Italian Life: A Modern Fable of Loyalty and Betrayal

by Tim Parks

'Parks...offers detailed cultural observation, witty yet eagle-eyed, of what makes Italians so Italian' The TimesHow does Italy really work?When Valeria travels from hot, dusty Basilicata to begin her studies in a northern university town, she has little idea of the kind of education she will find there. Italian Life is her story, and that of the students and professors around a story of power and corruption, influence and exclusion, and the workings of a society where your connections are everything .Written with flair and insight, Italian Life joins Tim Parks' bestselling books about his beloved and paradoxical adopted country. It is a gripping, entertaining, behind-the-scenes account of how Italy actually happens, and the ways it can surprise those who know it inside out.'A satisfyingly truthful, entertaining and provocative comedy' Daily Telegraph

Genres: Italy, Fiction, Travel, Italian Literature

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2020

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

[notgettingenough · Rating 5 out of 5]

On his website Tim Parks insists that much of this novel is made up…and maybe that’s true. On the other hand, you can see why he’d need to say that.

To begin with, the reader is mainly laughing whilst shaking their head. But as the story unfolds, it begins to horrify and you realise that you don’t even know how that happened, the process by which the laughing stopped. The night before I finished it, I had an angry sleep. James’ boss, the Rector, is – put-downable, by which I mean the world would be a much better place without this scumbag. I laid in bed probably feeling about the same as Robert De Niro does the night before he does the scenes where he bashes people’s heads in with whatever sporting equipment he happens to be carrying at the time. BRING IT ON. Memo to PA: cancel my craps game in the morning. I’m playing baseball.

Another way of putting all this is that it’s very hard to believe it’s made up. It could scarcely feel more real. And, as is so often the case when I read literature set in Italy, I see my own childhood, which was quite brutal in parts, on the page. The irony being that my father perpetuated what he had intended to avoid when raising kids. Uggggh.

rest here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...

[Simon Goldenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a few weeks off university for the summer, so for fun I read this book which, just a few pages in, mentions Sapienza Università di Roma, how the Italian exam grading system works and the various machinations that go on behind the scenes in a faculty. Why can't I just have my holidays in peace?

[Calypso Bressan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book as it offered a very niche aspect of Italian life: the life of those who work in academia and linguistics.

Some parts were hard to digest, notably the parts where there were sections composed of entirely academic jargon. Compared to Elena Ferrante, you could tell that this book was written by a British Author but overall a really nice read!

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always this review, along with many others, is also on my blog at: https://livemanylives.wordpress.com/

I fell in love with what I saw of Italy on Channel 4’s Football Italia in the early 90s. It was a naïve relationship based more around drinking espresso in sun-baked piazzas and headlines of Totti, than the true workings of the nation. It did lead me to Tim Parks though, initially through his football classic A Season with Verona, in which he followed the Hellas Verona ultras, and then his memoir Italian Neighbours about his own life in Italy.

His latest book, Italian Life, is less of a memoir and more an exploration of Italian culture through the eyes of the people working in a private university in Milan. Parks uses two composite characters, James and Valeria, to share the insights of his four decades living in the country and working as an author, translator and university professor. James is a British professor married and divorced from an Italian, with an Italian son, working at the same university where Valeria studies for first her undergraduate, then her higher degree and finally a Phd, having moved north from Basilicata.

The various relationships that these two central characters have are where we get to see the cultural rules and responsibilities that dominate Italian life. James with his colleagues and superiors as he tries to make an academic career for himself but struggles to come to terms with the requirement to “respect” those in authority, however incapable he may actually believe them to be. Valeria with her friends, boyfriends and the expectations of her family, as she seeks to create an independent life for herself and is eventually also caught up in the politics of academia.

Italian Life is an enjoyable and easy read, but it also asks more questions than the other Tim Parks books that I have read. It makes you wonder why he sticks with it in the face of so much frustration, how has Italy bound itself to him so that he seeks to mould into it rather than flee? As your mind drifts, it asks similar questions about your own culture and the tug of war that plays out in your life as you balance the inevitable good and bad of the country where you live. This feels very relevant to me at this particular moment in time.

