Roman Holiday

Roman Holiday: People just happen to fall in Love here, at least in the picture shows.
Roman Holiday

“Actually he was unable to contend with any sort of reality, and this was his means of protecting himself.”
“Whom I knew.”

There’s not much to say that has already been said and quoted. Shirley Hazzard loves Italy, makes it a character of antiquity and seduction, a carnival atmosphere to extend our unreality and take us farther into the charming deceit of our own investigations and muddle our perceptions of definitions and destinations.

There’s something to be said for trying, even if there’s mutual premonition that nothing’s coming and the results will be the status quo. Sickness and death overtakes the most beautiful parts of us and our life eventually, like a faded fresco or the marble ruins of an ancient empire. Maybe that is the appeal of Italy—warm climate, crumbling temples, dangerous carnivals, a chance to step on top of it all. And view all parts of the machine at once. It seems like a place where generations and civilizations have been lost to time, not to mention the fate of some young couple, who resemble some other young couple, who fell to the charm like plague.

It’s a sickness the human heart’s in love with. Disregard individual failings and time. I don’t think anybody’s safe from Italy, or that anybody wants to be. In our minds we are tempering hope and reality on the evening of our roman holidays.