Review: Cynthia Zarin’s In Italy
In Italy by Cynthia Zarin. Daunt Books, 2024. €6.99, 135 pages.
Cynthia Zarin draws an intricate map of Italy, musing on her experiences in various parts of the country through four intimate essays; Serene, Basilica, Roma, and Angels. In Italy documents Zarin’s travels as she gracefully weaves her innermost thoughts and feelings with detailed descriptions of each area’s unique landscape and atmosphere.
Zarin’s first essay of this collection, 'Serene’, greets its reader with a direct opening, “In the first place, it was the wrong time.”, a presumptuous line which provides an excellent sample of what is to come. Zarin’s essays read almost like a diary (if your diary was to be written with the skill and wit of an established poet and writer, of course), the reader is immediately thrust into the depths of Zarin’s mind and inner narrative. Zarin’s attention to detail gifts us a brilliant collection which is brimming with beautiful descriptions of various parts of Italy, while also reflecting on her own personal experiences, connecting the writer with the reader through lyrical prose and exceptional vulnerability.
Within her essays, Zarin incorporates excerpts and quotes from various works of which she has read, adding a depth of detail to her already impressive essays that lends this collection an extremely engaging and clever edge. Whilst describing visiting Venice in the summertime, Zarin references Petrarch who “described the Piazza San Marco as so crowded that if you dropped a grain of millet there it would never reach the pavement.”, and then later refers to this again while musing on a personal quandary writing of her “inability to keep track of a thought a sensible person would heed – a grain of millet blown over San Marco, which, left to fall into the canal, swells and bursts?”. Zarin’s ability to intertwine her physical and temporal experiences not only with her feelings and disposition but also with other various texts is outrageously charming and impressive.
Zarin’s remunerations on these spaces are relatable – even for someone who has never visited them. My personal favourite essay being ‘Roma’ in which Zarin begins by reflecting on the writings of Elizabeth Bowen from the same place, discussing love and its many tribulations, “Her account of her time in Rome ends with the coda of impossible love, a ribbon of skywriting, ‘My darling, my darling, here we have on abiding city.’ But what is love and who is we? And where? For if all roads lead to Rome, they begin there, too.”. My favourite part of this essay, however, comes later when Zarin illustrates the San Giovanni di Dio market. Zarin considered buying plums and strawberries from one of the sellers but resists as she knows that they will wilt in her warm room before she has a chance to eat them. This interaction leads to my favourite lines in the entire collection, “As nothing lasts. Or does it? There comes a point when one realises that almost everything in Rome has been recycled, reused, remodelled.”, I love the sentiment that despite all things having an end point, in a way they also do not; matter is neither created or destroyed.
Despite all of its endearing qualities, this collection is not for everyone. Zarin’s essays are engaging, though they do not include a particularly gripping storyline, it is the style of these essays that really pushes this collection to great heights. Because of its nature as a collection of narrative essays, if you are not someone who cares greatly for detailed reflective and descriptive writing, I would not recommend this collection to you. However, if you enjoy seeing places through new perspectives, and can appreciate clever and lyrical prose, it certainly is for you. This collection is also relatively short which lends it to be an excellent impromptu read for those looking for inspiration! In Italy is personal, relatable, probing, and altogether brilliant.