Parks paints a picture of Italian culture that feels very constricting. It is easy to imagine the Italians as elegant, flamboyant Mediterraneans, but life through this lens appears to be controlled and authoritarian, with strict rules and expectations and a clear hierarchy that commands complete loyalty. It is easy to see where some of the more troubling aspects of Italian history might have found fertile soil.

A key theme in the book is the notion of insiders and outsiders. This importance of being part of the community is demonstrated repeatedly, within James and Valeria’s own stories and the various cultural references to Italian writing and folk tales. There seems to be a tension here, a desire to see someone else break out of the suffocating system, but a reluctance to be that person and a need to find a way back into its uncomfortable embrace. It is both frustrating and fascinating and perhaps that is why James persists through the decades.

For anyone with an interest in Italian culture this is a straightforward way in. It offers its insight within a recognisable setting with engaging characters and the author acts as a friendly guide, gently leading you through the traditions, confrontations and sleights of hand of the protagonists. As someone with an interest in, but little direct experience of, Italian life I found it both interesting and entertaining and would recommend it to anyone of similar circumstance.

[Maison Koala · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tim Parks, inglese di nascita ma italiano d’elezione, torna a dar prova di grande competenza ed altrettanta ironia con una storia a metà tra il documentario e la fiction che gravita attorno ad un mondo decisamente originale - ed altrettanto ingarbugliato e misterioso: l’Universita’ italiana.

Valeria e James, i due integri protagonisti, inciampano ogni giorno lungo l’accidentato cammino verso un futuro accademico di docente (lui) e dottoranda (lei), sperimentando sulla propria pelle le e pastoiose e intricate logiche clientelistiche degli atenei italiani, con tutto il corredo di inefficienze, sprechi, corruzione e quell’inesorabile logica di appartenenza per cui o fai parte ‘del giro’ oppure ne se irrimediabilmente fuori.

Da ex studentessa di Scienze della Comunicazione, ho molto apprezzato i gustosi (e scoraggianti) retroscena di un mondo che ho conosciuto, ai tempi, solo dall’altro lato dell’aula (o del cinema riconvertito ad aula, quando le aule scarseggiavano); la caustica ironia verso un lessico cespuglioso, pomposo e inutilmente latineggiante la cui insidiosità la dice lunga sul suo voler fare da custode e detentore unico delle chiavi di un screnno per pochi eletti - ovvero raccomandati.

Di contro, non ho amato la lunghezza del libro, che con la metà delle pagine avrebbe comunque reso, e con maggior freschezza, tutte le distorsioni di un mondo che è stato comunque stimolante scoprire sotto l’ombrellone - sferzata dal Mistral, il ricordo che corre a certi one-man show in aula magna…

[Neil Brady · Rating 2 out of 5]

Loved his previous books but this only really got going in the last 100 pages. Didn't feel like it had the subtle humour of previous books.

