Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere

Product Information

Odessa's construction and government were heavily guided by French migrants while much of the city's population throughout its history were Jewish.

Slightly Foxed introduces its readers to books that are no longer new and fashionable but have lasting appeal. Trieste briefly took centre stage at the onset of the Cold War, when Marshall Tito claimed it for Yugoslavia; it narrowly avoided being enveloped by the Iron Curtain. Awkward, that, like one country came and took a slice of another country, and valuable sea access land no less.Probably, this fact is why, if the book had imbued with melancholy, it opens on the future by announcing possible evolutions of the city (it is a chapter which is welcome).

The Habsburg monarchy in Vienna brought it into the modern world and chose Trieste to be its main deep-sea port on the Adriatic. Firstly, Trieste's history is far too complex a matter to be seen as merely 'Italian', as anyone who's read the book ought to know. It also gave me inspiring knowledge about Trieste, and perhaps played a part in my coming to visit the place. Precis vreau sa vad totul cu ochii mei acum, caci tare seamana cu destinul Chisinaului, oras fara sens, dar plin de amintiri frumoase si care nu va mai fi niciodata la fel. I'm still wondering about the peculiar concept of nowhereness, that makes the title of the book, and that the author attributes to Trieste.

Thankfully, I have a fair bit of Joyce under my belt and have read Burton’s translation of The Book of the Thousand and One Nights (and, yes, all the footnotes! In the opening paragraph of the book, Morris describes Trieste in a way that seems to set low expectations for everything to follow. The Trieste of her mind was always the waterfront, always as it had been when Morris was there as a soldier. Other European royals arrived, fleeing revolution, counter-claims to a throne, or to be close to their deposed Emperor, in the case of Napoleon Bonaparte’s family.