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- [00:01]
A
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C
Hi, Bill Kristol here. Welcome to Bulwark on Sunday. I'm very pleased to be joined noon here on Sunday by Jane Dordlinger, who is in Italy. So it's not noon there. You can, you can talk about the time difference and all the other issues of what you're learning from your travels through Italy, which sounds very interesting. Jay's been writing about those travels on his excellent substack Onward and Upward with Jay Nordlinger. You should, you should all be subscribing to that. Jay and I were together at the Weekly Standards many moons ago, and then he spent years and decades at National Review with some wonderful, many, many, many wonderful things. Now a senior fellow at the Renewing Democracy initiative. So, Jay, thanks for joining me. Where are you coming from?
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B
I'm in Syracuse. Not New York, but Sicily.
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C
Wow.
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B
Yes.
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C
Historically, I'm more familiar with the New York version.
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B
Yes, indeed.
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C
So what's, what's it like in Syracuse? I've never been to Syracuse. Sicily.
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B
It is beautiful. It is interesting. It's rich in history. There's something on every block. There's a kind of timelessness about the place. Yet it's lively, it's not sleepy. It's just a wonderful town, I would say. And I noticed something on a walk this afternoon. I thought you might be interested in this. I've been at a lot of Italian towns, hamlets, cities for about a month. A little less starting in Milan and going downward. And the street names and the piazza names are familiar. A lot of Garibaldi, a lot of Cavour and Mazzini, others from the Risorgimento. Here I'm seeing Aristotle Street Socrates Street. And it indicates the closeness to Greece. I mean, one could almost swim. Not me, but someone could.
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A
Yeah.
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C
I mean, famous, of course, in Thucydides, the expedition, and to Sicily into Syracuse. And Syracuse. Yeah. So it's a real. It's a big colony, a big Greek colony. If I'm not. I don't very little about this. Not as much as my wife, the classicist, but I believe it was a very major Greek colony in olden times.
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B
In ancient times, yes. Yes. It's come down a bit in the world, but it was once a very big deal. Yeah.
- [03:12]
C
Yeah. So I, I just. We'll talk a little more about sort of the impressions you've picked up over there about the US But I'm really just curious about your Italian trip. You and I've known each other a long time and you've. You've traveled a lot around the world and especially in Europe. A lot of it connected with your. Your job as a classical music reviewer. And also you've.
- [03:31]
B
You have human rights beat.
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C
Yeah, human rights speed also. And then in Salzburg, you go to. Every year you have a. You interview people on stage and do a lot of work there for the great festival and later in the summer, I suppose. But what led to this trip to Italy? I mean, there was no particular speech or conference or event that you were targeting?
- [03:52]
B
No, it was long planned, or at least long thought about. I was a student in Italy many years ago when I was in college and had my student abroad experience here in Italy, but in Florence and Rome. And I always thought I wanted to sort of wander the peninsula from the top to the bottom and then go into Sicily. And life took over and it kept being put off, but I decided that I would do it at the end of this music season. The music season is kind of like the academic year ends in mid May or late May. And so I started in Milan and went east to the Adriatic coast and the back inward and down into southern Italy, Naples, and now in Sicily. And I just wanted to get to know the country better, bask in the language a bit, to hear it around me, the different types of Italian, do some reading, a lot of walking and observing. And, you know, I'm no Goethe, but I've been reading about his Italian journey. And this is a country that set his imagination on fire. And it was a very big deal in his life. And I was reading today what he said about Sicily. He said it's the clue to everything, sometimes translated, the key to everything. And I can sort of see what he Meant Sicily is extra Italian, I would say.
- [05:23]
C
Wow, that's interesting. You also are good judging for just our conversations over the years and also what you've been writing about this trip. You actually talk to people because knowing Italian helps, but I'm a little more just polite but, you know, I guess reserved or something. But you're maybe you're a little more sociable than I am.