[Dury Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novel about the Italian university system, in two narrative strands that finally meet (not because of any romantic interest): that of James, the expat English professor, and Valeria, the student from Basilicata, both at the same Milanese university, both uprooted and in unfamiliar surroundings, of country or region and also of the university system itself.
The book is divided into short chapters that are often like personal essays and brief memoirs: being expected to teach English language to a lecture-room of two hundred and fifty students, the absurd procedure of getting 'equipollenza' for foreign degrees, the difference between 'I failed' and 'mi hanno bocciato', problems of translating English into Italian (the chapter 'Fratelli e amanti'), why exams are out of 30 and 110, teachers signing registers of exams at which they were not present, the farce of the government translation prize (nominated by 'raccomandazione', decided by a commitee who have not read the books), the behaviour of students and teachers at oral exams.
A high point for me were the five chapters at the end of Part Two devoted to the Thesis Commission—a superb comic account—and the chapters on the 'Inuauguration of the Academic Year' (months after the actual inauguration) and the invited lecture associated with it—delivered in incomprehensible academic jargon (while the academic staff politely listen, invited guests look at their phones, and students slip out of the door at the back).
Part Four becomes more of a plot (I'm sure based on Parks's own experience) of the 'barone' Ottone who, envious at not being at the centre of anything important, does all he can to undermine James's conference with prestigious speakers, and then following this, how the people associated with the conference are punished by Ottone, the Rector, and his close but academically inept collaborator, Bettina Modesto: the researcher and PhD student are excluded, their contracts and funds are not renewed.
I read this with pleasure (recognising many absurd and bizarre aspects of Italian university life), constantly entertained. I only give it four stars because the end rather fades out. Apart from the personal memoir and the exploration (through the character Valeria) of what it must feel like for the student from the South, I enjoyed the counterpoint of summaries and analyses of Italian fables and novels, illustrating enduring aspects of Italian culture tied to the experiences of the characters: the importance of family, belonging to a group, the pains of exclusion.

[Christopher Whalen · Rating 4 out of 5]

To someone like me, who has read Tim Parks’s non-fiction books about his life in Italy (A Season with Verona, Italian Neighbours, An Italian Education, and Italian Ways), this is a delicious fictional counterpart, dealing with his professional life teaching in a university that he wouldn’t have been able to divulge while expecting to keep his job. Italian Life is a novel or “fable” but feels, in large sections, like the other non-fiction books. It describes the career of “James”, an English ex-pat teaching in a university in Milan; and Valeria, a diligent student from Basilicata in southern Italy, who progresses through three degrees at the same university in Milan.

I can see why it was necessary to fictionalize if this is indeed based on the author’s own experience! There are two excoriatingly unflattering portraits of Ottone, the university’s Rector, and his dim-witted protégée and Head of Department, Modesto. Modesto in particular is brilliantly drawn and very familiar to me from my student days - particularly the descriptions of her idiotic conference speeches littered with incomprehensible verbiage.

The convenience of fiction is that it allows the author to tell the truth without using real names and identities. If someone recognizes themselves in the pages of this book, the author can play the Get Out of Jail Free card that this is a novel and the joke’s on them.

I was fascinated by the descriptions of the Italian university exam and grading system. There is also the familiar dynamic of southern Italians commuting long distances back and forth between their family homes in the south and their careers in the north.

I loved this book. I think it’s an enticing bridge between Parks’s familiar non-fiction and his many novels, which, until now, I haven’t read. Next on my Parks reading list is, I think, his pandemic novel, Hotel Milano.

[Joost Kiefte · Rating 4 out of 5]

With my daughter currently studying in Rome (we live in Holland), I wanted to acquaint myself just a little more with life in Italy in general and with the educational system in particular. Who better to enlighten one's path than Tim Parks, who has lived and worked in Italy for decades and who has written scores of books, fiction and non-fiction, about life in Italy. This fictionalised account is based heavily on Parks' own experiences and run-ins with Italy's institutions' officialdom, red tape and cronyism from the perspectives of a university professor (arguably Parks himself) and a female student from southern Italy. At times hilarious, at times perplexing, it made me shake my head in disbelief and made me wonder why my daughter hadn't chosen more level-headed countries such as Denmark, or even Austria, viable alternatives both, to study abroad. But the allure of Italy's many cultural glories and gastronomical and life enhancing beneficences to which Parks also confesses is perhaps strong enough to counterbalance the vagaries of Italy's nebulous institutions.

[Sofia Rodriguez Fumero · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me costo bastante leer este libro, porque esta escrito de una manera bastante pesada de leer, yéndose mucho por las nubes y describiendo todo en mi opnion mas de lo necesario. Pero como a la mitad del libro cambia la manera de escribir y se vuelve todo mucho mas ameno y bastante interesante! Las ultimas paginas si que las devore rápido porque consiguió que la historia acabara enganchando a pesar de un principio muuuuuuuuuuy lento.

[Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Call it sentimentality, but it was a pleasure to read the words of someone who knows Milan (and Italians) so well.
From its strong narrative to its excellently sculpted characters, this novel was a delight to read and I couldn't put it down.

[matus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Revelatory. Emailed Mr. Parks straight away.

[Lalla Lovaro · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a half Italian who grew up in Italy, this was a very interesting book. Having attended university in English-speaking countries, in a way I have always wondered what life might have been had I continued my studies in my homeland instead. After reading this book, I feel I have dodged a bullet (or even a torpedo really!). It is not a surprise though, if I am honest.

Within the first pages of the book Tim Parks, a British writer who has lived in Italy since the early 80s, refers to Italy and "the wonderful human warmth of the place, its systematic cruelty". How accurate! The author does a good job of putting down in words the disconcertingly duplicitous nature of Italy and Italians, at once warm and cruel, as it is a hard state of being to convey to the non-initiated. Often Italians tell Tim Parks that he wouldn't understand as he is a foreigner, but in fairness, after 40 years of living in the country, he does a good job of understanding the internal machinations of the country and its people.
When Italians are good, they are really good, and when they are bad, they are really bad. But unfortunately all good Italians are inevitably victims and prey of the bad Italians and have to become implicated, in some shape or form, in the corruption spreading like a cancer from the bad Italians. Towards the end of the book this dynamic is abstracted even further, suggesting that a bad Italian would not be a bad Italian if living abroad and that even perpetrators are, to an extent, involuntary victims of the system. Indeed, there are occasions in which the protagonist, James, an English professor in an Italian private university in Milan, finds himself entangled in the sycophantic hierarchy and asphyxiating chain of "raccomandazioni" (recommendations) that his career has been depending on more than he wishes for. Parks quotes an Italian saying when referring to one of his British senior colleagues, who has become a seasoned Italian at this point: "Inglese italianizzato, diavolo incarnato" (Italianised English, devil incarnate). The idea of leaving one's country and the impossibility of returning is also touched upon at times.

James is very much an avatar for Tim Parks, similar to the extent in fact that you can only assume that Parks was looking to stave off any legal challenges by choosing to write in the style of fiction. One is from London and has studied at Oxford and Yale. The other is from Manchester and studied at Cambridge and Harvard. Both are translators from Italian into English and have had a long career in Italian academia, particularly in a private Milanese university. Both married an Italian woman who they then divorced after having children with. Both lived for many years in a provincial town (Verona in Parks' case) and eventually moved to Milan after years of commuting.

The other main protagonist is a young student from the south of Italy, Valeria, and the book follows her career from first year student to PhD student and her tentative attempts to establish an academic career. I felt this character was not as well developed.

In fact, aside from the very well executed account of the complexities and challenges of having a career in the Italian academic world (and frankly often a career in general), this book is not as successful in its realisation as a fully fledged novel. I feel that, had the author just kept this as a work of non-fiction, it would have improved in quality, but the chosen form of fiction limited it unnecessarily. Throughout the book, Parks references the reality he is immersed in with works of Italian Literature (mainly Giambattista Basile, Cesare Pavese, Ignazio Silone, Dante, Natalia Ginzburg, Niccolò Macchiavelli, but also others) and considers its recurring themes of insider/outsider and of the costs of not conforming to the community/family. I think that had Parks framed the content of his analysis solely along these considerations and illustrated these through anecdotes and observations, this would have deserved a four star rating or more. But the narrative conceit he has chosen for this (be it for legal reasons or not), I think ultimately cheapened the output and resulted in me giving it a 3.5 star rating.

More generally I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in Italy and Italian life as it is very good in conveying complexities and realities that you won't find in the average "A Place in the Sun" style of books. But as a novel in and of itself, it may be more difficult for it to find a natural home in the general audience.

