Mack
Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
H.V.
Morton: A Traveller in Italy. Dodd, Mead, New York, 1964.
“Cult”
as a preface to any artistic expression is decades out of date as a metaphor;
small groups of people who explore meanings and possibilities in certain films,
books, paintings, or authors are decidedly not cultic in either denotation or connotation.
Patrick
McGoohan’s television series The Prisoner,
for instance, anticipates The Miz Grundy State, and its amusing 60s gadgetry of
plastic cordless phones, lava lamps, and recessed lighting serve as an
ultimately terrifying camouflage for the reality that people are constantly
observed and occasionally executed / murdered among the faux Italianate gardens
and architecture of The Village.
Post-war
Italian cinema attracts the thoughtful – no obedient groupies here either -
because of its brilliant use of limited resources in a conquered, occupied, and
impoverished country.
A
recent garage-sale purchase of H. V. Morton’s A Traveller in Italy led me to consider that curious writer and his
curious career, and his rediscovery – not, please, the development of a cult - in
this century. Mr. Morton was a very
popular journalist and travel writer whose sixty-year career peaked in the
1930s but continued into the 1970s. He
was present for the opening of King Tut’s tomb, and was deputed to cover the
Atlantic conference between Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt
off Newfoundland in 1942.
He
is better known, though, for his chatty travel books. A
Traveller in Italy came late in his career, and does not possess the
surprising depth of In the Steps of Saint
Paul (Dodd, Mead, 1936), but is objectively good in itself as a witty,
gossipy, well-detailed account of his ramblings in Lombardy, Veneto,
Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, and Umbria.
Consider this narrative of the arrival of a bus in a small town:
Ten o’clock is past bedtime in Poppi,
and at that late hour a little group of people sometimes waits in the darkness
for the last bus from Arezzo. It can be
heard some way off in the valley, as it gnashes its teeth and snorts along from
Bibbiena, then it growls menacingly and
seems to pause and gather strength for its uphill putt to the town, where it
arrives fuming. It almost exactly fits
some of the narrow streets, and as it comes to a stop with a belch of rage and
draconian puffs of diesel oil, those inside, led by the village priest, stand
up and, as if performing the same physical exercise, or some religious act,
stretch their arms in unison and lift down suitcases, wicker-baskets, and brown
paper parcels. The priest is the first
to descend, his steel spectacles gleaming, his shovel hat like a ruffled cat, a
large parcel beneath his arm. There is
much kissing of children and cries of welcome; relative and friends, thank God,
are safe within the walls of Poppi again! (534)
How
many writers can make the arrival of a bus so interesting? Mr. Morton is no perpetrator of the I, I, I,
me, me, me, my feelings, my moods, my emotions, my reactions school of
non-thought; he enacts Keats’ negative capability and gives us a moment in
Italy, not an obsession with himself.
Mr.
Morton is a man of his time, not ours, and some of our contemporaries, perhaps
obedient functionaries of The Miz Grundy State, have catalogued some of his
less fortunate statements in order to judge him with an “Aha!” of ex post facto condemnation. This is hardly fair, and, after all, who of
us is comfortable with the reality that some of our giddier babblings are
well-secured in a bunker in Idaho for use when wanted? The fictional Hawkeye’s sexist behavior in
the film version and early telly episodes of M*A*S*H (and what is with those tiresome asterisks?) would now be
cause for court-martial, and John Wayne spanking Maureen O’Hara in McClintock! is decidedly cringe-worthy.
The
reality is that Mr. Morton is never intentionally patronizing, unlike some of
our modern travel writers whose constant theme is the sophomoric mockery of
their fellow tourists and of folks met along the way (a rare exception is the
gentlemanly Bill Bryson). Earlier, even
Goethe lapsed into this in his Italian
Journey. Mr. Morton does have fun,
especially with English, German, and American tourists, but he does not make
them – and thus, us - objects of cruel verbal sport.
A Traveller in
Italy
is nicely indexed in thirteen pages of useful detail, and the bibliography is a
catalogue of travel writing, history, and biography.
Mr.
Morton’s books are found in used-book stores and as new printings on
amazon.com, and there are several online sites and articles (The Telegraph shows no mercy):
