Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere

by Morris, Jan

• ISBN13: 9780306811807
• ISBN10: 0306811804
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-09-04
• Publisher: Da Capo Pr

Summary

Here's a book for lovers of all things Italian. This city on the Adriatic has always tantalized Jan Morris with its moodiness and changeability. After visiting Trieste for more than half a century, she has come to see it as a touchstone for her interests and preoccupations: cities, seas, empires. It has even come to reflect her own life in its loves, disillusionments, and memories. Her meditation on the place is characteristically layered with history and sprinkled with stories of famous visitors from James Joyce to Sigmund Freud. A lyrical travelogue, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere is also superb cultural history and the culmination of a singular career-"an elegant and bittersweet farewell" (Boston Globe).

Author Biography

Jan Morris has written more than thirty books of travel, history, and autobiography, including Manhattan 1945 and The World of Venice. Her novel Last Letters from Hav was a finalist for the Booker Prize. She lives in Wales.

Table of Contents

Prologue An Angel Passes

``That half real, half-imagined seaport''

A City Down the Hill

``Surreal, hypochondriac, subliminal? Surely not''

Preferring a Blur

``For the drifter it is just right''

Remembering Empires

``Seductive illusions of permanence''

Only the Band Plays On

``I can hear the music still, but all the rest is phantom''

Origins of a Civic Style

``Because---well, because of the Trieste effect''

Sad Questions of Oneself

``The officers have turned in their saddles to see what is happening''

Trains on the Quays

``Far away from where? Exile is no more than absence''

One Night at the Risiera

``Their spirit, diffused but inherent, like a gene in the chromosome''

Borgello, Kofric, Slokovich and Blotz

``I can't make out the colour of Trieste, but it looks sort of orangy''

The Nonsense of Nationality

``If race is a fraud, nationality is a cruel pretence''

Love and Lust

``When I think of Trieste, love and lust, I often think of him''

The Wild Side

``A lifelong aspirant anarchist''

The Biplane and the Steamer

``The wind blew and the dog barked, but by teatime I was back in Trieste''

What's It For?

``He potters around the house. He tinkers with this hobby and that''

After My Time

``A virility that has come too late for me''

The Capital of Nowhere

``A diaspora of their own''

Epilogue Across My Grave

``As we used to say at the cinema, this is where we came in''