Many thanks to Harvill Secker and NetGalley for sending me a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Tiziano Brignoli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sarà perché sono italiano, e alcune delle cose raccontate le ho trovate scontate, se non banali, ma ho trovato questo libro difficile da leggere. Abbastanza noioso per lunghe parti. L'autore avrebbe potuto esprimere lo stesso concetto conclusivo in un decisamente minor numero di pagine. Forse avrebbe funzionato meglio come saggio? Può darsi, anche perché la narrazione, in molti tratti, non sembrava affatto quella della narrativa, bensì molto, troppo divulgativa.
Proverò a leggere qualcosa d'altro dell'autore, optando però per la saggistica.

[Helen Ostler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was attracted to the cover of this book, with the knowledge that Tim Parks is an established fiction and non-fiction author, known for his depiction of Italian life, having been a university professor in Milan.

This, however, is not a memoir. While is has not been directly experienced by the author, Parks takes his many years in Italy and creates a new Englishman in Italy.

This very readable book sets out to explain how Italy really works, through the experiences of James and Valeria who teach and study in a University in the North of Italy. Littered with Italian words and anecdotes only a local would know, this book exposes the vast differences between our culture and the Italian one. Being a lover of Italy and all things 'Italian', I could recognise the behaviours and idiosyncrasies depicted by Perks and enjoyed the easy reading style and often amusing nature of the book.

[R.Bharat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Today i completed ''Italian life'' by Tim parks subtitled 'A modern fable of loyalty and betrayal''. And true to its theme the novel traces out between past and present, using fables, literature, political history and the challenges of a contemporary private university in Milan the ways art, politics, life, the life of the mind interweave and ricochet and blend in complicated ways. The tapestry isn't meant to indicate erudition but for the narrative to establish patterns of commonality and difference between real life and its neat tidying up in narratives. Yet the fabulist, the fictional, be it Giovanni vorga, machiavelli. Natalia ginzburg, Alberto moravia, Dante ( both a national emblem as also an ironical one of exile and its concomitant emotional aftermath) as well as the fables with their attendant ogres and tangled family dynamics of loyalty and social cohesion threatened by rupture, insiders and outsiders correspond well with the modern framework of this private university .

James, british, living in italy and working at the university constantly ponders on the dilemma of being , as an outsider, the unknown quantity who is alternately sought after as an accomplice and pejoratively perceived , despite success as a translator. His attempt to navigate italian mores - especially the bureaucracy, the corruption, the ties of kinship impacting student lives, the ways power keeps mutating but finds methods of persistence represented by the Rector and the over theoretical and unmeritorious professor modesto, is unpacked with acuity and wry, self deprecation . The changes in this private university , its struggle for funds, its relationship to Europe and EU, its struggle to stay afloat is compounded by internecine warring and conformity as it becomes an elite in group perpetuating itself yet unwilling to embrace outsiders wholeheartedly. While Italy too is poised on this precarious identity crisis with Valeria , who moves from the south to the north.

Through Valeria's peregrination of academe, from a naive belief in meritocracy to disillusion and fatalistic coexistence is explored the regional varieties of/within Italy, its local and region specific difference pitted against a globalized uniformity that impacts this university in a microcosmic but telling way. The necessity to procure funds, to survive, to be alert to the Europeanized space yet assert the sovereignty of italian ness is communicated in deft touches in this fictional mode. Caught in a web that is inescapably Italian but equally resonant of the corruptibility within academia and the allegiances it exacts, the overburdened system supplanting quality with quantity , the middling fare that passes off as esoteric analysis while scrupulous academics like James, Antonio and Federica try to counterbalance expedience with principle in a manner painfully redolent of what i've witnessed in indian universities too.

