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A few thoughts on "Ask Me if I'm Happy"

29/11/2011

"Felicità
improvvisa vertigine
illusione ottica
occasione da prendere…

… E infatti, infatti non dimentico
la mia fotografia
e l'amore se non ce l'ho.
Ripeterei tutto quello che è passato
comprese le tue bugie
perché le scoprirei molto prima e senza aiuto."

"Happiness,
Sudden dizziness
Optical illusion
(An) opportunity to take…

… And indeed, in fact I don't forget
my photograph
and love, if I don't have it (with me).
I would repeat all that has passed
including your lies
because I'd discover them much earlier and without help."

- From "Chiedimi se Sono Felice (Ask Me if I'm Happy)" by Samuele Bersani (translation mine)

One of the first things people living outside Italy often say to me about Ask Me if I'm Happy is "I love the title!" Every time they do, I have to smile. I'm pleased they like the optimistic sound of it. I'm glad they'll likely remember it – or, hopefully, they'll remember something close enough for a bookseller to find it for them! And of course, I'm glad it sounds unique enough for them to comment on it in the first place.

Here in Italy, that's not the case. Here, my students and co-workers at the language school, my friends and acquaintances, have all asked me the same question: "You know that's the title of an Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo movie (Chiedimi se Sono Felice), right?" And I have to laugh, and nod, and say "Yes, yes; I know. It's a favorite of mine." For, you see, this title had a life before my novel. I confess – much like Jackson Browne lifted "Tender is the Night" for his personal use, just as Kate Bush appropriated "Wuthering Heights" for her own haunting tune, I too have nicked this title from another source. Or rather, two.

I've quoted a few lines from the song at the start of this blog to show I'm aware of it. More to the point: I was inspired by the song. This story has nothing to do with the film in any way, but the song (which, incidentally, was featured in the film) has strong similarities. At least, it does on the surface.

I'd listened to this song many times, but I didn't think I had really taken it to heart until I had finished writing the first drafts and needed a title for what was – at the time – a novel consisting of four novellas. A couple of lines suddenly stood out to me, and I looked up the lyrics online to be sure I was hearing them correctly. With my novel in mind, these lines (among others in the song) took on a new meaning for me and were an almost perfect fit, considering the storyline. When I said to my husband that I thought it would be a good title for my story, he thought about it and eventually agreed.

So I went forward, aware that readers would bring this up if they knew about the film or the song. The title stuck, becoming known as Ask Me... in its abbreviated version. One of my students teased me, saying if the book should be translated into Italian, at least we'd already know the title.

The thing is, should I be so lucky that this book should merit an Italian translation, I doubt it'll take back the moniker of Chiedimi se Sono Felice. The fact is, most books and films translated from English to Italian rarely get direct translations of their titles. Common practice is to give it a new title – sometimes relevant, sometimes obscure – which seems to work better in Italian. I'm ready for them, though. I've already got an Italian title in mind, and it works on several levels, including English.

The best part? It was the title of the story when it appeared on the URBIS and Authonomy writing sites, where it first caught the eyes of those who would go on to support my work today. At that time, the story was called "Connections" and was a play on words, meaning travel connections, personal connections and the circumstances which connected Emily and Davide. And what is one translation of "Connections" in Italian?

Coincidenze: Coincidences.

So I invite you to go ahead, because I know you're dying to:

Ask me if I'm happy.

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13 Opening Paragraphs/Pages

24/11/2011

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This week, I've found inspiration in a number of places, not least of which include the opening pages of the novels I've read recently. I shared the source of inspiration which made me want to be a (better) writer in an earlier post this week, and that in turn got me to thinking about what makes a book grab you and want to keep reading.

I wanted to do this post to share the opening paragraphs of the books which are currently strewn about my desk at the present time. Some of them I read last winter, others I read just yesterday. I thought maybe it would be interesting to show how different writers have constructed that all-important first paragraph (or, to be fair, first page or so). For this post, however, I skipped any prologues or forewards in order to get right to the story itself. (And, yes, my own book is on my desk, in both printings.)

So now, please allow me to present to you:

13 Opening Paragraphs/Pages

1) Blackeberg.

It makes you think of coconut-frosted cookies, maybe drugs. "A respectable life." You think subway station, suburb. Probably nothing else comes to mind. People must live there, just like they do in other places. That was why it was built, after all, so that people would have a place to live.