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B
That's, that's, I'm always bothering people and now that I'm older, they think it's kind of sweet, you know. Now the young people are very patient. I've noticed a different, a change in attitude a bit. And they're, they're sort of charmed now.
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C
That's nice to be. Yeah, yeah. What slight advantage being getting older?
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B
Yes, yes.
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C
What, what, what struck you in your conversations and just in both in the sights and sounds, but also particularly curious about your conversations with somebody, people you've chatted with and all throughout Italy, both about it, both about life, but also about the US I guess. I mean, obviously.
- [06:14]
B
Yes. Well, I myself have not brought up the US but some have brought it up with me in sort of a cautious, respectful manner. Now, meaning no disrespect, they say, and they have no idea what my political views are. And they've tended to ask me what happened? Can you tell us what happened? What is your sense of it? And I think they were once shocked. But my feeling, just generalizing, this is just impressionistic, is that the shock has worn off and now there's more of a sad resignation. I think it's all such a pity. I say they, I mean, I can't speak for tens of millions of people, but I do have impressions and I was here during that Meloni Trump dust up, which is rather interesting. When Trump said at the G7, the Prime Minister of Israel had begged to have her picture taken with him.
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C
Of Italy. Of Italy, yes.
- [07:13]
B
Prime Minister of Italy, yes. Giorgia Meloni. And this is just a bald faced lie. And you know, in our country you have to kind of roll with it or some people think, think you do. It's just Trump being Trump. We have to navigate the Trump era. You're not supposed to say he's a liar and unfit for office. I mean, you and I do. But a lot of people are sort of delicate about it and they dance around. Meloni said, this is a flat lie. And then Trump went further and said, well, you know, Meloni had been down in the polls, therefore she needed a picture with me. And the opposite's true. You know, Trump's reputation's in the tank here and Meloni is up and I thought not to be. Well, I'm going to be self referential. I was a student here in 1984 when Reagan was president. And you might have still been teaching, Bill. Were you in the Reagan administration yet in 84?
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C
No, I was at the Kennedy School at Harvard. Yeah.
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B
And the people around me, I was in Florence and Rome. I might have mentioned were there's an anti Reagan feeling and to a degree, an anti American feeling. And this was, I'd say, truer of my American classmates than the Italians I encountered, but both. And I was sort of proud to defend Reagan and defend the United States. I was thinking of a moment the other day, that one day in class, this is in Rome at the Dante Alighieri Institute, we had a wonderful teacher, Daniele Fiorentina. And he said, he was sort of teasing me. He had made some critical comments. He said, and now Jay will defend America. And I said, you know, because I was, you know, flippant and rash and cocky. I said, well, given what we've done on this continent in recent memory, I don't think America needs defense. And the class went, ooh, yeah. And so I was sort of, rah, rah, Joe America as a student this time around, 42 years later, I said, Brava, Georgia. Good for you for calling out the current occupant of the United States. And it's shameful. I always disliked, not to say despised Americans who were ashamed of their country. I wonder if I fall into that category now. That would be a strange twist. I don't think so. I am embarrassed. I disliked Americans who were embarrassed by their country, who apologized for their country. And as I said in a recent piece, I've always stuck out like an American thumb. I've loved being an American. I tramp around in my shorts and golf shirt. I've got my Coke or Pepsi Mac in my hand. I ask for ice in my drinks if I've had enough olive oil. I ask for bread, butter for my bread. I mean, I'm just, you know, gung ho out there. I couldn't pass for something un American if I tried. And I wouldn't want to. But I must say there's some chagrin, there's some melancholy in this era.
