Italian family

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32715, 18 September 1971, Page 10

Italian family

The Familv Guareschi. By Giovanni Guareschi. Macdonald. 246 pp. Giovanni Guareschi’s tales of his eccentric family are in the same affectionate irreverent tradition as those of Thurber and Gerald Durrell. Signor Guareschi senior admired 7 three men, Manzoni (an Italian writer, whose praises he extolled “ad nauseam” to the rest of the family), Verdi and Napoleon.'On his only visit to Paris he took a taxi from the station to Napoleon’s tomb, paid his homage, and ignoring the rest of the city, took another taxi back to the station. Guareschi’s wife, Margherita took thirty-five years to knit her husband a dark-green jersey, which she had intended for his wedding day. In his youth, Guareschi himself wore plusfours and chased girls on his bicycle, inadvertently blacking the - faces of those he took home bn the crossbar of his machine, with the efflux from his oil headlight. Not all the stories concern such idiosyncrasies, for the author has the happy knack of extracting humour from everyday things—when a friend points out that because they had no photographs taken, there is nothing to remember their wedding by. Guareschi’s wife points at him and says, "I’ve got him.”

Best known for his Don Camillo books, Giovanni Guareschi has written a previous family expose called, “My Home, Sweet Hime.” “The Family Guareschi" is translated by L. K. Conrad.