Let the Right One In - John Ajvide Lindqvist:

2) "Have you seen it?" asked Samantha.

I leaned close to my computer so my editor wouldn't hear me on a personal call.

"Seen what?"

"Oh, nothing. Never mind. We'll talk when you get home."

"Seen what?" I asked again.

"Nothing," Samantha repeated.

"Samantha, you have never once called me in the middle of the day about nothing. Now come on. Spill."

Samantha sighed. "Okay, but remember: Don't shoot the messenger."

Now I was getting worried.

Good in Bed - Jennifer Weiner

3) Hollyhocks don't grow in the desert. Yet hundreds and hundreds of their red satin blossoms line a wide stone path to a flung iron gate. I know this is a dream. Through the gate lie astonishing, sweeping gardens. There are roses. Ivory and white and the color of burnt cream, they climb trellises and sprawl in beds, spill and ramble and entwine. Boxwood parterres, hedges of yew, clumps of lavender, fat and tall, and white foxgloves nod among dahlias, among white peonies. I know that the castle and the roses and the hollyhocks are sun-stroke illusions. The hallucination will pass. We'll climb back in the car and drive away from this madness of silence and mockery. But while the hallucination endures I want to look over there, where gnarled trunks of wisteria and jasmine and grapevines tent a pergola, make a dark, shady room from whose depths laughter comes. How many days has it been since I've heard laughter? Even my own? I walk toward the pergola, and stand at the opening to see a clutch of women in long black dresses who sit 'round an oilclothed table. Tremulous light insists among the leaves, spangles the women's fingers flurrying over a heap of yellow beans.

"Buongiorno," they say before we can.

That Summer in Sicily - A Love Story - Marlena de Blasi

4) Jude had a private collection.

He had framed sketches of the Seven Dwarfs on the wall of his studio, in between his platinum records. John Wayne Gacy had drawn them while he was in jail and sent them to him. Gacy liked golden-age Disney almost as much as he liked molesting little kids; almost as much as he liked Jude's albums.

Heart-Shaped Box - Joe Hill

5) I can recall the exact moment I got hooked on the sport of bike racing. It was 1968, and I was eight years old. My cousin brought his ten-speed racing bike to my grandmother's house one summer day. It was the most foreign thing I had ever seen, with its crazy handlbars, skinny tires, tiny seat and angry-looking cogs. Everyone in my neighborhood rode Schwinn Sting-Ray bikes, so I stood awestruck in the driveway and looked at that bike like it was from Mars. And though the top of my head barely came up to the tip of the saddle, I knew right then and there that this thing "fit" me.

Roadie - the Misunderstood World of a Bike Racer - Jamie Smith

6) 'It's your mother.'

Three simple words that chilled me to the core as I accepted the phone from Joyce, the school receptionist. Point one, my mother never, ever called me at work, and point two, she'd never say she was my mother. She was always Marla -- even as a child I had never been allowed to call her Mum.

Crystal Clear - Nell Dixon

7) They used to be called the Firefly Lane girls. That was a long time ago--more than three decades--but just now, as she lay in bed listening to a winter storm raging outside, it seemed like yesterday.

Firefly Lane - Kristin Hannah

8) Dan Swansea came awake in the darkness, not knowing for a minute who he was or where. He lifted one hand to his head and groaned when it came away sticky with blood. Slowly (or at least it felt that way), things returned to him. His name. That he was outside in a parking lot, on his back in the gravel, and he was freezing. Also, except for his shoes and socks, he was naked.

Best Friends Forever - Jennifer Weiner

9) Restlessly, Emily’s feet slid over the pockmarked concrete of the Rovigo train station platform, chips of disintegrating cement gritting under the soles of her shoes. Two hollow blasts of a distant whistle shook her out of her daze and she sat up on the bench to focus on the pinprick of light emerging from the fog.

Ask Me if I'm Happy - Kimberly Menozzi

10) In June of 1980, Lydia Arnaud travelled with her parents and two brothers to a critérium - a town centre, short-circuit race - in Longjumeau on the southern end of Paris. Born into a cycling-mad family in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a large suburb on the north-western outskirts of the French capital, fifteen-year-old Lydia was the only daughter of André and Marie-Louise Arnaud, and her weekends were invariably spent supporting her brothers, Thierry and Michel, at various amateur bike races around Paris.

