Times past

In the end we didn’t get out yesterday. Instead our friends rang to say the cold one of them had last week had become worse & the other half had now gone down too. Instead we had another quiet day, watching “Truly Deeply Madly”, a film we’d previously recorded.

We loved this film when it first came out in the 90s but now it’s tinged with pathos. The lead male role is played by Alan Rickman, now dead. It was written & directed by Anthony Minghella, someone the Fox had met at university. This man too has died. We suddenly felt our own age & mortality.

As it was a quiet day I got a bit more reading done. My current novel is “The Watercolourist” by Beatrice Masini. It is in translation from its original Italian. 

I’m struck by what a difference an outlook a history & culture can make. This novel is set in the mid 19^th century in the countryside near Milan. I’m desperately trying to remember my Italian history which is very sketchy of the period. I’m aware the novel is post the Battle of Waterloo, 1815. I’m aware parts of Italy was ruled by Napoleon’s family during Napoleon’s time. I know, too, Italy wasn’t a single country but several.

In the novel there is word of unrest in Milan, of riots among the common people. This seems to have been a common feature throughout Europe at the time. It wasn’t so long after the French Revolution & many governments, especially monarchies, felt vulnerable. It wasn’t helped with bad harvests causing bread & potato shortages, the staples of any diet for the poor.

I’m not sure how to assess these mentions of upsets in Milan, as this is a period & place which I do not know well. Most British history I have some idea of, if not always the detail. I know the direction history took, but not so in Italy. I clearly have to read on to find out.