Thursday, August 22, 2013

Book Excerpt for the Day


    Diotallevi and Belbo, both from Piedmont, often claimed that any good Piedmontese had the ability to listen politely, look you in the eye, and say “You think so?” in a tone of such apparent sincerity that you immediately felt his profound disapproval.  I was a barbarian, they used to say: such subtleties would always be lost on me.

    “Barbarian?” I would protest.  “I may have been born in Milan, but my family came from Val d’Aosta.”

    “Nonsense,” they said.  “You can always tell a genuine Piedmontese immediately by his skepticism.”

    “I’m a skeptic.”

    “No, you’re only incredulous, a doubter, and that’s different.”


    (from Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco)

  8*/10.  The complete review is here.
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