Read La Passione How Italy Seduced the World Dianne Hales 9780451499165 Books
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A jubilant celebration of Italy’s outsize impact on culture, from literature to art, music to movies, that “masterfully examines the multitude of reasons why so many people fall in love with Italy and the Italian lifestyle” (Forbes)
Can you imagine painting without Leonardo, opera without Verdi, fashion without Armani, food without the signature tastes of pasta, gelato, and pizza.?The first universities, first banks, first public libraries? All Italian.
New York Times bestselling author Dianne Hales attributes these landmark achievements to la passione italiana, a primal force that stems from an insatiable hunger to discover and create; to love and live with every fiber of one's being. This fierce drive, millennia in the making, blazes to life in the Sistine Chapel, surges through a Puccini aria, deepens a vintage Brunello, and rumbles in a gleaming Ferrari engine.
Our ideal tour guide, Hales sweeps readers along on her adventurous quest for the secrets of la passione. She swims in the playgrounds of mythic gods, shadows artisanal makers of chocolate and cheese, joins in Sicily’s Holy Week traditions, celebrates a neighborhood Carnevale in Venice, and explores pagan temples, vineyards, silk mills, movie sets, crafts studios, and fashion salons. She introduces us, through sumptuous prose, to unforgettable Italians, historical and contemporary, all brimming with the greatest of Italian passions—for life itself.
A lyrical portrait of a spirit as well as a nation, La Passione appeals to the Italian in all our souls, inspiring us to be as daring as Italy’s gladiators, as eloquent as its poets, as alluring as its beauties, and as irresistible as its lovers.
Praise for La Passione
“[An] effervescent love letter to all things Italian.”—Newsday
“In this sweeping account of la passione italiana from ancient to modern times, Dianne Hales shows once again why she is one the world’s foremost guides to the riches of Italian culture. Every page resonates with the author’s love for Italy and her joy in sharing its remarkable discoveries and exquisite pleasures with her readers.” —Joseph Luzzi, author of My Two Italies and In a Dark Wood
“Hales takes us on an enriching and delightful journey, filled with fascinating characters, scintillating sensual details, and an authentic connection to the ever-inspiring Italian heart and soul that has given the world boundless pleasures.” —Susan Van Allen, author of 100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go
Read La Passione How Italy Seduced the World Dianne Hales 9780451499165 Books
"Dianne Hales has a unique ability to express in words the Italian essence. Just as in La Bella Lingua, she captures the Italian Spirit...For Italians, passion is the grist of life. Dianne gives new insights into how this passion has made Italians and Italian culture as wonderful as it is today. I couldn’t have enjoyed this book more."
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La Passione How Italy Seduced the World Dianne Hales 9780451499165 Books Reviews :
La Passione How Italy Seduced the World Dianne Hales 9780451499165 Books Reviews
- The Dianne Hales Effect
Definition
the sudden urge to pause reading a book by Dianne Hales for just enough time to
--listen to an aria from "a ruggedly handsome composer" named Giuseppe Verdi, i.e., La Traviata, which “has been performed somewhere in the world every single night for the last hundred years;â€
--watch an old black and white Italian film starring an actress named Anna Magnani, who was “the she-wolf mother†living symbol of Rome who “acted as naturally as she breathed;†and
-- google a work of art like the “sinuously suggestive Bacchus†by Michelangelo or a piece by premier Venetian artist Lucio Bubacco, who “breaths sensual passion into glass.â€
Having experienced the Dianne Hales Effect in both La Bella Lingua and Mona Lisa, I wondered if the author could again work her magic in her newly released LA PASSIONE.
She did not disappoint.
Michelangelo, Verdi, Lucio Bubacco, and Anna Magnani are just a few of a wide array of characters brought to life in LA PASSIONE, in an intriguing, sizzling and, at the same time, meticulously researched way that only Hales can pull off.
