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anubhasy's review against another edition
3.0
A delightful read but there were a lot of references to specific locations (totally expected in a travel book) that will make sense only if you have already explored the region on Google a little.
Loved the descriptions of long, languid, Roman afternoons.
Loved the descriptions of long, languid, Roman afternoons.
audrey01's review
informative
reflective
slow-paced
2.5
2.5 stars that’s the energy it was giving. For me it started out slow but got interesting once the author actually started talking about Rome which I assumed would be the point of the book… unfortunately she completely lost me on her last few chapters where you could feel she was trying to go for something a bit too complicated leaving the reader more lost and perplexed than actually reflecting. But I do have to say once she got into the actually city part I could feel myself book g my ticket back to Rome. Interesting at times but a lot of wasted potential.
coolfoxe's review against another edition
3.5
Lovely but challenging read. Having been to Rome myself, I enjoyed this evocation of it's atmosphere. However, this is not a story or even a journal. It is simply descriptive prose, ranging from retelling stories or lives of notable individuals, history of Roman society and Bowen's own impressions of great swathes of Rome. Difficult to get into, and maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it.
gh7's review
2.0
There was a time when I considered moving to Rome. A friend of mine needed a roommate and I had been in Florence five years. I decided to put it on trial for a week. However, I never managed to strike up a bracing intimacy with the eternal city, no matter how many long walks I took. Often Rome felt to me like a scrapbook of history. Or else a lot of provincial towns meshed together, a sensation perhaps brought about by the small town nature of the river. The Tiber isn't a big city river. Crossing the river at night or in the early hours of the morning in London, Paris, Prague or even Florence is to feel all the confusion within oneself lift, is to be given for a moment wings. On the other hand, it's possible to cross the Tiber without even noticing.
Early on, Bowen takes exception to the concept of the siesta. This surprised me. To my mind the siesta plays a big part in making Italian cities the least neurotic in all of Europe. The siesta often compels you to find nourishment from within. If all the shops are closed you're more likely to be more creative in your time-keeping. Siesta for me is often a time of intimacy, not least of all with oneself. Many of the more frivolous distractions of contemporary life are closed. When I first arrived in Italy the siesta made me realise how neurotic I was. Probably it had the same effect on Bowen except she didn't stay long enough to realise the fault was hers and not the culture's.
Another oddity was she doesn't mention Caravaggio once. (Neither does she mention Michelangelo). One of my top five attractions of Rome was coming across a Caravaggio in a dark dusty church - especially the Madonna in Sant'Agostino. Though Caravaggio had long since been out of favour when Bowen wrote her book here was an opportunity to take issue with one of history's damning and erroneous decrees. That said, neither Keats nor Shelley recognised Caravaggio's wild genius either.
We learn little about Bowen herself in this book. A shame. Instead she strives to be scholarly which mostly bored me. Rome is a place to share with a best friend, not a tour guide. There was a great eight-page magazine article in this book but Bowen was a long way short of inspiration to fill 230 pages.
Early on, Bowen takes exception to the concept of the siesta. This surprised me. To my mind the siesta plays a big part in making Italian cities the least neurotic in all of Europe. The siesta often compels you to find nourishment from within. If all the shops are closed you're more likely to be more creative in your time-keeping. Siesta for me is often a time of intimacy, not least of all with oneself. Many of the more frivolous distractions of contemporary life are closed. When I first arrived in Italy the siesta made me realise how neurotic I was. Probably it had the same effect on Bowen except she didn't stay long enough to realise the fault was hers and not the culture's.
Another oddity was she doesn't mention Caravaggio once. (Neither does she mention Michelangelo). One of my top five attractions of Rome was coming across a Caravaggio in a dark dusty church - especially the Madonna in Sant'Agostino. Though Caravaggio had long since been out of favour when Bowen wrote her book here was an opportunity to take issue with one of history's damning and erroneous decrees. That said, neither Keats nor Shelley recognised Caravaggio's wild genius either.
We learn little about Bowen herself in this book. A shame. Instead she strives to be scholarly which mostly bored me. Rome is a place to share with a best friend, not a tour guide. There was a great eight-page magazine article in this book but Bowen was a long way short of inspiration to fill 230 pages.
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