Italian life works with great subtlety- nothing is superadded as ponderous exposition or commentary but the small details seem to create an effect i can as a reader inhabiting a space of moral ambivalence and mixed motives in the context of globalization appreciate and find evocative from my indian vantage point. In a way slivers of Italian ness are ineluctably presented - the ties of family, the propinquity of groups, be it families or the academics or regions such as Basilicata or milan -the often irreconcilable gulf between the imperative to stick together and the moments when such closeness can be stifling and involve abdication from personal values. The characters move through the years , as does the socio economic , political, cultural reality that concenters them and there is a sense of things changing yet unalterably the same , with intermittent private areas of life modifying, acclimatizing and altering in complex ways, much as life's own trajectory is never linear or encompassable in strictly delineated parameters. This modern fable is wry and worldly but simultaneously irresistibly fascinated and repelled by the machinations of politics and culture, of the arbitrariness in the functionality as well as the high handedness of power , that is coercive when it is deemed warrantable and unceremoniously dismissive in treating those who are outside the charmed circle as expendable , power at once cloying and familiar but equally instilling profound misgiving and self questioning. Italian life is my ninth Tim parks novel and one of my favourites - it isn't necessary to interpret the novel as definitive in its understanding of italy but it is a well constructed story coming from the fruit of almost four decades the writer has spent in Italy. Having perused the occasional columns on italy by Tim parks i also recall Europa whose narrator tries to explore his contradictory feelings for the representation of outsider's rights at the european commission for academics in italy , or in Destiny where the italian character is sought to be plumbed and flounders as the narrator works through the ingathering rivulets of contending realities of an overwrought subjective , bodily crisis in a convoluted external reality or the recent lockdown columns - one sees the relationship to Italy, reveal shifting facets and an understanding never complete but expanding , widening. Italian life's universe is bigger in its cast of characters, in the composite mini histories of minor characters skillfully related and the less frenetic, more measured narrative tone. And it marks yet another interesting contemporaneous novel by Tim parks whose singularity in unmistakable in being a novelist of the present which requires a vigilance, scepticism and willingness to interrogate pieties of homogeneity and cultural consensus which he does compunctiously .

[Rochelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant book about University life in Italy. Totally honest and insightful about the way higher education works on the Peninsula. Tim Parks is an expert in Italians literature and culture. He has created an intriguing tale filled with accurate, infuriating and on point observations. As an expat living in Italy I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at some of the situations recounted in this story. All I can say is it is honest without being cynical anc hopful without being niave. A beautiful book about an ugly part of Italy.

[Sarah Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Italian Life is a novel with it's roots in reality, the story of Italian student Valeria and English professor James as they navigate the politics of getting on in a private Italian University. Valeria is desperate to escape her family in the South but even on her journey by train to university in Milan her family keep an eye on her, it is only when she reaches Milan does she feel out of their reach. James has had to learn how things are done in Italy to progress in his career and that no matter how many years he lives in Italy he will always be seen by most as an outsider.
Italian Life doesn't always portray life in Italy as " La Dolce Vita" , in fact it exposes the slightly darker and less moral side of bureaucracy which can also be seen within families.

The layout of the story makes it very easy to read and follow, the cross references to fables at the start of chapters shows that we haven't changed much.

I was given a copy of Italian Life by NetGalley and the publishers in return for an unbiased review.

[Martin Pilkington · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read a number of the other books that Tim Parks has written about Italy. They are non-fiction and I liked them a lot. Tim Parks has written a number of novels too. I've read one, Cara Massimina, and I hated it. The non-fiction books made the idea of living in Italy seem very attractive. Halfway through this book I realised I would have hated to work in the sort of environments that are discussed, and would probably not want to live there either.

The author (Tim) states in the introduction that the Englishman in the central role, James (Jim) isn't completely the author, Tim (Timothy). After all James went to Oxford and Yale and was born in London whereas Tim went to Cambridge and Harvard and only lived in London! Of course Tim, as he admits, is part the central role and part not. After all this is described as a fable, not as non-fiction.

I'm sure there must be people like Beppe Ottone and Bettina Modesto in Universities in Italy, and elsewhere, let's hope we don't come across them.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating 3.5 stars

Italian Life takes place in a Milan university in the north of Italy. Valeria, a young woman from southern Italy, enrols together with thousands of others for a degree course that could take anything between three and ten years to complete. Then there is James, an English professor who lives in Italy teaching English to the university students. He discovers it's not what you know but who you know if you want to progress your career.