- [10:21]
C
No, I think that's very really well said, quite lovely and very true to my own feelings, whatever that's worth. And I think many people I know, I mean, it's foolish to pretend that all is well. It's foolish to pretend that our current, not just the occupant of the White House, but the movement that's behind him and the excuses that are made for him and the people who and the actions he's taking aren't embarrassing. I mean, it's foolish to say, oh, it's all, you know, everything's fine, it's just superficial. Well, it's a little more than superficial. Doesn't mean that it's fundamental. Doesn't mean that it couldn't change. I once I was on some, as we all are, many text threads and all this kind of thing signal threads, and one person was saying, a couple of people who are friends of ours and very much where we are politically and conservative and Reaganite, but also anti Trump. And one of them was saying, well, things have been worse and you know, and, and, and we'll make it through. And the other person echoed it. It was kind of a nice just pre July 4th salutation. I'm not criticizing them, but, you know, things have been worse, of course, at times. I mean, civil war most notably and Reconstruction certainly for blacks in the south and what we thought we might lose World War II and 9, 11. But I don't know. I mean things have been that much worse in terms of the actual political leadership. And I think one point Sarah Longwell made to me the other just the other day we did the secret podcast together, I was being a little bit pro people, anti elites. The elites have totally capitulated to Trump in a terrible way and I think really done huge damage. The public is reacting against him. And so you got to give the public some credit for being a little bit ahead of the elites. And Sarah agreed with that. But she also did point out that in her focus groups how much the Trumpism seeps through, you know, and this is because of immigration, which I was particularly mentioning in Ford's speech 50 years ago, July 5, 1776, emphasizing that not only should we welcome immigrants, but we should be grateful to them. We owe them a lot and how different that is. She said she sadly was reporting that she thought Trump's people weren't where Trump is. And Stephen Miller never regrets necessarily, but they were more. Well, it's kind of a burden and you know, we have to put up with them and real lack of appreciation of that background. So I don't know. I think you're right to be. It is, it's foolish to minimize what's happened.
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B
I think it is. Several comments, if I may. In 2024, in the presidential election, two major party nominees Harris and Trump, three or their four parents were immigrants, and the fourth was the son of immigrants, Trump's father. It's totally normal, totally American. It's hard to separate our country from Trump and Trumpism in that one of the two major parties, our former party, the Republican Party, has nominated Trump for president three times in a row. Never before had anyone been nominated by the GOP for president three times in a row. And the people elected him twice. So he doesn't represent the whole country, but he represents a big chunk of it, and that's a hard thing to get around. And I have to laugh at myself a little, because in every generation, older people say, the world's going to hell, the country's going to hell, and we're in decline, and so on. It's a cliche. So I say I'm a walking cartoon and that. You noticed this the other day, Bill, that I was quoting Falstaff, not Shakespeare's, but Verdi's. Mondoreo nonche pu virtu tutto di clina. Rotten, wicked old world. There's no virtue anymore. Everything's in decline. And I laugh at myself. I often quote Charles Rosen, the late scholar pianist, who said, the oldest tradition of classical music is the death of classical music. Because in every generation they say, this is it. It's curtains, it's light, lights out. We're not gonna have this anymore. But, man, there's a lot of evidence, man, there's a lot of evidence of simply everything downward, downward. And think of the official celebrations of 250 as contrasted with those of 1976, which I remember well, our bicentennial. Everything just seems so low, you know, Kid Rock, kind of the cultural symbol. I can make too much of this. But I think that, you know, all I'm curmudgeonly, I'm getting older. I gripe and, you know, get off my lawn. Old man shakes his fist at clouds. But, but, but I am also a realist.
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C
Yeah, we were talking about the 250 before we got on air. I say, I've been writing about this a little bit, too, but to say a word about. You were. You're younger than I am, so I don't know how old you were in 1976, but say word about, about your memory, but also about what actually our then President Gerald ford did on July 4th.
