La bella Lingua : my love affair with Italian, the world's most enchanting language
Becoming Italian
/ Dianne Hales
- 1st ed.
- New York : Broadway Books , 2009.
- 301 p. ; 21 cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [291]-301).
By interspersing interviews and anecdotes from her life in Italy, Hales, an American journalist and health writer (An Invitation to Health), interweaves her story of learning to speak Italian with highlights of the language's development. Hales explores political history, biographies of powerful artistic contributors, the widespread and continued use of local dialects, and, of course, food. Likewise, readers are treated to interviews with the likes of the president of the revered L'Accademia della Crusca, where Hales touched the society's first dictionary, nearly 400 years old. She portrays riveting performances of Dante and Verdi in Rome and Milan, and she describes how she could consistently hear from the mouths of ordinary Italians Dante's or Verdi's beautiful lyrics specifically crafted to be read aloud or sung. A word lover yet not a linguist, Hales offers helpful but not in-depth or technical linguistic background, so the bibliography is valuable. An enthusiastic cultural tour guide and introduction to Italian.