Pagan Holiday

Perrottet on Italy

Jupiter’s Panorama• Imaginative comparisons right from the start:

“It must have been like a film premiere at Cannes.” (3)

• Popular images of starts, paparazzi transformed into “throngs of excited spectators [filing] their way into Rome”

• For total chaos, hard to beat a crowd bent on seeing movie stars

• Is he totally accurate? Perhaps.. Reasonably accurate

The Pompeii McDonald’s

• Title gives us several images to consider• Some today are anti fast-food• Others think fast-food in Italy, land of great

food, is a crime• Others have the idea in our minds of Italy as a

quaint, old place• Finally, what could the lava-covered ruins of

Pompeii have to do with a modern chain of hamburger restaurants?

Techniques--Hook

• “Scusi,” my girlfriend, Lesley, was asking anyone who would listen, “where are the penises?”

• More crazy juxtapositions: why would his girlfriend be asking such a question? Why would she sound so desperate?

• Instead, they’re on an ancient “phallic trail.” (8) Though “dazed by the summer heat,” they’re curious enough to go the extra mile..

Pompeii

Pompeii as initial doorway to past?• “There was only one problem—the hordes.” (10)• Here’s a big issue with all modern tourism: you

want to see famous things, but… so does everyone else

• “Tour groups from every nation on earth were storming down the cobbled streets, their guides waving yellow flags like military mascots and bellowing facts in a babel of tongues.” (10)

• Any sense of recapturing the past is problematized

Pompeii World

• “I was feeling no closer to the ancients here than when I looked at their statues in museums, cold marble busts with eyes hollow and blank, and not a shred of personality.” 10

• “Of course, I’d expected the Mediterranean to be popular, particularly in summer—but the reality was still a shock.”

• “.. Just when I thought things couldn’t get much worse—Les had a hunger attack.” (11)

New Pompeii• Seems like an abandoned spaghetti Western

back lot• Siesta time is a culture shock for the Perrottets• “Restaurants were firmly shuttered”• But! The Golden Arches of McDonald’s…

beckon• “It was open. I hadn’t passed beneath the

yellow M for 15 years, but Ronald’s nose was shining like the Holy Grail.” (11)

Reality• Despite P’s best intentions, at 4pm in New

Pompeii, McDonald’s is an awfully nice choice. • McDonald’s as Holy Grail—coveted prize at the

end of a long day’s archaeological tour• Irony: this is where it’s happening in this town• “If you couldn’t get some historical perspective in

the Pompeii McDonald’s, I thought, where could you? (12)

• “It slowly began to dawn on me that the ancient world survived in strange and subtle ways.” 12

Travel as Pleasure

• Modern travelers might be penniless backpackers

• In Ancient times, they were rich.• (Note: those on the Grand Tour were wealthy

too)• Aristocrats, “conquerors on tour”, worst

problem: ennui! (17)• By traveling, they made use of their time

The Once and Future Tourist Trail

• Then as now, the tourist trail starts in Italy• The Ancients: gone 2-5 years at a time!• Followed similar paths; “wanted to behold the

beacons of their own culture.” (22)• NB: we do the same thing today• Samuel Johnson: if you didn’t see the famous

sights, you’d suffer inferiority!• Italy: some 36 millions tourists a year• “Which is why, perversely enough, many of us

have avoided [the hot-spots] all our lives.” (23)

Perrottet as Contrast• He’d seen everything else, but not the Med• (Too many years of classical study in Australia)• Wants to see the Med “fresh”• No terror or squalor, however…..• Regular Roman tourists had many hardships• Horace: “Because of the drinking water, which

was horrible, I declare my belly a public enemy..” (28) Foreshadowing..

• Comfortable hostelries for officials some 25 miles apart (30), but..

Interesting Tidbits

• Bad lodging the Romans’ #1 complaint (31)• Had to learn to be flexible for life on the road• Had to accept “tourist traps”• Lucian’s Sex Tour: The Aphrodite of Knidos

(coast of Turkey), most provocative statue of a woman up to that point (32)

• To see the statue, they have to put up with junk vendors (cf. Assisi!)

All Roads Lead from Rome• Love/hate relationship with their vibrant,

chaotic city: who wouldn’t want to leave?• P. can’t sleep through the symphony of traffic• Cf. Juvenal, AD100: “Insomnia is the main

cause of death in Rome!” (42)• Les: “This will get you in training for

fatherhood!” • Despite it all, Rome is so beautiful he can’t

take it in, wants to capture ALL of it

Contrasts• P. sees today’s Rome as a “soothing

watercolor” in contrast to being back “home” in NYC (44)

Humor• Ancient Rome = NY• Editor (head of gladiatorial school, decides

whether it was worth it to keep a wounded fighter alive) = today’s publishers (47)

• Model of Ancient Rome= images it as Luke Skywalker speeding through canyons

• Spins around in a frenzy, “following an obsessive regime of ruin visiting”

• Les wonders: is he crazy? Can’t we go to the café instead? (53)

The Hedonism Coast

Bay of Naples= Ultimate Playground• Marbled, frescoed mansions• Vice = unavoidable, weeks of sun• And tourists!• Never mind Vesuvius• Death/pleasure• Grace Kelly- Ripley• Beautiful, dangerous• Goethe: See Naples • …and die!

Napoli, Museo Nazionale

No Hedonism for the Perrottets

• Arrival at broken-down train station (70)• Where is the “Crater of Luxury”?• Pickpockets = overfed vultures• Arrival in a new town = always difficult!• No plans, at Neapolitans’ mercy• Hotel Casanova, shady overtones, but :• “Solid Italian name,” I said, shrugging. (71)

Modern Naples• Dense population, all on Vespas (72)• Red lights as decorations• Hotel = chthonic gloom (underworld)• “You want the room for the whole night?”• The Hotel Hades (Cf Aristophanes’ character

content to avoid bedbugs)• Landlady= Marlon Brando voice (more

foreshadowing—this can’t go well) (74)• Nosy, ever-present landlady, capisce?• (cf Thutmose, the landlady haunts this section)

Contrasting Naples

• Restful, sedate, writers’ retreat• Virgil composes The Aeneid, about the Trojan

warrior who travels to Italy and becomes the Roman’s ancestor (77)

• Publishing houses, libraries, poetry contests• Today’s Naples= the ancient port of Puteoli,

full of sleazy bars and dangerous troublemakers

Cosmic Balances

• “You have to pay!!!”• Good dinners and free limoncello

The Lost Baiae

• Scuba diving: countless delays, excuse of poor weather

• P. finally gets into the Mediterranean• Reward of mosaics, evocation of another time• Poet Martial on his wife: “She came to town

Penelope and left Helen of Troy”

Capri

• Warned by landlady NOT to go (92)• Too beautiful to be true• Too confident in their hydrofoil reservation• Desperate, take the last available room• For Horace, “everything that could go wrong

did”• “Strangely comforting”• “I was really following the Romans’ footsteps

now” (101)