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B
He was magnificent. He handled this so very well. And it was to have been Nixon in 1976, but he left in August 74, and that morning he left the White House, went To Valley Forge, gave a terrific speech. And, you know, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. It was about the sacrifices the Patriots made and they were killed in war. And he mentioned them by name and how they died and so on and all the blood. It wasn't kind of airy, you know what I mean? It was really good. And then he goes to Philadelphia and gives, let's say, the main speech. And I think he goes to New York for the tall ships. He winds up in Washington for fireworks on the Mall. And he just. Everything he said, he struck the write chords. And the next day, this brilliant idea to preside over a naturalization ceremony at Monticello. And he talks about the role of immigration in the American story. And by the way, I believe your father, Irving Kristol, had a hand in this. I remember writing about a Ford at Monticello several years ago and noticing your dad's name, how it had come up. He provided some advice, maybe a little bit of history. But Ford, he just. He performed the role beautifully as the president of all the people. He was locked in a nomination battle with Reagan. There was none of that. Nothing about Democrats, nothing about Republicans. It was so, if I can put it this way, neutrally American. And, of course, who really hit a home run on one of our anniversaries was Coolidge in 1926 when he gave that baffo speech. He said, people talk about progress and progressivism and going forward. You can't go forward from our Founding Fathers. You can only go backward to kingship, to heredity, to class, to station, to serfdom. It's just magnificent. He said, critics of our founding are reacting. They're not progressive, they're reactionary. In other words, liberalism is. It is what Coolidge said. And of course, it was US Grant on our centennial and John Quincy Adams for our 50th. On that day, his father, the former president and Jefferson both died. What an unusual day.
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C
Yeah, no, there's a lot of wonderful. I haven't really studied at all. 1876 and that coolest speech I've read, and that is very impressive. He was a much more thoughtful man when one takes it. I don't really know that much about his administration, even, but they call the normal right.
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B
When he spoke, he meant it. He made it work. He wasn't garrulous, but he chose his words very well.
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C
The 1826. 26 celebration, the 50th was really. I mean, obviously the fact that Adams Jefferson died on that day is kind of unbelievable, but Adams himself Is, is asked, someone comes to see him and he's very ill and says, do you have any, anything to say, sort of last words basically to your countrymen? And he said, just independence. So you have one or two words, something like that. Remember that? He wanted people to remember the day as he had written 50 years before to his wife. It should be celebrated and marked the fact of independence. And I think the principles upon which independence was declared. Jefferson has a beautiful letter. The last thing he wrote, to my knowledge, meant to be public, meant to be ready. He's invited to the celebration of Washington, actually. Kind of, kind of funny, just like, you know, just like here 200 years later in 1826. He's obviously down at Monticello, he's not that far away, but he is quite ill. So he says, great regret he can't come. And then a beautiful short letter, very easy to find online letter to Roger Weightman, who was then the mayor of Washington, declining the invitation because of his illness. And Jefferson writes, though, what would the Declaration means? That he think he's pleased that it has been accepted in a sense by our fellow citizens. But he may it be always a beautiful, beautiful expression of the universal meaning of the Declaration, of what it means for freedom of speech and freedom of opinion, for the defense of human rights and really a wonderful thing. So in 76, just to finish Ford the speech, I look quickly at a speech in Independence hall which as you said, was kind of the center of the day in front of Independence hall, totally not self referential. And he's in the middle of, it's an election year, unlike this year. So you know, and he does say, he urges, he says they, they, you know, they would be pleased that we still are having elections 200 years later, free and fair elections. I don't know if he uses that term, but that's what he means. And he said he urges everyone to vote as in the spirit of the, of the founders. And that's it. Nothing, as you say, nothing. Even a whiff of partisanship. And certainly wasn't that easy for Ford. I mean, this is, as you say, it was intent. Nixon was planning a slightly, if I could say slightly more Trumpy version of it, I think for himself, as Nixon had a bit of a want to do, but not, not, not, not to, you know, still one tenth of the degree of Trump.
