Word: barzini
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Severgnini's book is a bit like a lawyer's defense against a long line of pessimists. Luigi Barzini, a foreign correspondent and prolific writer, in perhaps the most authoritative of Italian portraits, described a country resigned to a downward spiral in his classic book, The Italians. Barzini paints his people as peddlers of "ruses to defeat boredom and discipline, to forget disgrace and misfortune, to lull man's angst to sleep and comfort him in his solitude." Severgnini uses much finer brushstrokes in his interpretation of Italians' shortcomings, which borders on praise. In Crema, where he's still based...