North of Naples, South of Rome

Paolo Tullio was born in a fairly typical Italian valley whose location is indicated in the title. He grew up in England and then settled down in Ireland with his Irish wife, but every summer, both as a kid and as an adult, he came back to his native valley, together with his family. His book about life in Italy is very insightful and well-analyzed. It’s exactly the case when being fluent in the language, having many relatives and friends in the area, and visiting the place regularly for lengthy periods of time have given him familiarity with it, while living mostly elsewhere has given him a wider perspective.

The author examines the interplay of cultural and ethnic characteristics, discussing how parents’ constant praise helps children grow up into confident adults – but also ones dependent on others’ approbation, hence slavish adherence to fashion, exploited by companies who see to it that trends change often. Tullio also thinks it explains Italians’ love of socializing: in his valley nobody spends any evenings at home, and while the Irish look for deserted beaches and secluded picnic spots, the Italians want to be where all the people are. Constant large-scale socializing goes hand in hand with gargantuan meals. It’s clear from the author’s descriptions that even when Italians go skiing, they consume far more calories than they burn. Close social ties also lead to long balance sheets of favors received and rendered back. And if it’s somebody for whom one can’t do a favor in return, like a high official? One gives him a bride. Tullio writes with hope about the Clean Hands campaign which took place in 1992-1994 when this book was written. Since the end of World War II, the country had been ruled by the Christian Democratic Party whose main claim for electorate’s support was that it held the Communist Party at bay. It also helped that they were allied both with the Catholic Church which lent it its moral support and the Sicilian mafia and its Neapolitan counterpart, the Camorra, which helped it in “policing its friends and enemies.” However, when the Communist Party was no longer a threat and the moral authority and influence of the Church had eroded, the people had finally had it with both the mafia and the corrupt officials. Large-scale investigations of corruption took place, prominent politicians and CEOs went to jail, and major political parties disintegrated. This book, written during the apogee of this campaign, ends its discussion of it on a hopeful note, but I looked it up in Wikipedia and found out that, although Berlusconi’s attempt to curtail anti-corruption investigations after his first election in 1994 failed, due to widespread public indignation,

"After Silvio Berlusconi's victory in 2001, the gradual campaign against judges reached the point where it is not only openly acceptable to criticize judges for having carried out Mani pulite (Cleans hands in Italian), but it has become increasingly difficult to broadcast opinions favorable to Milan's pool (where the anti-corruption investigations started). This is an impressive 180° cultural turn from 1992, when no politician was believed and no judge was contested, in which Berlusconi's power in media has undoubtedly played an important role."

Perhaps, however, Paolo Tullio wasn’t overly surprised by this disappointing turn of events, since he was well aware how difficult it is to change the well-entrenched system, because theirs was a trickle-down sort of corruption: the politicians may have stolen fortunes, but ordinary citizens often paid a few percent of their taxes and generally found it easy to circumvent any regulation they wanted to. Everybody was for cleaning up corruption, as long as this didn’t interfere with their own way of life.

What I found most interesting in Tullio’s book was his description of higher education in Italy. College admissions aren’t competitive there because there’s a belief that everybody who qualifies is entitled to being educated in the college of their choice. Naturally this led to an overabundance of specialists, a problem which was solved in the past by using one’s connections to get a job, if one was lucky enough to have them (the detail with which the author describes this process makes it seem that he believes this practice to be unique to Italy). However, later on, a fairer solution was found in making the courses of study so difficult that only about as many new specialists as were needed each year could finish up their programs and graduate. This solution may not be perfect either, but I think it’s a far better approach than the college admission process in the USA, because then people are limited by their abilities only, and everybody can go as far as their talents allow.

This book had a few sections which I personally found a bit slow, such as ones devoted to food and domestic architecture, but overall I found it a very interesting book. ( )