{"id":18384,"date":"2025-03-03T21:16:46","date_gmt":"2025-03-04T02:16:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/?p=18384"},"modified":"2025-03-03T21:22:31","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T02:22:31","slug":"mountain-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/mountain-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Mountain Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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By Gabriel Harmetz<\/em><\/p>


When they want to relax, most people will head to a beach resort. Others, like me, prefer the mountains, with their more complex charm. In this case, the reward is not immediate, but is achieved through one\u2019s effort; for example, climbing up steep paths in summer, or skiing down icy trails in winter.\u00a0<\/p>

Loving the mountains is a bit like loving cats \u2014 beautiful creatures, but not particularly docile and often unpredictable. It means going for the challenge: if we manage to overcome difficulties, we will be rewarded with breathtaking views, and almost feel that we can touch the infinite.<\/p>

Vacation is also the only time when I have the energy to read fiction that has not been assigned at school. In the past two winters, I enjoyed shopping in cozy little bookstores in the Italian Alps, choosing novels set in the very regions that I was visiting. That\u2019s where I discovered some Italian authors that I would like to recommend to my fellow mountain lovers (I read them in Italian, but if you prefer, they are available in English translation.)<\/p>

\u201cResto Qui\u201d is a novel by Marco Balzano, set in a little mountain town in Alto Adige, a region that Italy took from Austria at the end of WWI. In the 1930s, the Fascist government banned the German language and imposed Italian. The story\u2019s protagonist is a school teacher, Trina. After losing her teaching job, she organizes clandestine lessons to allow the local kids to keep learning their native German.<\/p>

Another excellent book is \u201cThe Eight Mountains,\u201d by Paolo Cognetti. It\u2019s the story of the friendship between an affluent boy from Milan, and a working-class boy from a little Alpine village, who meet in the summer. By experiencing the mountains together, they build a deep and long-lasting relationship despite their socioeconomic differences.<\/p>

Last but not least, I\u2019ll recommend a great thriller: \u201cPista Nera\u201d by Antonio Manzini. A crabby deputy commissioner from Rome, recently transferred to Val d\u2019Aosta, has to solve a murder case involving a corpse that is found buried under the snow on a black diamond ski trail.\u00a0<\/p>

If you don\u2019t feel like reading, \u201cLe Otto Montagne\u201d was also adapted into a movie that should be available with English subtitles on Amazon Prime, and so was Pista Nera, one of the episodes of the TV series \u201cRocco Schiavone \u2013 Ice Cold Murders\u201d<\/p>

Traduzione Italiana<\/b><\/p>

C\u2019\u00e8 chi prenota una vacanza al mare quando vuole rilassarsi. Altri, come me, sono pi\u00f9 attratti dalla montagna, il cui fascino \u00e8 completamente diverso: non ti aspetta pronta, come la spiaggia, ma va conquistata con la fatica: percorrendo sentieri ripidi d\u2019estate o scendendo lungo discese ghiacciate d\u2019inverno.<\/p>

Amare la montagna \u00e8 un po\u2019 come preferire i gatti, creature poco obbedienti e spesso imprevedibili. Vuol dire scegliere la sfida: se riusciamo a superare le difficolt\u00e0, alla fine saremo ripagati da vedute fantastiche e dalla sensazione di poter toccare l\u2019infinito.\u00a0
Le vacanze sono l\u2019unico momento in cui ho tempo di leggere narrativa che non sia stata assegnata dalla scuola, e negli ultimi due anni mi sono divertito a far shopping in piccole librerie sulle Alpi, scegliendo romanzi ambientati nei posti che visitavo.\u00a0<\/p>

Proprio l\u00ec ho scoperto alcuni autori italiani che mi sento di consigliare a chi come me ama la montagna (io li ho letti in italiano, ma se preferite sono stati tradotti anche in inglese). \u201cResto qui\u201d di Marco Balzano si svolge in un paesino dell\u2019Alto Adige, una regione che l\u2019Italia port\u00f2 via all\u2019Austria alla fine della prima guerra mondiale. Negli anni trenta il governo fascista mise al bando la lingua tedesca per imporre l\u2019italiano. La protagonista, una maestra, viene cacciata dalla scuola ma riesce ad organizzare delle lezioni segrete per permettere ai bambini
del paese di mantenere anche la propria lingua d\u2019origine.<\/p>

Un altro bellissimo libro \u00e8 \u201cLe otto montagne\u201d di Paolo Cognetti, una storia di amicizia fra un ragazzo di Milano e uno di un piccolo paese sulle Alpi che si conoscono durante l\u2019estate e proprio attraverso la montagna stabiliscono un rapporto profondo e durevole nonostante le
differenze sociali.<\/p>

Per finire, vi consiglio un ottimo giallo: \u201cPista nera\u201d di Antonio Manzini. Il protagonista, un vicequestore romano trasferito in Val d\u2019Aosta di recente, deve risolvere il caso di un cadavere rinvenuto sepolto dalla neve nel mezzo di una pista da sci.\u00a0<\/p>

Se non avete voglia di leggere, da \u201cLe otto montagne\u201d \u00e8 stato tratto anche un film che dovrebbe essere disponibile con sottotitoli in inglese su Amazon Prime, come anche \u201cPista nera\u201d, uno degli episodi della serie di Manzini \u201cRocco Schiavone\u201d.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Gabriel Harmetz When they want to relax, most people will head to a beach resort. Others, like me, prefer the mountains, with their more complex charm. In this case,…Read More <\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18384"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18384"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18389,"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18384\/revisions\/18389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}