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A
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- [21:18]
C
Ford takes over in August of 74. He pardons Nixon. Very controversial. He's not. We lose Vietnam, things are not going great. We're in a bad recession. The oil shock, I mean, it was one thing after another. He's being challenged politically by Reagan. The Democrats have their own campaign. There are people like us. You were 12, I was older, 22, I guess 23. But critics of Ford's detente and of Kissinger, including Phil Buckley, National Review, very much of a critic of that and supporter Reagan, of course. So he's not like. He has a huge amount of comfort or support from across the spectrum and he puts it all aside and behaves the way a president should. It's such a remarkable contrast really, I think.
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B
And he has this lovely phrase I quoted in an article the other week. I can't think of it now, but it had to do with the Declaration and the Constitution as companions, how the Declaration gave us the ideas, the ideals and the Constitution made it flesh.
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C
Yeah. Lincoln's formulation is what? The apple of gold in the frame of silver, I think.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Which is beautiful.
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B
Which is biblical coming from the Bible. Yeah.
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C
Yes. Yeah, they're beautiful.
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B
Speaking of Lincoln, Bill, I copied something. It's something you love and something I love. Do you mind if I read briefly what Lincoln said in his eulogy of Henry Clay?
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C
No, I like that too.
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B
Please. You may have it memorized. But I.
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C
No, I don't.
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B
But yes, goes like this, Mr. Clay's production.
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C
This is about 18, just to be clear. This is, I think, 1852 or something like that. Clay, who was a long, very famous, of course, member of Congress and Secretary of State and then Senator Lincoln's. And Lincoln was. It was the Whig Party, was his party, basically for decades. Never made the presidency, but nominee, I think two or three times for president and. And Lincoln considered Clay his. His leader, so to speak. Politically, anyways.
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B
Exactly. So. Exactly so. So here Is Lincoln on Clay? Just to refresh everyone, Mr. Clay's predominant sentiment from first to last was a deep devotion to the cause of human liberty, a strong sympathy with the oppressed everywhere, and an ardent wish for their elevation with him. This was a primary and all controlling passion. Subsidiary to this was the conduct of his whole life. He loved his country partly because it was his own country, but mostly because it was a free country. And he burned with a zeal for its advancement, prosperity and glory, because he saw in such the advancement, prosperity and glory of human liberty, human right and human nature. He desired the prosperity of his countrymen partly because they were his countrymen, but chiefly to show to the world that that freeman could be prosperous. And our country has always meant so much to the world at large, not just to us Americans. As I said the other day, we are a nation on the ground, a peculiar nation, a peculiar people. We start at Plymouth and England and so on and so forth, but we're also a nation sort of in the air for one and all. And this country and its experiment means a lot to people throughout the world. And if we let our flag droop or we just let it fall into the mud, it's bad for the world at large, you know. And what did the first Bush say? Are we just another pleasant nation somewhere on the UN roll call between Albania and Zimbabwe? No offense to Albania or Zimbabwe, but the US It's a different story. People have said as much here in Italy, there's an Italian expression, fare uno bruta figura, to put forth an ugly face. And it's when you make a spectacle of yourself or you embarrass yourself in public, you make a fool of yourself. And this man said to me, a friend of a friend said, but you're making such a bruta figura now. This isn't really like you, what's going on? And my only response could have been, you know, how much time you got? Yeah.
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C
You know, one thing I hadn't realized, I read up on this a little more the last few years, as one has read up on a whole bunch of things, is how important the US The American Revolution was one thing. The French Revolution, such a huge. It was such a massive event in Europe, that 19th century European history, when I studied it eons ago, sort of a bunch of footnotes to the reactions to the French Revolution on both left and right, and some. But one that was not entirely true. I mean, the American Revolution and the Declaration, American Declaration, were extremely important to European revolutionaries, or especially liberal revolutionaries, as opposed, obviously, to Marxist or revolutionaries. And the liberal revolutions of the 19th century in Europe, including the Italian one, were terribly. Were influenced by. Look to the model of the American revolutionaries, both in terms of. As human models, but also very much the principles of the Declaration. And then to the success of America, America as a liberal, liberal nation, a liberal democracy, whatever its flaws, that was moving ahead and flourishing. Obviously lots of Italians were moving here. I mean, it is. I guess I had underestimated that, certainly in 1848. Kasuth. The Hungarian revolutionaries, I assume the Italians and in the subsequent years, you know, appeal to America. Kossuth comes to America after the failure of the Hungarian Revolution in 1848. I think Lincoln meets him.
