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Living on One's Wits
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16396 |
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BOOK WORLD
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5 / 1989 |
2,574 Words |
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John H. Fund
John H. Fund is an editorial writer for the Wall Street
Journal. |
PLAYING AWAY
Roman Holidays and Other Mediterranean Encounters
Michael Mewshaw
New York: Atheneum, 1988
234 pp.; $18.95
A good modern-day travel writer is far more than someone whose major selling point is telling you which foreign hotels have American-sized ice cubes. To give a true look at a distant land's cultural footprints, the sophisticated travel writer must be something of a scholar, combining the skills of navigator, geologist, botanist, meteorologist, naturalist, mechanic, historian, cartographer, pharmacist, detective, novelist, snob, humorist, mimic, and stamp collector. In short, he needs a passing knowledge of just about everything.
Michael Mewshaw, a novelist and prize-winning investigative journalist, competently fills that role. For the past several years, he has written a monthly "Letter from Rome" in European Travel and Life magazine, describing his varied experiences. Now he has published his pieces in a charming collection titled Playing Away, a bemused American's look at life along the Mediterranean shoreline.
Mewshaw is a stylish writer and a deft anecdoteur. His discussions of everyday life, his often hilarious misencounters with Italians, and his description of the Tuscany countryside give the reader unfamiliar with Italy a vivid introduction to that country--and the old Italian hand, a sentimental journey through familiar haunts.
The
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