Michael's review
A Season with Verona: Travels Around Italy in Search of Illusion, National Character, and...Goals!
by Tim Parks
Michael's review
A Season with Verona: Travels Around Italy in Search of Illusion, National Character, and...Goals! by Tim Parks
Michael's review
rating:
recommended for: Italophile soccer fans
This book sits rather uneasily between categories. It is in some sense the third volume of Parks's trilogy on Italian society from the perspective of a permanent resident (it follows Italian Neighbors and Itialian Education). And it is clearly a contribution to the long series of studies of the cultural importance of soccer. Like Italian Education, it is sprinkled with fine insights into Italy, and the portraits of the soccer fans are colorfully drawn. But the perspective of the somewhat skeptical outsider doesn't work as well here as it does, say, for Bill Buford in Among the Thugs: Parks's heart just doesn't seem to be in it.
Tim Parks isn't capable of writing a bad book, and there is enough here to hold the reader's interest. But it isn't his strongest effort.
Tim Parks isn't capable of writing a bad book, and there is enough here to hold the reader's interest. But it isn't his strongest effort.