Inside the Peloton - My Life as a Professional Cyclist - Nicolas Roche

11) My suffering left me sad and gloomy.

Academic study and the steady, mindful practice of religion slowly brought me back to life. I have kept up with what some people would consider my strange religious practices. After one year of high school, I attended the University of Toronto and took a double-major Bachelor's degree. My majors were religious study and zoology. My fourth-year thesis for religious studies concerned certain aspects of the cosmogony theory of Isaac Luria, the great sixteenth-century Kabbalist from Safed. My zoology thesis was a functional analysis of the thyroid gland of the three-toed sloth. I chose the sloth because its demeanour--calm, quiet and introspective--did something to soothe my shattered self.

Life of Pi - Yann Martel

12) It is early morning.

I have been dozing. I open my eyes.

For a moment, I don't know where I am.

Then I remember the night before, the hands on my shoulders, pushing me, shoving me, the rage and the abuse, my heart racing, my palms sweating.

And then, my guts in sudden freefall, I recognise where I am, the bare walls, the rough blanket, the hanging light bulb.

I am in a French police cell, below Biarritz town hall, in an empty basement. A smell of piss and disinfectant hangs in the air. A drunken man shouts relentlessly in a cell somewhere down the corridor.

Racing Through the Dark - David Millar

And, finally, the reason I wanted to post this topic in the first place:

13) The primroses were over. Toward the edge of the wood, where the ground became open and sloped down to an old fence and a brambly ditch beyond, only a few fading patches of pale yellow still showed among the dog's mercury and oak-tree roots. On the other side of the fence, the upper part of the field was full of rabbit holes. In places the grass was gone altogether and everywhere there were clusters of dry droppings, through which nothing but the ragwort would grow. A hundred yards away, at the bottom of the slope, ran the brook, no more than three feet wide, half choked with kingcups, watercress and blue brooklime. The cart track crossed by a brick culvert and climbed the opposite slope to a five-barred gate in the thorn hedge. The gate led into the lane.

Watership Down - Richard Adams

And there you have them. I hope they've intrigued, baffled or otherwise claimed your attention for whatever reason.

And I'm not crazy. I know other things get your attention, too.

Shiny things. Pretty things.

Pretty, pretty things.

Yeah, you've seen him before. But do you really mind? And hey - he's readin' a BOOK! Sexay!!!

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Day Trip(pers)

22/11/2011

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Alle and I had a lunchtime "day trip" of sorts last Sunday. I shared the details on Silvia Mazzobel's Book After Book blog. Come on by and share a little comment love, won't you please? :)

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How The Primroses Changed My Life (or, In Praise of Description)

22/11/2011

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The poster for the film version of Watership Down.

When I was very young – about the age of nine or ten, actually – I saw the film version of Richard Adams's Watership Down. I was entranced by the often disturbing visuals (my parents had no idea what the film was like, as they never bothered watching it with me, thinking it was "just a cartoon") and captivated by the story. The idea that rabbits had such traumatic lives (and deaths) was something so absolutely foreign to me, I simply couldn't grasp it. I loved the film so much, I was inspired to try to write my own story with similar themes – the problem was, I could barely understand what the film was really about, and so my pale imitation remained just that: an imitation.

After I'd watched it countless times (I literally lost track of the viewings), I finally noticed that the film was in fact based on a book. The emotion which followed this discovery was indescribable, as though I'd just had a moment of divine intervention in my life, because I loved books. I carried my favorite titles around everywhere I went, reading them every chance I got, even though I'd long since memorized them.

Finally, I found myself in a bookstore, perusing the titles away from the children's fiction section, and after standing on my tip-toes and craning my neck, I spotted it, way up high on a the top shelf. The spine was an autumnal mix of yellows and golds, the title framed in a box of brown so dark it was almost black. I know I must have gasped, or made some sort of sound of surprise, because a man browsing in the same aisle was startled to hear it. I stretched out my arm, cursing the fact I was so short, unable to reach the top shelf even though I hopped up and down to the best of my ability. The man gave me a funny look, then, understanding my dilemma, smiled at me.

"Do you want one of these?"

Oh-my-goodness-yes-yes-YES!!!

"Yes, please."

"Which one?"

"Watership Down." I was so excited I could hardly stand it. He kindly pulled the book off the shelf and handed it to me, and after I managed to squeak out a "Thank you!" I went barreling down the length of the store looking for my mom, clutching my treasure close.

