Adulterio e altri diversivi

by Tim Parks

Riprendendo la gloriosa tradizione dell’essay inglese, del saggio divagante e malizioso, spesso proposto in veste di aneddoto pieno di mordente, Tim Parks ci guida attraverso una bizzarra galleria che annovera titoli come Adulterio, Fedeltà, Europa, Prajapati, Destino, Rancore, ciascuno dei quali ci riserva uno scorcio intenso, che è già un racconto e un trattatello in miniatura sul tema designato. Temi eterni, come eterni sono i casi della vita di ogni giorno messi a confronto in un corto circuito beffardo e illuminante. Così, dal calcio ai fantasmi, dagli dèi dell’India ai premi letterari, dai tormenti del cuore, e del sesso, alla gita culturale sotto l’egida di una grande ditta, tra acidità e rimorsi, sottigliezze e amenità, attraverso episodi in sé compiuti ma sempre con un occhio volto al tutto, questi «strani ibridi» finiscono per disegnare un complesso autoritratto dello scrittore stesso, qui presente, oltre che nei panni del narratore, come ironica spalla dei protagonisti. Adulterio è stato pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1998.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Sociology

209 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Born in Manchester in 1954, Tim Parks grew up in London and studied at Cambridge and Harvard. In 1981 he moved to Italy where he has lived ever since, raising a family of three children. He has written fourteen novels including Europa (shortlisted for the Booker prize), Destiny, Cleaver, and most recently In Extremis.
During the nineties he wrote two, personal and highly popular accounts of his life in northern Italy, Italian Neighbours and An Italian Education. These were complemented in 2002 by A Season with Verona, a grand overview of Italian life as seen through the passion of football. Other non-fiction works include a history of the Medici bank in 15th century Florence, Medici Money and a memoir on health, illness and meditation, Teach Us to Sit Still. In 2013 Tim published his most recent non-fiction work on Italy, Italian Ways, on and off the rails from Milan to Palermo.
Aside from his own writing, Tim has translated works by Moravia, Calvino, Calasso, Machiavelli and Leopardi; his critical book, Translating Style is considered a classic in its field. He is presently working on a translation of Cesare Pavese's masterpiece, The Moon and the Bonfires.
A regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books, his many essays are collected in Hell and Back, The Fighter, A Literary Tour of Italy, and Life and Work.
Over the last five years he has been publishing a series of blogs on writing, reading, translation and the like in the New York Review online. These have recently been collected in Where I am Reading From and Pen in Hand.

Reviews

[Karlan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essays about the British novelist's life in Verona continue to entertain as he describes Italian foibles. I was relieved that the adultery concerned friends whose marriage counselors were quite different from those in the UK. He thinks about Hegel as the children enjoy fighting in the back seat of the car in one memorable chapter.

[notgettingenough · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this group of what are described as literary essays, but I think of as reflections.

From Maturity:

Our culture has an implacable aversion to age, something that goes far beyond its ugliness and infirmities, beyond the mere selfishness of those who have no time for declining parents, beyond the understandable vanity that would reverse hair loss or lift a drooping bosom, beyond the fear of death, even. People seem to accept that they have to die, but resent the idea of ageing. Yet the process is well under way. Already one has to be careful about what one eats. Already one loves young women without being in love with anyone in particular. Suddenly appetite is no longer quite part of me, or yes it is, but a potential enemy too. A scission is taking place. Do I have to decide what side to stay on? What is the way forward now? Throw oneself into appetite or renounce it. Stay in 'that country' or pack my bag against eventual departure? Where to? Sail the seas with Yeats and come 'to the holy city of Byzantium? City of art and intellect. Of hammered gold and gold enamelling. What kind of a trip would that be? Stay young, the bias of y culture tells me. Look around.

From Destiny:

In any even, you are beginning to get the picture. A life suppurating with unpleasant incident. A family where bygones are never bygones. Grudges, hatchets, corpses, are only buried the better to be dug up again. Decay seething with vitality.

At its nadir, according to google Ngram viewer, the use of the word 'rancour' has consistently declined more or less in a straight line between 1800 and 1980. What a pity, it expresses something important which has no substitute. I'm guessing that Parks may have single-handedly brought it back from five zeros after a decimal point to four. It's an important word in his thinking and writing. And no doubt, as one might garner from the previous short quote, about family, one could not possible comprehend Italian relationships without it. And so in this collection it even has its own essay. Bravo Tim Parks.

From Rancour:

That writing is a phenomemon often galvanised by anger is evident enough. How rancorous Shakespeare's plays are! How Hamlet raves and Lear rages! And Swift and Pope and Byron, and Dickens too in his way. Only those who do not understand what a central part such emotions play in life, would consider Eliot's description of The Waste Land as 'one long rhythmical grumble' reductive. What is not so clear is the nature of the writer's rancour, where it came from, what it is about. Could it be this matter is taboo?

One of the things about rancour that one doesn't find in a dictionary definition of it, is that it requires infinite energy. Parks has that, you can feel it in everything about his writing, how he does it, his choice of words, what he writes about. I hope he never loses that source. Maybe as long as he is in Italy, it is self-sustaining.

[Carol Waters · Rating 3 out of 5]

The essay on verb tenses wiped me out. Now I need to go read Beckett.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Literate, thoughtful, but I personally found it really tedious in too many places, pedantic and dry, or obsessing over domestic mundane details without any interesting observations. Most of it blurred as soon as I put down the book. Some insightful observations on teaching and literary criticism. An extremely long essay on the experience of translation that made me start wondering if it was imitating the style of someone else. Misbehaving children and a supportive wife who somehow never come into focus--even his desire to spank his children is somehow distant and abstracted. There is one essay at the end that has to do with adultery (a guilt-ridden friend's, with his secretary) and soccer.