{"id":1611,"date":"2016-11-21T11:00:46","date_gmt":"2016-11-21T00:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=1611"},"modified":"2016-11-24T16:54:15","modified_gmt":"2016-11-24T06:24:15","slug":"an-italian-drive-to-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2016\/11\/an-italian-drive-to-work\/","title":{"rendered":"A Very Italian Drive to Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a laugh: an Italian drive to work, according to Vincenzo Cerami’s by turns witty, delightful and vicious\u00a0<\/em>A Very Normal Man<\/a>, translated into English for the first time in 2015 by Isobel Grave.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Giovanni\u2019s 850 was parked at an angle over the footpath outside\u00a0UPIM<\/span>, a big department store. He had to be in the office by\u00a0half past eight. The Ministry was only a short distance from\u00a0Rome\u2019s central station and since Giovanni lived at the far end of\u00a0the Tuscolano district, he would come as far as San Giovanni in\u00a0Laterano, from there he\u2019d cross Piazza Vittorio and then skirt the\u00a0entire length of the station from the regional lines to the terminus.\u00a0Once he\u2019d crossed Piazza Esedra, he was at the Ministry.<\/p>\n

That morning was not the same as all Giovanni\u2019s other\u00a0mornings. Normally he\u2019d be swearing from the second he got\u00a0into his car till he was inside the doors of the Ministry. He\u2019d bawl\u00a0out drivers and pedestrians, lean on the horn furiously, deal out\u00a0vicious abuse to anyone he thought was trying to get in his way,\u00a0rant and rave against everything and everyone\u2014the Council, the\u00a0National Roads Board, the government and the nation.<\/p>\n

But that morning he kept to himself, nice and quiet, and made\u00a0the trip in an orderly manner\u2014no horn blasts left, right and\u00a0centre, no yelling, all traffic signs observed.<\/p>\n

This was behaviour to incense other road users: distorted apefaces\u00a0screamed abuse at him from the small but comprehensive\u00a0morning rush-hour repertoire. Inside his little metallic refuge\u00a0Giovanni was blind, deaf and dumb, oblivious to everything, not\u00a0of this world.<\/p>\n

On either side of him score on score of cheap runabouts ripped\u00a0past at full speed, mounting the curb freely, driving along the\u00a0tramlines, young thugs at the wheel in a breakneck charge, horns\u00a0blaring as if they were delivering road victims to Emergency at\u00a0San Giovanni.<\/p>\n

The old man felt confused. He kept thinking about his son\u00a0and the dream he\u2019d had the night before \u2026<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a><\/p>\n

Read more here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a laugh: an Italian drive to work, according to Vincenzo Cerami’s by turns witty, delightful and vicious\u00a0A Very Normal Man, translated into English for the first time in 2015 by Isobel Grave.   Giovanni\u2019s 850 was parked at … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[466,468,470,469,471,467],"class_list":["post-1611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-extract","tag-a-very-normal-man","tag-isobel-grave","tag-italo-calvino","tag-life-is-beautiful","tag-roberto-benigni","tag-vincenzo-cerami"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4v1Of-pZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1611"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1757,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611\/revisions\/1757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}