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Pagan Holiday

Pagan Holiday. Perrottet on Italy. Jupiter’s Panorama. Imaginative comparisons right from the start: “It must have been like a film premiere at Cannes.” (3) Popular images of starts, paparazzi transformed into “throngs of excited spectators [filing] their way into Rome”

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Pagan Holiday

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  1. Pagan Holiday Perrottet on Italy

  2. Jupiter’s Panorama • Imaginative comparisons right from the start: “It must have been like a film premiere at Cannes.” (3) • Popular images of starts, paparazzi transformed into “throngs of excited spectators [filing] their way into Rome” • For total chaos, hard to beat a crowd bent on seeing movie stars • Is he totally accurate? Perhaps.. Reasonably accurate

  3. The Pompeii McDonald’s • Title gives us several images to consider • Some today are anti fast-food • Others think fast-food in Italy, land of great food, is a crime • Others have the idea in our minds of Italy as a quaint, old place • Finally, what could the lava-covered ruins of Pompeii have to do with a modern chain of hamburger restaurants?

  4. Techniques--Hook • “Scusi,” my girlfriend, Lesley, was asking anyone who would listen, “where are the penises?” • More crazy juxtapositions: why would his girlfriend be asking such a question? Why would she sound so desperate? • Instead, they’re on an ancient “phallic trail.” (8) Though “dazed by the summer heat,” they’re curious enough to go the extra mile..

  5. Pompeii

  6. Pompeii as initial doorway to past? • “There was only one problem—the hordes.” (10) • Here’s a big issue with all modern tourism: you want to see famous things, but… so does everyone else • “Tour groups from every nation on earth were storming down the cobbled streets, their guides waving yellow flags like military mascots and bellowing facts in a babel of tongues.” (10) • Any sense of recapturing the past is problematized

  7. Pompeii World • “I was feeling no closer to the ancients here than when I looked at their statues in museums, cold marble busts with eyes hollow and blank, and not a shred of personality.” 10 • “Of course, I’d expected the Mediterranean to be popular, particularly in summer—but the reality was still a shock.” • “.. Just when I thought things couldn’t get much worse—Les had a hunger attack.” (11)

  8. New Pompeii • Seems like an abandoned spaghetti Western back lot • Siesta time is a culture shock for the Perrottets • “Restaurants were firmly shuttered” • But! The Golden Arches of McDonald’s… beckon • “It was open. I hadn’t passed beneath the yellow M for 15 years, but Ronald’s nose was shining like the Holy Grail.” (11)

  9. Reality • Despite P’s best intentions, at 4pm in New Pompeii, McDonald’s is an awfully nice choice. • McDonald’s as Holy Grail—coveted prize at the end of a long day’s archaeological tour • Irony: this is where it’s happening in this town • “If you couldn’t get some historical perspective in the Pompeii McDonald’s, I thought, where could you? (12) • “It slowly began to dawn on me that the ancient world survived in strange and subtle ways.” 12

  10. Travel as Pleasure • Modern travelers might be penniless backpackers • In Ancient times, they were rich. • (Note: those on the Grand Tour were wealthy too) • Aristocrats, “conquerors on tour”, worst problem: ennui! (17) • By traveling, they made use of their time

  11. The Once and Future Tourist Trail • Then as now, the tourist trail starts in Italy • The Ancients: gone 2-5 years at a time! • Followed similar paths; “wanted to behold the beacons of their own culture.” (22) • NB: we do the same thing today • Samuel Johnson: if you didn’t see the famous sights, you’d suffer inferiority! • Italy: some 36 millions tourists a year • “Which is why, perversely enough, many of us have avoided [the hot-spots] all our lives.” (23)

  12. Perrottet as Contrast • He’d seen everything else, but not the Med • (Too many years of classical study in Australia) • Wants to see the Med “fresh” • No terror or squalor, however….. • Regular Roman tourists had many hardships • Horace: “Because of the drinking water, which was horrible, I declare my belly a public enemy..” (28) Foreshadowing.. • Comfortable hostelries for officials some 25 miles apart (30), but..

  13. Interesting Tidbits • Bad lodging the Romans’ #1 complaint (31) • Had to learn to be flexible for life on the road • Had to accept “tourist traps” • Lucian’s Sex Tour: The Aphrodite of Knidos (coast of Turkey), most provocative statue of a woman up to that point (32) • To see the statue, they have to put up with junk vendors (cf. Assisi!)

  14. All Roads Lead from Rome • Love/hate relationship with their vibrant, chaotic city: who wouldn’t want to leave? • P. can’t sleep through the symphony of traffic • Cf. Juvenal, AD100: “Insomnia is the main cause of death in Rome!” (42) • Les: “This will get you in training for fatherhood!” • Despite it all, Rome is so beautiful he can’t take it in, wants to capture ALL of it

  15. Contrasts • P. sees today’s Rome as a “soothing watercolor” in contrast to being back “home” in NYC (44)

  16. Humor • Ancient Rome = NY • Editor (head of gladiatorial school, decides whether it was worth it to keep a wounded fighter alive) = today’s publishers (47) • Model of Ancient Rome= images it as Luke Skywalker speeding through canyons • Spins around in a frenzy, “following an obsessive regime of ruin visiting” • Les wonders: is he crazy? Can’t we go to the café instead? (53)

  17. The Hedonism Coast

  18. Bay of Naples= Ultimate Playground • Marbled, frescoed mansions • Vice = unavoidable, weeks of sun • And tourists! • Never mind Vesuvius • Death/pleasure • Grace Kelly- Ripley • Beautiful, dangerous • Goethe: See Naples • …and die!

  19. Napoli, MuseoNazionale

  20. No Hedonism for the Perrottets • Arrival at broken-down train station (70) • Where is the “Crater of Luxury”? • Pickpockets = overfed vultures • Arrival in a new town = always difficult! • No plans, at Neapolitans’ mercy • Hotel Casanova, shady overtones, but : • “Solid Italian name,” I said, shrugging. (71)

  21. Modern Naples • Dense population, all on Vespas (72) • Red lights as decorations • Hotel = chthonic gloom (underworld) • “You want the room for the whole night?” • The Hotel Hades (Cf Aristophanes’ character content to avoid bedbugs) • Landlady= Marlon Brando voice (more foreshadowing—this can’t go well) (74) • Nosy, ever-present landlady, capisce? • (cf Thutmose, the landlady haunts this section)

  22. Contrasting Naples • Restful, sedate, writers’ retreat • Virgil composes The Aeneid, about the Trojan warrior who travels to Italy and becomes the Roman’s ancestor (77) • Publishing houses, libraries, poetry contests • Today’s Naples= the ancient port of Puteoli, full of sleazy bars and dangerous troublemakers

  23. Cosmic Balances • “You have to pay!!!” • Good dinners and free limoncello

  24. The Lost Baiae • Scuba diving: countless delays, excuse of poor weather • P. finally gets into the Mediterranean • Reward of mosaics, evocation of another time • Poet Martial on his wife: “She came to town Penelope and left Helen of Troy”

  25. Capri • Warned by landlady NOT to go (92) • Too beautiful to be true • Too confident in their hydrofoil reservation • Desperate, take the last available room • For Horace, “everything that could go wrong did” • “Strangely comforting” • “I was really following the Romans’ footsteps now” (101)

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