walks the paths, sometimes finding new places and sometimes retracing all or part of the way, so the book moves forward adding new pieces of knowledge and understanding to places visited before and bringing them more and more to life, travelling through the past (recounted memories, memorials,unplanned human marks) through the present (very specific and beautifully described details) and through ideas about the future (fears, plans, speculations). I love the sense of place and time, the respect, the slow thoughtfulness and attentiveness, the humanity. It's quite a sad book though with much about death and loss.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was not what I expected as it does not follow a traditional narrative. The best way I can describe it is a collection of conversations the author has with old Italian people, mainly farmers. It is a charming, ambling tale that really transported me to the Italian mountains even though it is an area I've barely visited myself.
I learnt some aspects of history that I wasn't familiar with. The raw honesty was refreshing. Living in remote countryside is realistically portrayed with all it's hard work.

A good book to read while holidaying in the European countryside.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

In one of my favorite chapters, Blackburn picks up a fragment of tombstone. No name remains, just "your memory shall live in our hearts." She takes the fragment home and makes a kind of memorial with it. Blackburn does not sentimentalize; she tells this incident with an understated, poetic precision. Her memoir likewise attends to various fragments of the lives of her community in the Ligurian mountains,

[Josephine Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in a simple observational style, this book draws you into the detail and daily life on a mountain. The delight the author takes in the small gestures of life around her is evident and infectious. You get a very keen sense of space and of the connection between the villages and the inhabitants. At the close of the book I felt I was leaving a group of friends.

[Carmen Marcus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blackburn's emerging relationship with the mountain and its people is the raw beauty which runs throughout this book. The stories grow and blossom as she befriends and wins the trust of people who have stories they can't wait to share and secrets and wounds they have locked away until someone like Blackburn, a gentle listener arrives. This is an incredible book.