Sicilian Odyssey (National Geographic Directions)

Hardcover - 01 March, 2003 - National Geographic
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By: Francine Prose
ISBN: 0792265351

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About this book

Francine Prose might well find herself on one of those lists of oddly appropriate congruency between name and occupation. Indeed the prolific writer has demonstrated an enviable versatility in her witty fictional works and journalistic forays. Yet at her best, her voice is far from prosaic, conveying the distilled, sympathetic wisdom of the unfaltering observer. That characteristic pervades her treasurably evocative, literary travel memoir Sicilian Odyssey--part of the ongoing National Geographic Directions Series. A few months after the trauma of 9-11, Prose embarked with her husband on a trip to Sicily "partly to discover what this island has learned and can teach us about the triumph of beauty over violence, of life over death." She colorfully invokes the profuse legends and myths linked with Sicily (Homer’s "Island of the Sun" where Odysseus washed ashore) as a classical backdrop to her own odyssey, which at times in fact assumes the character of a trip back to a timeless, pre-modern way of life.

Prose is especially effective at threading into her narrative fascinating items of reference—artistic, historical, and sociopolitical—without appearing didactic. She packs an extraordinary amount of information into her account: art historical observations (including a trenchant interpretation of Caravaggio’s disturbing "The Burial of St. Lucy"), the spectacle of religious ecstatics, accounts of culinary traditions, political intrigue, and memorable character sketches of people engaged in everyday habits, with the novelist’s touch for the telling detail. Throughout, Prose is keen to capture Sicily’s vacillating moods—its cheerful colors as well as its melancholy strain—as a place that "has seen countless cycles of violence and peace, of poverty and prosperity, of horror and beauty"—and yet embodies humanity’s will to survive. As the ultimate travel guide, her prose conveys the sights, sounds, smells, and sense of the place with vicarious finesse. --Thomas May

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Reviews by readers

A concise and insightful view of Sicily

Novelist Francine Prose's slim but not slight book is filled with insights and evocative appreciation of the often-invaded island of Sicily and its hybrid art and cuisine. Her book provides a good introduction to Sicily, and also provides many interesting reflections for those who have visited the island and are familiar with the literature about it.

_Sicilian Odyssey_ lacks the familiarity based on long-time residence underlying Peter Robb's involuted and near-desparing _Midnight in Sicily_ , Daphne Phelps's The Most Beautiful House in Sicily, or Mary Taylor Simeti's _On Persephone's Island_. Prose's travel book is, however, much better informed than Lawrence Durrell's entertaining _Sicilian Carousel_, but there are not any characters as vivid in Prose's book as some of those in the other books I've mentioned.

I think that Prose's book is a useful introduction to Sicily that also contains much of interest to those with previous experience of Sicily and the writings about it in English.

She writes acutely about food (rightly summing up that "if freshness [of ingredients] is the hallmark of Sicilian cuisine, subtlety is not").and art and architecture, with insightful bits of appreciation of Sicilian writers and photographers and of what Caravaggio did while on Sicily. Also, her photographs (reproduced in black-and-white) are sharp and well illustrate some of the points in her text.

no Jan Morris

It is hard to top Bill Marsano's devastating review. I didn't find the writing that bad, but it certainly wasn't compelling. There is a certain laziness here. But I enjoyed the book anyway, because I was on vacation when I read it, and I love Italy. Two and a half stars to three stars is about right. So if you're in the mood for light fare, sort of like cold pizza, read Sicilian Odyssey. And Bill Marsano's comments about travel writing are dead on.

For a Good Time, Don't Call Francine

By Bill Marsano. This is a small book but a large achievement. In less than 40,000 words (about one-third the length of the average novel) Francine Prose commits almost every sin in, as the say, the book. It can't have been easy.

Prose is a novelist of some reputation, chosen probably because the editor thinks novelists are Real Writers who will lend credibility to travel writing, which is, after all, journalism's sandbox. (Also because they know travel books by novelists are routinely over-praised.)

Prose's passion for Sicily is dubious. Although she claims often and unconvincingly that she wishes to be re-born a Sicilian, she has visited but once before--10 years ago. Such devotion is a little on the cool side, is it not?

Does she have some insights to ipart? Indeed, she tells us traffic in Palmermo is 'homicidal'; that Catanians love sweets immoderately; that Sicilian life 'burns at a high heat'; that the Ancient Greeks wouldn't recognize Sicily today; the Sicilian food is not subtle; that Sicilians have a gift for overcoming tragedy that is specifically their own. Her silly comments on the Sicilian aristocracy are at least mildly amusing.

And her writing is both awful and lazy. She writes in the present tense--the lazy way of getting to the bottom of the page, of getting it over with, with a minimum of effort. ("Name" writers love book assignments like this because they pay well, but their work ethic often deserts them. They think they're on vacation.) Like so many other bad travel writers, Prose is short of imagination: She can't get past the first graf without reaching for "magical," the travel hack's favorite word.

She piles up words instead of really writing. For example, when she wants to tell us that 'many pilgrims in a religious procession carry candles' (that's eight words) she says instead that they "carry long yellow candles they will light in the course of their peregrination around the holy sites associated with the saint scattered through the old quarter" (that's twenty-six). What we want from a writer is some electricity in the words, some vigor, some sign of delight in mastery of language. Prose gives us prose, not poetry--drab, bloated, prosaic prose, comma-crippled and tedious.

She uses crutches so often I began counting them. Eternally indecisive, she says 'seems' more than 60 times, occasionally switching to 'perhaps,' 'almost,' 'maybe' and 'a little like.' She finds things 'disturbing' nine times and also leans on 'perilous,' 'upsetting,' 'alarming' and 'spooky.' Well of course: The Real Writer does NOT enjoy herself, especially because she is in Sicily "to discover what this island has learned and can teach us about the triumph of beauty over violence of life over death." (Really?)

Prose often mentions 9/11 as if she were the only one affected by it. She experiences "panic" at an old castle and again while planning to visit Mozia, a tiny island a few yards off the coast: ". . . what if the fisherman who ferries us out there gets distracted and forgets about us, and we're stuck out there all night? What if we're stranded, exposed to the elements, alone with the spirits of the Phoenician traders who first came to Mozia in the eighth century B.C. and who lived in harmony with their Greek neighbors until the Carthaginian wars, when Dionysius the Elder of Syracuse, using catapults, missiles and battering rams--state-of-the-art tools of fourth-century warfare--destroyed the settlement and much of its population?"

What if, indeed. This is drama-queen panic--she's still in her hotel. If stranded, she can just return to the island's museum and tell the attendant. And why on earth would she write or commit such a gross and clumsy sentence to begin with?

Apart from the awful writing, Prose misquotes Goethe and commits numerous grammatical and spelling errors. Everyone connected with this shabby performance should be embarrassed, copy editor included.--Bill Marsano is a professional magazine editor and an award-winning travel writer.

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