It's not quite a novel, there was a lot of telling me what was going on rather than showing. However it was interesting to read how the Italian university life works, plus how the career for academia is a challenge. I enjoy books that look at different cultures, so this is certainly something I would recommend if you like that type of book.

I felt the end was rather rushed, it screamed to an abrupt halt and was suddenly over. I felt I knew what happened to Valeria but in the case of James it seemed rather vague.

I received this book from Netgalley in return for a honest review.

[Simon Dobson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tale of Italian life, and especially Italian academic life. I've seen this as an outsider, and recognise some of the terms and issues described: it'd be fascinating to hear an Italian academic's view too.

The story goes well beyond academia, though, to the things that make Italy both a wonderful and damaging culture: the impact of tight families and high expectations, especially for people moving from the south (Puglia and Basilicata) to the north (Milan, Bologna). Many of the themes have equivalents in other places, especially Ireland, but the differences in perception are often hard to decode as an outsider, and this book was often like listening-in on episodes that I've seen but not understood.

[Nigel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating insight into how Italy works as told by an English academic battling against the built in prejudices and machinations of deference, respect, loyalty and recognition in Italian institutional life. What might make sense for an Italian in terms of use of power and the wielding of influence, favours and patronage only baffles and frustrates an outsider. The story might meander a bit but it is obviously told from heartfelt experience. A telling and often chilling observational analysis.

[Nafis · Rating 2 out of 5]

The cultural and social notes about Italy from a British point of view, were fascinating to read, and the cultural differences really stand out.

Some of the immigration challenges mentioned are more universal than only Italian. For example, translating academic documents into the official language of a country, seems more like standard procedures in many countries, rather than something specifically Italian. That made parts of the book feel too critical for me to enjoy.

While the insights were interesting, I missed having a strong storyline to keep reading the book.

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is lightly fictionalised social commentary. It blends all of Parks's natural strengths: erudition, wit, perspicacity, self-knowledge and humour.

His occasional weaknesses (character development, narrator solipsism, caricature) seem less to the fore than in more straightforward works of fiction.

This certainly feels like a very personal book whatever the realities or fictions it weaves; therefore it evokes a guilty pleasure watching from the sidelines.

[Elisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 As usual, Parks's observation on Italianness are spot-on and v interesting to read (not mention painful and/or disheartening at times) , at least for those Italians like me who have a thing for an outsider's POV on our country. I also liked Parks's fiction, but this time I feel like this book didn't really work as a novel, and that the content would have been better served as a plain non-fiction title.

[R S · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this overall, wanting to read more about what life is like living in Italy, a country I love visiting. At times it felt a bit self indulgent and "moany" for want of a better word, but the story took me in, and I wanted to find out what happened to them all. I also liked the injection of some old fables and references to modern Italian literature, giving me ideas for other avenues to read in the future.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can I give more than 5 stars?

Absolutely wonderful. This was not quite the book I was expecting but did not disappoint in any way.

An exposè of some of the byzantine corruptions within Italian academia, and Italian society as a whole, but still with the gentle affection towards his adopted homeland that you expect from Parks' books.

[Gull · Rating 4 out of 5]

A reflective take on Italian life, literature and culture woven around the lives and loves of a small group of academics and students, with James, an English ex-pat as the focal point. I would have loved to have been able to read this while travelling through Italy, contemplating the complexities, contradictions and joys that Italy presents.

[Lyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't know what to think of this initially because I was trying to figure out whether it was fact or fiction. I soon let go of that problem as the author dived into the complexity, corruption, loyalties, pay backs, grovelling and towing the line at a Milan university. A totally fascinating look at Italian society beyond the glorious food, scenery and climate.

[Roslyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really an expose of the dire world of universities: their politics, their nepotism, their bureaucracy that's intended to obscure the workings of power. Although it was deeply engaged with the Italian university system, I found it equally relevant for an Australian academic working in Australian universities. Excellent.