martina.pugliese reviewed Pictures from Italy by Nancy Holder (Penguin classics)
Review of 'Pictures from Italy' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
It is always entertaining to read how people of the past have characterised travel in their days. I didn't know Dickens had written a travelogue, so I jumped on the occasion to read it soon as I learned about it.
The great Victorian writer goes around Italy for a year, briefly passing through France, travelling in his carriage with the family and puts down an almost-stream-of-consciousness account of how he perceives places - at traits, he even writes about ghastly dreams!
The perspective is, I found, a bit snob(ish) at times: there's lot of things he doesn't like and he's constantly picking on the poverty, the dirt, the unglamorous expressions of life he sees. However, he manifests great appreciation of the beauty of landscapes and man-made artefacts, so the sentiment is quite balanced between dislike and love. Fun and interesting book to read now.
