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A review by liralen
Amore: An American Father's Roman Holiday by Roger Friedland
3.0
Some men have affairs with women, Friedland says on the first page. I fell in love with a city.
And that's certainly the sense I got from the book -- that it is a love letter to Rome disguised as a sociological examination of the differences between Rome/Italy and the U.S...in turn disguised as a memoir.
Friedland, who had travelled extensively and lived in cities across the globe, leapt at the chance to spend two years in Italy with his wife and teenage daughters. He'd lived in Rome before, spoke Italian, and had only positive memories of the city; as both a sociologist and a parent, he felt that Rome's norms were healthier than those he saw in the U.S. (He cites Italy-wide statistics but mostly talks about Rome; when talking about the U.S., he usually speaks generally but often cites cities such as L.A. for comparison.) Although it might be a stretch to say that he explicitly pits one place against the other, it is very clear that he thinks that Rome wins on almost every count. Take his description of women in Rome: Roman women don't cover or bind themselves; they amplify their erotic allure, showing off their breasts, their bottoms, their legs. Women still dress and walk to turn a male eye (xii). Then take his description of girls in L.A.: At my niece's high school graduation in Los Angeles, I witnessed a long parade of low-cut blouses, short side-slit skirts, heavy makeup, pumped-up heels, and teased-up hair. Things are pretty bad, I told my eighty-something mother, when you can't tell the difference between the daughters of the literate bourgeoisie and the hookers who work the corners nearby (xvii).
It's interesting. Wildly subjective, despite all the research and statistics he cites. When it comes down to it, he tells very little of his family's time in Rome, focusing the memoir angle more on his own youth and delving far more deeply into his perspective of Rome.
It's also hard to take in places. Friedland recalls growing up in a time when there were girls you dated seriously (the 'good' girls) and girls you dated casually and hooked up with (the 'bad' girls) -- She was wonderful, he says of one of the latter, but she was not the kind of girl I wanted a long-term relationship with (144). Decades later, he is still teaching his own daughters that there are good girls and bad girls and don't worry, the good girls always win; decades later, he is still romanticising the role of woman as wife and mother. Some of his interpretations seem suspect (although I am not a sociologist, or an academic, and have not read his sources) -- he cites, without apparent reservation, a very likely flawed* statistic about gay men in the 70s (158); he seems to think that Italy has one over the U.S. because 70% of Italian rape survivors were assaulted by a partner (232), ignoring the fact that statistics are comparable in the U.S. (U.S. statistics are for known assailants rather than intimate partners -- but either way, we're talking a majority of non-strangers...and can we talk about the implication that it's somehow not as 'bad' to be assaulted by a partner?).
I don't know. He's a good writer, no question. It's possible that I am coming down harder on this book than I might otherwise because the U.S. culture he describes is so alien to the one I experienced. I have not been to Rome; I cannot compare. But if you were reading this as an introduction to the U.S., I think you'd come away with the impression that the youth of the U.S. are going at it like bunnies from a very young age, that violence is everywhere, that romance is completely and utterly dead. (You also might think that Rome was a modern-day Eden, at least for an adult man.) And I cannot take seriously any book that that paints Edward Cullen in a positive (sparkly?) light (213).
But what makes me think most is the follow-up with his daughters at the end. Friedland is almost apologetic about it, saying that It is awkward, even painful, to reveal all this at the end of my paean to Rome, to mar the pretty picture (361). But I wonder what the book would have looked like if he hadn't felt the need to paint such a pretty picture in the first place, if he didn't feel the need to explain things away with a 'well, here, boys will be boys' attitude. He challenges the reader with new information and new things to process; I'm not so sure he wants to challenge his own view of Rome.
*Ideally I'd find a more academic source about this, but at the moment I'm content with just raising a skeptical eyebrow.
I received a free copy of this book via a Goodreads giveaway.
And that's certainly the sense I got from the book -- that it is a love letter to Rome disguised as a sociological examination of the differences between Rome/Italy and the U.S...in turn disguised as a memoir.
Friedland, who had travelled extensively and lived in cities across the globe, leapt at the chance to spend two years in Italy with his wife and teenage daughters. He'd lived in Rome before, spoke Italian, and had only positive memories of the city; as both a sociologist and a parent, he felt that Rome's norms were healthier than those he saw in the U.S. (He cites Italy-wide statistics but mostly talks about Rome; when talking about the U.S., he usually speaks generally but often cites cities such as L.A. for comparison.) Although it might be a stretch to say that he explicitly pits one place against the other, it is very clear that he thinks that Rome wins on almost every count. Take his description of women in Rome: Roman women don't cover or bind themselves; they amplify their erotic allure, showing off their breasts, their bottoms, their legs. Women still dress and walk to turn a male eye (xii). Then take his description of girls in L.A.: At my niece's high school graduation in Los Angeles, I witnessed a long parade of low-cut blouses, short side-slit skirts, heavy makeup, pumped-up heels, and teased-up hair. Things are pretty bad, I told my eighty-something mother, when you can't tell the difference between the daughters of the literate bourgeoisie and the hookers who work the corners nearby (xvii).
It's interesting. Wildly subjective, despite all the research and statistics he cites. When it comes down to it, he tells very little of his family's time in Rome, focusing the memoir angle more on his own youth and delving far more deeply into his perspective of Rome.
It's also hard to take in places. Friedland recalls growing up in a time when there were girls you dated seriously (the 'good' girls) and girls you dated casually and hooked up with (the 'bad' girls) -- She was wonderful, he says of one of the latter, but she was not the kind of girl I wanted a long-term relationship with (144). Decades later, he is still teaching his own daughters that there are good girls and bad girls and don't worry, the good girls always win; decades later, he is still romanticising the role of woman as wife and mother. Some of his interpretations seem suspect (although I am not a sociologist, or an academic, and have not read his sources) -- he cites, without apparent reservation, a very likely flawed* statistic about gay men in the 70s (158); he seems to think that Italy has one over the U.S. because 70% of Italian rape survivors were assaulted by a partner (232), ignoring the fact that statistics are comparable in the U.S. (U.S. statistics are for known assailants rather than intimate partners -- but either way, we're talking a majority of non-strangers...and can we talk about the implication that it's somehow not as 'bad' to be assaulted by a partner?).
I don't know. He's a good writer, no question. It's possible that I am coming down harder on this book than I might otherwise because the U.S. culture he describes is so alien to the one I experienced. I have not been to Rome; I cannot compare. But if you were reading this as an introduction to the U.S., I think you'd come away with the impression that the youth of the U.S. are going at it like bunnies from a very young age, that violence is everywhere, that romance is completely and utterly dead. (You also might think that Rome was a modern-day Eden, at least for an adult man.) And I cannot take seriously any book that that paints Edward Cullen in a positive (sparkly?) light (213).
But what makes me think most is the follow-up with his daughters at the end. Friedland is almost apologetic about it, saying that It is awkward, even painful, to reveal all this at the end of my paean to Rome, to mar the pretty picture (361). But I wonder what the book would have looked like if he hadn't felt the need to paint such a pretty picture in the first place, if he didn't feel the need to explain things away with a 'well, here, boys will be boys' attitude. He challenges the reader with new information and new things to process; I'm not so sure he wants to challenge his own view of Rome.
*Ideally I'd find a more academic source about this, but at the moment I'm content with just raising a skeptical eyebrow.
I received a free copy of this book via a Goodreads giveaway.