The second person narrative in An Italian Affair almost seems to highlight the
American/Western-centric feel of the story, despite the author’s attempts to
include the Italian people in characters such as the Italian instructor and
Lucia. Even though we’re not A Room with
A View this time around, the story is still about this American woman. She
is in Italy, she loves Italy, but we
open with a story about her divorce from her husband a year before rather than
anything about Italy itself.
Further, Lucia’s perfect English makes me cock my head.
It’s like we were talking about in Davidson’s class the other day—you have to
be careful what Italian words you sprinkle into your travel writing because you
risk starting to sound like Dora the Explorer. In An Italian Affair, we experience this phenomenon, but with a
curious reversal of roles—it’s the native Italians who sound like Nick Jr, this
time, neatly packaged for the white readers.
I think what strikes me the most is that every Italian
character, no matter how minor, only seems to exist to tell us something about
Laura. This is the self-centered American emerging in the writing—every Italian
has “dark hair” and “dark eyes” and shows up to tell us that Laura’s lonely, or
Laura’s generous, or Laura likes Bob Dylan.
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