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B
Lincoln saw him in Springfield.
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C
Yes. Yeah.
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B
Wonderful, wonderful moment. Great, great.
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C
But they all understood, I mean, the universal significance of the Declaration, both in Europe and in America. Actually, you know, Henry Clay talks about this a fair amount, including some of these disputes whether we should get involved in some of these revolutions. Why? Probably should. Can't really get directly involved. We're weak at that point, 4,000 miles away. And we're not a very strong country, really. We're pretty small country, actually. Even though we're large in space but small in population. We're not really ready to go help them liberate themselves. In 1819 or whatever. He's commenting on this, 1821, the Greeks rebelling against the Ottoman Empire. But we. They have all of our sympathy, at least, and some real support too, incidentally. So it is striking how the sometimes people say, well, America was isolationist and only became interested in the world in 191898 or 1917. That's not quite right. I mean, I haven't. But in Italy, which you know so much more about than I, and you've been traveling. I mean, I'm curious, is that what has that sense, right, that kind of those old ties with America?
- [27:49]
B
Oh, yes, and yes, indeed. And we set this example and we're always told and we always say we're such a new country and such a young country, but we're such an old government. And this is something that Italians and other Europeans emphasize, what an old government we are, how stable it has been. And I have a bit of a footnote or an appendage that has come to mind. This could almost bring a tear to my eye. It's a story that Rick Brookheiser tells. He recounts so well. U.S. grant took a trip around the world after his presidency and he met Bismarck. And they talked about the horror of civil war, which they both had known Civil war is the worst kind of war. And Bismarck said, well, Grant said something like, you know, we had to get rid of slavery. And Bismarck said, well, the thing was for the Union to hang together to save the Union. And Grant said we had to blot out slavery because not until then were we right. Not until then. I'm paraphrasing. Were we made whole and were we. Did our revolution come true? That had to go. Had to go. Bismarck was trying to be thoughtful, you know that he's trying to be practical. Slavery had to go. Marvelous, marvelous. He had a real moral sense, that guy. You know, he was. He was rough around the edges. He drank. Grant had a real moral sense.
- [29:16]
C
No, so true. I'll let you go here in a few minutes. As I know it's getting close to. I was gonna say it's getting close to dinner time in Italy because I guess it's what, 6:30 there now. But of course that's not even close to dinner time. That's barely. Yeah, yeah, that's barely like the first little pre dinner.
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B
That's not even an appetizer. Look, look, these people are eating. When? At my bedtime.
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C
Yeah, it's funny. What else?
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B
Just a couple of.
