Italy Will
WILL HOCHMAN (hochman@uscolo.edu)
Sat, 17 Apr 1999 10:30:44 -0600 (MDT)
Camille, we fly into Rome, take a train to Venice, pick up some Alpha
Romaeos (sp) and drive to villa near Siena. We expect to explore Florence
and the country side, but I really expect to sit in a cafe and drink
espresso and write and read...I've been packing for a while and have to
admit I'm most focussed on books and terrified at not having a puter...I
have a lap top I could bring but my wife has demanded I take a vacation
and that means time out of the screen...here's the reading list (and I
will of course have a notebook and lots of pencils...)
Complete Salinger (paperbacks)
Eugenio Montale Collected Poems l920-l954 (trans by Jon Galassi)
Making Certain It Goes On: The Colleted Poems of Richard Hugo
The Essential Tales of Chekov Edited by Richard Ford
The Granta Book of American Short Story Edited by Richard Ford
The World and Other Places by Jeanette Winterson
Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien
War in VAl D'Orcia by Iris Origo
Lost Illusions by Honore De Balzac
I'm planning to write an essay on Richard Hugo's war poems (he was
stationed in Italy), some short fiction, and a poem a day...
I'm bringing Balzac because I read him so much when I lived in Paris in
l976 and that was the last time I was in Europe...and because I think some
day I will translate the novel into the 20th, err, 21st Century...
My father-in-law has retired from one of NY's largest building companies
and he is taking our whole family on this trip--it's a great gift but I
know the family well and it may be safer in Kosovo so I plan to keep my
nose in a book or in a bowl of pasta as much as possible...
Yes, I'm getting excited and also I'm feeling like one of the things I
will miss most is this list...not goodbye yet but close, will