Do yourself a favor — get a delicious dose of la passione italiana by reading Hales’ new book. And tell your friends and family to read it as well. They’ll thank you …. - Dianne Hales has a unique ability to express in words the Italian essence. Just as in La Bella Lingua, she captures the Italian Spirit...For Italians, passion is the grist of life. Dianne gives new insights into how this passion has made Italians and Italian culture as wonderful as it is today. I couldn’t have enjoyed this book more.
- In "La Passione, author, Dianne Hales, takes us on a journey, tracing the histories of a multitude of Italian arts, products, customs, and personalities to illustrate how they all sprang from the Italian notion of "la passione" - the deep-rooted, sometimes incomprehensible, sometimes over-the-top characteristic that is the kernel at the center of it all.
If you love Italy, you will undoubtedly enjoy reading this book. If you appreciate the Italian sensibility when it comes to living life, you will learn even more about why that is and come away with a deeper understanding about why your appreciation is so utterly (imo) warranted.
The thing that surprised me most about this book was that I could not put it down. Hales gives exactly readers what is needed to illustrate where "la passione" fits in to each category with an economy of words. For me, each chapter was a new present to unwrap - from ancient Rome, to Saints, to the Renaissance, to food, wine, the cinema, and fashion - I was thoroughly engrossed. I even found the chapter on Italian cars (cars are not a big interest of mine) to be utterly fascinating.
I love fashion, so the Fontana sisters came as a huge and delightful surprise (I had not known of them before). I love opera, but knew little about the wild and crazy lives of the people who invented, and then perfected, that art form. Pavarotti as well!
That said, I often wished that some of the chapters had included more, but I actually think that is due to my enjoyment of the author's delightful writing more than anything.
For example, the chapter on cars, a subject which I've never held much interest, was so interesting in Hales' hands that I wanted to know more. Much of the chapter concerns Enzo Ferrari, and I found him so interesting that I was sad not to learn as much about the founders of the other legendary Italian car companies, FIAT, Lamborghini and Maserati. Perhaps it is because I know so little about them that I wanted to know a bit more, but I also know that choices had to made in order to keep the length of this book under control (the economy I mentioned before).
Perhaps that criticism is more about my own feeling of never getting my fill of Italy than it is about the book itself which I loved in same the way I love a page-turner of a novel. It is undoubtedly true that every chapter in this book could easily be a whole book unto itself.
Fortunately, there is a wonderfully large bibliography at the end. I am already reading "Puccini Without Excuses" and waiting for "Verdi with a Vengeance" to arrive. And Dante's Divine Comedy would probably on my list, too, if Dante had be able to write with the economy of words that Hales does. LOL! I've tried reading that a couple of times and failed, so Hales "Dante in an Chapter" was both satisfying and incentivizing.
This book is about Italy.
It is unapologetically and unabashedly about all things Italian that arose from the "passione" engrained in simply being of Italy.
And I loved reading it. - That Dianne Hales is passionate about Italy is clear. La Passione, however, did not convince me that Italy has seduced the world. The beginning of the book is about Hales’ passion; she certainly likes being passionate about Italy! The book then moves on to Italy’s history in a chatty, informative, but not deep way. Similar to the overview a friend may give you on a topic they love. Hales then goes on to examine various “passions†of the Italians – romance, art, lace and other handmade crafts, food, wine, opera, movies, Ferrari, and fashion.
Overall, I guess I just didn’t enjoy Hales’ apparent attempt to convince me that her passion for Italy should be / is a universal passion. Certainly others, myself included, have found other countries to be passionate about. For example, I enjoyed Mary Norris’ Greek To Me Adventures of the Comma Queen, about, obviously Greece (not just the Greek language). Norris expresses her passion in her enthrallment with her topic, rather than continuously telling us how much Greece is both passionate and worthy of the reader’s passion. For those with a passion for Italy, you will likely enjoy La Passione more than I do. It also offers a reasonable, very readable introduction to someone heading there for vacation who is looking for something other than (or in addition to) the standard guidebook. For that, it earns 4 stars from me.
But that’s JustMe.
