An Odyssey
I just got back from a trip to Italy and Greece, where I observed a few interesting international reading habits.
In between touring ancient ruins and dodging the hordes of tiny Smart Cars that are as ubiquitous in Rome as SUVs are here, I noticed immediately that the Twilight series and Angels and Demons are at least as popular in Italy and Greece as they are in the U.S.
The Angels and Demons movie was prominently advertised on billboards all around town, even within thurible-swinging distance from the Vatican. Perhaps the official ban on the filmmakers using Roman churches and the threat of a boycott merely acted as effective marketing tools, or else Romans are particularly rabid Dan Brown fans. Some members of our group especially enjoyed reading the book while we toured sites in the Eternal City mentioned in it, particularly the looming Castel Sant’Angelo.
Equally ubiquitous, especially in Greece, were copies of the Twilight series in all manner of unfamiliar languages. From convenience stores in highway rest areas to flea market stalls to a kiosk in the Athens airport, the books were everywhere.
I was a little surprised, on the other hand, that hardly anybody could be seen reading on trains and buses or in parks or cafes. In a book I’ve been reading called The Dark Heart of Italy, by Tobias Jones, a British transplant to Italy, an interesting idea about this is suggested:
I don’t know whether it’s because of the Reformation, which was iconoclastic and “written,” or because Britain has had, on the whole, the better writers and Italy much superior artists, but Italy is a visual country, Britain a literary one. . . . (V)ery few people read newspapers, even fewer buy or borrow books. A massive percentage of Italian adults don’t read one book a year. To survive, the edicole–the little pavilions on street corners which sell newspapers–have to double as fetish-shops, selling gadgets and videos and soft- to hard-porn magazines alongside the newsprint.
It’s definitely true that there are more beautiful things to look at in Italy than the eye can seem to take in at once, and I was way too distracted to very often pick up the copy of Homer’s Odyssey I’d brought along for some seemingly geographically appropriate reading. Once we got to Greece it was awesome to read a few of the poem’s descriptions of the sea and islands and then look up and see them right there, but more often I was just staring out the window of a train or bus and trying to take in all the incredible sights.
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