Chekhov loved to travel, and he travelled a lot. I have to admit that I too love a peripatetic life. In this, I want to be like Chekhov. The view from our window, with the shadow of the church's dome. And last week I finally made it to Genoa, Italy. I hadn't even considered going to Italy, really, until I started writing about Chekhov and cemeteries. (Gratuitous promo: my piece on cemeteries in Chekhov's fiction comes out this spring in The Antioch Review .) In Genoa, we stayed in an apartment next to a 12th century bell tower, and when the bells tolled out, I felt transported to another time. Or no, that's not quite right. Even though the bells were marking the time, they connected me to all times, to a timelessness that reached back to Chekhov and beyond. The sound connects the listener not only to ages long past, but to the city itself, and the natural surroundings. In one recording I made the birds sing out as if in answer to the bells: nature and the b...
A blog about travel and staying put, reading and writing, food and food for thought.