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C
Any other particular surprises? I mean, for those of us who haven't had this wonderful chance. You've had more than chance of us. You really put it together. This wasn't, as I say, a trip that anyone arranged for you or sometimes you go to a conference. You go speak at a conference and they're very nice to you and they arrange some trips around near the conference or they pay, of course, they pay for your airfare and all this kind of thing and maybe give you a driver. Just decided to do this right? You've taken trains from one of these cities to the, to the other. I judge from your, your writing about it and, and buses within cities and found your, you know, just. What's that been like? I'm just curious. I mean,
- [30:14]
B
Tony Daniels, the writer Anthony Daniels has been abroad a lot and he's lived abroad a lot. And he says he likes being a foreigner. I like being a foreigner. I don't know why. I like figuring things out in other countries and learning maybe a bit of a language. I like getting the discovery. I like the aspect of discovery. And if you're going to be in the world, might as well embrace as much of it as you can. And there's a line from Tennyson. I'm not going to get it now, but I quoted it in a eulogy for David Price Jones, last December. David was born in Vienna two years before the Anschluss. And, you know, his life began with this catastrophe, this genocide, this shoah. And he decided he was going to embrace life to the full. And Tennyson says something about, you know, by God, I shall live, I shall travel. I was saying, you know, David did that. He sort of gulped down the world and wrote about it penetratingly and illuminatingly. And there's a. It has to do with a love of learning. Bill, I was going to tell you and Susan this in an email. Years ago. As a student, I went into a lot of museums and a lot of churches. I don't go into any museums and churches. I just don't. I walk, I look at people, I listen to people. But you know what I'm attracted to. This is really dorky. But I can tell you, Bill, because you'll sympathize and Susan will sympathize. I'm attracted to colleges and universities. You know, liche lyceums, I go look at them. Who's it named after? I wonder what the curriculum is there. I just, I have a yen for education, and it's a great and good thing. This guy just died. He was a. He was a financier and a collector of art. He read his obit in the New York Times, wonderful obit. He was in the US Military. He was in officer training program, and they made him take English. And he read Keats about beauty. It changed his life. And he got rich and he became an art collector. And so, you know, you hear a lot of badmouthing of liberal arts education. One side says as much as dead white males. The other side says a bunch of airy, fairy, weak feminine nonsense.
- [32:47]
A
Still.
- [32:47]
B
Another side says, what'll it get you? What job will it get you? What's the practicality? Gives you a richer mental life. I know I'm preaching to the choir, which is sometimes.
- [32:57]
C
No, that's wonderful. But it's so well said. And so some of us take, kind of take that argument for granted or assume it's right, but it's really great that you. It's important to, to say it and to, you know, just to make the case as you just have. That's really terrific. Well, I will let you go to your. Are you. Do you know where you go next? Do you come back at some point soon or
- [33:22]
B
there's more of Sicily, a place called Enna in the mountains. And then I will. I've been in Ravenna to commune with Dante, and I've been in recanati to commune with Leopardi, and in Palermo and environs, I commune a bit with Lampedusa, the author of the Leopard. Just such an enchanting book. And one of the things that drew me to Italy when I was young,
- [33:48]
C
you know, that's a book you and I have discussed. And we've. Partly because we've gotten to the rest, to a couple of restaurants in New York.
- [33:55]
B
Yeah, true.
- [33:56]
C
Named after the book. Il Gatto Pardo, the Leopard. And I don't think they're good restaurants, but also gone, just as a kind of gesture, in a way, to that book, which I read, I guess, in high school or college. It came out in 1960. I think it's a pretty amazing story. A Sicilian nobleman. He's a nobleman. He rents his estate. He does whatever noblemen do. Right. Last. Writes this. Yes. Feels that very much that way. Writes this manuscript, as I understand it, late in pretty. Pretty late in life. Sends it off to a bunch of publishers, or has someone do it for him, I suppose. Rejected by everyone. No one publishes it. This is the late 50s, if I'm not mistaken. And then the book is published after his death and becomes a massive best hit in Italy, throughout Europe, Translated in the US and made into a movie. Right. In 1963, I think. Somewhat comically. Somewhat comically with Burt Lancaster. I mean. I mean, let's have a movie. This is so much about Sicily and Italy.
- [34:59]
B
No, two of the leads were foreigners. Burt Lancaster and Alain Dolon. Yeah.
- [35:05]
C
And there's some comedy about how they. I can't remember how. Who speaks what language. You know, obviously it's an American.
- [35:09]
B
Yes, that's right.
- [35:10]
C
But. And then there's a recent. I think you saw it and I haven't.
- [35:14]
B
Netflix series.
- [35:15]
C
Glorious, you liked.
- [35:16]
B
Yeah, a little. A little unfaithful. It's more based on. But glorious.
