When in Rome: Final Days, Part 1 of 2

View from Janiculum Hill

We settled on a new strategy for our final two days in Rome. We were again “based” in Trastevere. This time our plan was to explore only more-or-less immediate neighborhoods in an effort to minimize time spent in the logistics of finding our way around. The strategy worked better than we had any right to expect. With a minimum of time spent getting lost, we discovered a trove of Roman treasures most of which would likely not have made it to a short-term visitor “must see” list.

Invective Against Swan(n)s

And the soul, O ganders, being lonely, flies
Beyond your chilly chariots, to the skies.

—Wallace Stevens, from Invective against Swans

After a visit to the Morgan Library earlier this year, I set myself the task of re-reading Proust’s Swann’s Way. I have read Proust’s entire magnum opus once with a certain amount of satisfaction (though I’ll confess to having commented at one point that Proust could have used an editor), but it seemed time to start again. (No need to rush, as copyright laws in the U.S. mean the last three volumes of this edition will not be available here until 2019—“longer than Proust’s original public had” to wait—about which I have no comment.)