Reflections on the Italians

THE ITALIANS by Luigi Barzini. 352 pages. Atheneum. $6.95.

Some painful, intimate truths are far easier to confess to a chance friend opportunely met than to the closest member of the family. A couple of drinks, a quiet dinner, brandy and cigars before the inn fire--and imperceptibly, from behind the urbanity and wit emerge the true facts of a marriage in shambles or of a mortal sickness. This is exactly the kind of book that Milanese Journalist Luigi Barzini has written to explain to the U.S. the delights and secret deficiencies of his countrymen's manners and morals.

Foreigners have always loved Italy, Barzini points out. Tourists by the thousands, and recently by the millions, have gone there each year, the Germans and Scandinavians looking for sun, the Americans and Russians eager to absorb culture, the artists and fake artists searching for refuge, the rich seeking laxly enforced tax laws and the poor seeking "a place where indigence looks like modest affluence by contrast with the surrounding poverty." Men come to Italy to pursue the young women, who, Barzini concedes, "are now more disturbingly beautiful than they have ever been," with "harmonious behinds like double mandolins"; foreign women often find Italian men irresistible in their "charm, skill, lack of scruples, and boldness." Many return, captivated by the gaiety, warmth and apparent candor that are the overt features of the Italian national character.

Lies for Happiness. The trouble is that the Italians themselves are captivated by these qualities, Barzini suggests. "Watch an Italian mother fondle her baby. If she is alone, she is tender and solicitous like any other mother, in a matter-of-fact way. As soon as somebody enters the room, she will immediately act a tasteful impersonation of Mother Love. Her face will suddenly shine, tears of affection will fill her eyes, she will crush the infant to her breast, sing to him . . ." But even at its most innocent, the trait lends "a theatrical quality which enhances but slightly distorts all values." From here it is but a step to the "polite lies and flattery," still well-intentioned, which Italians use to make life more agreeable. "Tailors praise your build. Dentists exclaim: 'You have the teeth of an ancient Roman!' The doctor cannot help remarking that he has rarely encountered an influenza as baffling as yours." Even speedometers "are made to lie in Italy for your happiness, " set to read 10% ahead of the actual speed "to make you feel proud of your automobile and driving skill."

Self-Swindlers. Unfortunately, the deceptions can sometimes be disastrous. In Italy, Barzini argues, "ordinary people must usually choose between the unrestrained expression of counterfeit emotions and the controlled expression of real ones." The inevitable result is automatic distrust of idealism, and a cynicism so widespread that "there is a large part of reality the realistic Italian never grasps."

As for the extraordinary people, it was the adventurer Casanova and the swindler Cagliostro who raised deception to a way of life and a high art; Machiavelli who made it a cardinal principle of statecraft; while Mussolini was by no means the first Italian leader to perish finally believing the deceptions he had himself created. At the start, Barzini thinks, Mussolini "watched him self playing the great role he was invent ing as gusto," he but went over the along, years he hamming at it began to with believe the stirring show and the lies and flattery, came to read his own news papers with pleasure, and mistook the parades for real military power, until "in the end he lived within a private world of his own."

Habits of Mind. "The only fundamental institution in the country" is the family, thinks Barzini. Within the family, Italians practice "virtues other men usually dedicate to the welfare of their country at large; the Italians' family loyalty is their true patriotism." High honor, great love and sacrifice can result. But the strength of the family is not only a defense against disorder, argues Barzini, "but one of its principal causes," forestalling the development of strong political institutions, fostering the habits of nepotism and corruption that every Italian instinctively understands.

In the end, for all his tone of jaunty worldliness, Barzini's is a cry of despair: "The tenacity and the eagerness with which the individual pursues his private interests and defends himself from society, his mistrust of noble ideals and motives, the splendid show, the all-pervading indulgence for man's foibles, make Italian life pleasant and bearable in spite of poverty, tyranny and injustice. They also waste the efforts and the sacrifices of the best Italians and make poverty, tyranny and injustice very difficult to defeat."

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