On the road in middle Europe and back to Genzano, Rome
- Book: Inter Rail
- Location: Europe
- Author: Alessandro Gallenzi
This is the story of Francesco who sets off for a rail tour round Northern Europe, over a 2 1/2 week period and meets the “Monarch of Make-Believe” Pagliaccio-Pierre early on, with whom he spends a bit of time on the road (or, on or off the rails, depending). Two thirds of the book is roughly on the train and the places his Inter Rail pass takes him to, and a third is his mini adventures when he is back home in Genzano, near Rome.
It is a perfectly light read, the Rome episodes capture the feel of the city, however the other places feel like a more cursory visit, whether Lund or England or Amsterdam. I found myself thinking: ah, shades of Kafka, or shades of Sliding Doors or shades of Walter Mitty, but the plot never really ripened into anything that I found to be really enthralling. It mooches along. A few bits of quirky information aloing the way, like discovering what a Theorbo is. Not sure what was going on with the simile of the Colisseum being like a “piece of marble Emmental”, that didn’t quite “speak” to me.
Right at the end the author muses on the notion of Sliding doors..if Kyle had turned up what might have happened way back when? What might have happened if he had gone to Prague instead? Would he have any kids, he muses (and in the very next para he goes on to talk about his actual kids, so it was at this point I thought, heyho, I really am losing my marbles – which I had felt in response to a couple of other non-sequiturs earlier in the book -, but perhaps going bonkers is catching if you spend time with someone like Pierre???).
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