I found her at the front of the store, looking through the bargain books.

"Did you find anything?" she asked, then turned her head and looked at me while I danced in place like a hyperactive bundle of pure energy on a sugar high, needing to pee. Desperately.

"Iwantthisoneplease!"

Mom frowned. "Oh, Kim. No."

WhaaaaAAAA???

"Why not?"

"That's a book for grownups."

"So?"

"You'll never read it."

"Sure I will!"

One hand on hip, she turned to fully face me. "How many pages is it?"

I opened the book, still jogging in place. "Four hundred seventy-eight pages."

Mom sighed. "It's too big. There's no way you'll read that whole thing."

"I-will-I-will-I-will! I promise! And I won't ask for another book until I'm done with it!"

Mom sighed again. "Fine. But you can't get any more books until you're done with that one. And I want to see you reading it."

She knew this was the biggest threat she could level at me. I got a book at least every other week. I looked forward to those books as much as I did Christmas or my birthday. "Okay. You will."

And so I went home with my very own copy of Watership Down in my hot little hands, resisting the urge to open it until I could get home and savor the first pages. On the ride home, I stared at the cover, committing it to memory, loving those earthy colors, the rabbit on the front, the golden grass in watercolors on the back cover, the red outer edges of the pages.

Once I was home, I bolted to my room and sat on my bed, then turned on my bedside lamp. I perused the maps on the first few pages, stumbled over the segment of Agamemnon quoted before the chapter's start, and then dug in and started reading:

The primroses were over. Toward the edge of the wood, where the ground became open and sloped down to an old fence and a brambly ditch beyond, only a few fading patches of pale yellow still showed among the dog's mercury and oak-tree roots. On the other side of the fence, the upper part of the field was full of rabbit holes. In places the grass was gone altogether and everywhere there were clusters of dry droppings, through which nothing but the ragwort would grow. A hundred yards away, at the bottom of the slope, ran the brook, no more than three feet wide, half choked with kingcups, watercress and blue brooklime. The cart track crossed by a brick culvert and climbed the opposite slope to a five-barred gate in the thorn hedge. The gate led into the lane.

Time passed. My confidence was a tad battered, but I emerged from my room after completing the first few chapters, feeling strange. It wasn't at all what I had expected, but not in a bad way. It was like the movie, but different. It was also very different from what I'd written for myself, in so many ways. It was richer, layered, full of details which – when I understood the words, and there were a few I honestly couldn't fathom at the time – pulled me in and made me feel like I was really, truly there in that doomed warren of rabbits, needing to escape but not sure how to do so.

"So? How is it?" Mom asked, and I know now she expected me to say "It's too hard!" or "I don't understand it!" or something along those lines.

"It's very… descriptive. There's lots of description in it."

"Oh, really?"

"Uh-huh." I nodded and then looked down at the book, still in my hand. I looked up at her again, wishing she could understand what I felt at that moment. The wonder, the rightness, were beyond my ability to explain. So I settled for "Thanks, Mom," and went back to reading in my room.

I read the book more than twenty times that summer. I re-read it every year, and even now, thirty years on, I discover something new and beautiful with every reading. To this day, it's the detail in the descriptions I savor. I read those details, and the way they unfold, painting the scene, makes it seem as though I've closed my eyes and opened them in another time and place.

Yes, I can appreciate the allegory, now. I can see the symbolism and understand the themes threaded through the narrative, almost all of which flew over the head of my nine-year-old self. I no longer try to write in the same style, but in the back of my mind, as I describe a place and try to set the stage, a desire to draw the reader in as Adams drew me in, so utterly and completely it was a shock to stop reading and find I wasn't actually there, remains.

One day, I might just manage it. But until then, the primroses are over, and there's a gate leading onto a lane I need to stroll down. It's been a while since my last visit.

(This article originally appeared on the Power of Language blog in 2010.)

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Thursday Thirteen: 13 Photos of My "Other Dad"

17/11/2011

15 Comments

As many of my readers know, I lost my second father, my stepfather, Martin, two years ago today. I thought it only fitting that I should share some of my memories on this occasion.

So please allow me to present to you

13 Photos of My "Other Dad"

1) I remember taking this photo when Martin and Mom visited Italy in 2006. There was a spot in the castle of Fontanellato I called "My Magic Window" because it lent itself to making great photos. I could always make a perfect portrait of someone if they sat there.

