A Year In Perugia

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31316, 11 March 1967, Page 4

A Year In Perugia

Pass Stranger. By Dorothea Joblin. Blackwood and Janet Paul. 198 pp.

Thousands of New Zealanders read and enjoyed “Harvey Come Quick,” the biography of a backblocks doctor written by his daughter. Here is another lively book from the same pen. On a' world tour in 1951 Mr and Mrs Joblin found their time in Italy far too short to do and see any more than a fraction of all they wished. On their retirement

in 1963 therefore they decided to return to that country and enrolled as students of the University for Foreigners in Perugia. “Pass Stranger” tells the story of their year in Italy. It is concerned not only with the experience of learning Italian under the excitable and lovable Professors, so highly trained in the University’s famous teaching methods, though this in itself makes fascinating reading. Mrs Joblin also introduces us to her fellow’ students of all types from all countries; she gives an understanding and amusing picture of Italian life and she takes us to different places, creating a vivid impression of each. “Pass Stranger” makes Interesting and Informative reading—one wishes occasionally that the author had either curbed her desire to overload the text with Italian words or had provided an adequate glossary; but this is a small irritation in an otherwise well-written and most enjoyable bok.