- [35:20]
C
Okay, well, that's something we can all do. Read the novel. Anyway, I mentioned this because, as you say, you're. You're gonna go to his.
- [35:27]
B
I guess, his environs.
- [35:29]
C
Environ. Environs. I hadn't realized. This is kind of embarrassing to say, and really until very recently, that his name, Lampedusa, is in fact the name of the little island.
- [35:39]
B
Yeah.
- [35:40]
C
South of Sicily, I guess, which is the southernmost part of Europe, if I'm not mistaken. Maybe except for Gibraltar, I don't know. I say, anyway, right now in the news, because so many of the immigrants coming from Africa try to get to there. Many have died in the effort. And the Pope. Pope Leo, the first American pope, who you and he were both in Italy on July 4th. He was in Lampedusa, quite, really strikingly, yes. Amazing and very moving, his remarks there on July 4, which people should also read. They should read that first, then you can read the Leopard at your leisure.
- [36:12]
B
You know, one more literary note, if I may, Bill. I forgot about this. Talking about Dante and Leopardi and Lampedusa in Ferrara. That's the setting of the garden of the Finzi Continis, about politics in the 1930s and 40s and the fate of the Jews. And I went to the synagogue and the cemetery and there's a lot in that book, not just about antisemitism, not just about fascism, but about populism, about resentment, about class grievance. So much in that book. And it's funny, the older I get, the deeper that book gets. I've been saying about Giuseppe Verdi for years, I've been saying it's funny that the older I get, the wiser Verdi gets. And I was young, I thought it was just a bunch of Oompapa melodies, you know, so deep, so deep. Anyway, it's a. It's a. It's a marvelous book and movie by De Sica. So this country's packed with culture.
- [37:18]
C
That's amazing. And I'm embarrassed to say I've not read that book. My parents liked it very much. My father liked it very much. Well, he knew this is not worth getting into it at any great length because this is. My father edited now long defunct magazine called the Reporter, was like his managing editor maybe in, I don't know, 1959, 60, 61, something like that. His deputy was Meg Greenfield, who ended up being the editor of the Washington Post editorial page. And the man who owned it, who said it, founded it, I think, and read it basically, and was a Italian immigrant named Max Ascoli. Italian, Jewish. And his family. Now I'm going to get this little wrong, but was somewhat, either. Somewhat like the Finzi Continis or knew the fancy Continis or was part of the Finzi Continis. You know, they were Jewish immigrants from Italy and that was. And so my father had a sort of particular interest in the book and the novel. But I'm embarrassed. I will read that. That's going to make that my project. Reread the Leopard and read the Garden. That's a good project for the summer, I think. Yeah, yeah. And I can avoid watching some of the other ridiculous things we're going to have here in Washington. The, you know, some car race in August and there's still this great American fairs going on. I kind of was hoping it would all end on July 4th or July 5th, honestly, but I'm afraid that that's they're going to the administration is going to Trump will milk this for another couple of months, but I think it's not really the good news is, so you can tell your Italian friends it's not that part is it's not working. I mean in that respect he has not redefined America. No one is buying, I don't think the Trump version of the fourth, you
- [38:58]
B
know, I will say about populism. Bill Buckley said, within every conservative is a streak of libertarianism and within every conservative and every liberal is a streak of populism. These people have done a lot to give populism a worse name than even it deserves.
- [39:14]
C
Yeah, no, that is for sure. Well, maybe the people will give it a better name now and over the next.
- [39:18]
B
There you go.
- [39:19]
C
Weeks and months and years. Jay Nordinger, thank you for taking time out of your Italian travels to your Italian journeys to join me today. Very interesting and thought provoking conversation. An enjoyable one. So thanks. Thank you Jay.
- [39:32]
B
Thank you Bill. Appreciate you always.
- [39:34]
C
And thank you all for joining us on Bulwark on Sunday.
- [39:39]
A
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