Naturally, this is one of my photos of Martin taken in that window, overlooking the moat.

2) In Firenze, I told Martin "Look shocked at the prices!" in the Prada display window.

He obliged, of course.

3) One of my favorite photos, ever. Martin and Mom in Correggio.

4) In Lago Maggiore, Martin filmed and photographed just about everything.

I repeatedly sneaked shots of him doing so.

5) At one point during their Italian visit, both my families got together for dinner. This is one of my favorite photos of all time.

6) Martin was always up for just about anything. He was spontaneous and fun, and prone to, ah... the occasional outburst.

7) Martin was also open to direction. His sense of humor was surprisingly bawdy at times, too - which was a revelation to people who only knew him in his role as a Methodist minister.

8) He was also unstintingly supportive of his family, and always encouraged us to live up to our potential. Even when we got angry at him for it.

9) He was also loved animals. This photo shows Martin in Virginia in the mid-eighties with one of our kittens, the runt of the litter, whom I had dubbed "Stinky". (She wasn't.)

10) Martin and Mom in Lake Lure, NC, 2003. This photo was taken by the lake during Alle's first-ever visit to the States to meet me. Martin took us for a drive that meandered over the mountains, and that became something of a tradition over the following years.

The highlight of the day: Martin created "The Fudge Song", snippets of which are sung to this day.

11) Another mid-eighties photo from Virginia. This is Martin performing on the stage with a gospel singing group he was friends with.

12) You'd never believe it, but back in 2003, Martin wasn't entirely enthused that I was going to play host to someone I'd met on the internet. He changed his mind as soon as he met Alle, and it was only a matter of time before they got along quite swimmingly.

13) Martin had a substantial impact on the community around his churches as well as his friends and family.

We didn't get off to the smoothest start when I was younger, but over the years we came to a point of understanding I would never have thought possible. I only now realize just how much he loved and accepted me, and I'm sure he knew (and knows) how much I loved him.

His love and caring for my family - especially, of course, for my mother, but also for my siblings and and their families - meant the world to me.

I love you and miss you, Marty-man. Thank you for understanding me when you could, and for guiding me the best you could. I'm only sorry I made it so hard for you to do so.

I'm a better person for it, now.

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Thursday Thirteen: 13 Photos of Nice Legs!

10/11/2011

13 Comments

I wanted to be sure to post this week, but commitments kept me from preparing a proper Thirteen - so I thought I'd throw something together on the fly. Unfortunately (?) this led to a lot of the more beefcake-y images on my computer coming up.

I thought about it and decided that, at least, the ladies wouldn't mind.

That said, please allow me to present to you:

Thirteen Photos of Nice Legs!

I know, you're expecting loads of photos of cyclists. You'd be correct in doing so. However, I thought we'd start the list off with non-cyclists. I'm generous that way, y'see...

So, let's go!

Tommy Robredo. Tennis player. Obviously.

Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte. Swimmers.

Evan Lysacek. Skater.

Heath Black. Australian rules footballer.

Gonzalo Canale. Rugby player.

Simon Baker. Actor.

Loic Mazieres. Rugby player.

Okay. I've held back as long as I can, now.

Bring on the boys in Lycra!!!

(L) Sprinter's leg. (R) Climber's leg.

Mario Cipollini. Cyclist.

Juan Antonio Flecha. Cyclist (in post-Paris-Roubaix showers).

Stijn Devolder. Cyclist.

Philippe Gilbert. Cyclist.

Fabian Cancellara. Cyclist.

So there you have them: 13 Photos of Nice Legs.

I hope you've enjoyed this week's post.

But if you're still reading, you must be looking for the traditional "final pic".

Since we've had so much to enjoy already, I think we should try for something a little different this week.

I hope you don't mind.

Kim Rossi-Stuart. Italian actor.

Ciao for now!

13 Comments

A few thoughts on "Ask Me if I'm Happy"

13 Opening Paragraphs/Pages

13 Opening Paragraphs/Pages

Day Trip(pers)

How The Primroses Changed My Life (or, In Praise of Description)

Thursday Thirteen: 13 Photos of My "Other Dad"

13 Photos of My "Other Dad"

Thursday Thirteen: 13 Photos of Nice Legs!

Thirteen Photos of Nice Legs!

Kimberly Menozzi

Please note: Thanks to an increase in spam comments, I'll be approving the comments before they post. Sorry!

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