Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant
Review: "I hate travelling and explorers" declared Claude Levi-Strauss at the beginning of his anthroplogical masterpiece, Tristes Tropiques. In a similar vein, Michael Rips starts this unique travelogue by announcing his longstanding belief "that the place where I am living, however wretched, is preferable to anywhere else, however pleasant." Reluctantly dragged by his wife to Sutri, an ancient town north of Rome, the author, a former trial attorney suspended in an existential crisis, was confronted by a bizarre gallery of local characters and, eventually, himself. In an echo of Baudrillard's description of his own journal as 'a subtle index of idleness', the book is subtitled 'Idle Days in an Italian Town'; for in Sutri, Rips succumbed to his propensity to while away the day in apparently inconsequential conversations with the townsfolk. The resulting series of vignettes is not only outrageously entertaining, but also stands as a complex commentary on the means by which communities forge identities by their stories of themselves, and the way in which writers are implicated in such collective myths. This is a very clever, very distinctive achievement.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: "I hate travelling and explorers" declared Claude Levi-Strauss at the beginning of his anthroplogical masterpiece, Tristes Tropiques. In a similar vein, Michael Rips starts this unique travelogue by announcing his longstanding belief "that the place where I am living, however wretched, is preferable to anywhere else, however pleasant." Reluctantly dragged by his wife to Sutri, an ancient town north of Rome, the author, a former trial attorney suspended in an existential crisis, was confronted by a bizarre gallery of local characters and, eventually, himself. In an echo of Baudrillard's description of his own journal as 'a subtle index of idleness', the book is subtitled 'Idle Days in an Italian Town'; for in Sutri, Rips succumbed to his propensity to while away the day in apparently inconsequential conversations with the townsfolk. The resulting series of vignettes is not only outrageously entertaining, but also stands as a complex commentary on the means by which communities forge identities by their stories of themselves, and the way in which writers are implicated in such collective myths. This is a very clever, very distinctive achievement.
Rating: 
Summary: Good to the last drop of expresso.
Review: As one of the many who has fallen in lust with Italy over a too-short visit, I found this a fun read. The author displays a whacked-out sense of humor as he deconstructs the citizenry of a small town (large village?) north of Rome. There seems to be an unusually large number of eccentrics inside those ancient walls, and one more - in the person of Rips - just adds to the brew. He seems out of his element in the beginning, but eventually you start to think he's landed exactly where he belongs, in a sort of beign asylum where the inmates are the admissions committee. The dry commentary reminded me of the great Ludwig Bemelmens, one of the 20th century's premier travel essayists, though sadly largely forgotten today. Maybe you've read D.H.Lawrence's accounts of travel in Italia - infuse an offbeat sense of humor and a semi-fictional tone and you'll come away with a copy of Pasquale's Nose. If you don't get to go to Italy yourself this summer - or, better yet, if you do - this may be the perfect vacation read. (But how that chapter about Sweden worked its way in, I can't quite figure. Maybe just another anachronism in an ancient world facing modern life? Or a lapse of editorial judgement? You decide.)
Rating:
Summary: The Un-Mayes ...
Review: Funny that the reviewer from the Library Assn. faults this original work for not being like Peter Mayle and Frances Mayes ... that was one of my favorite things about it. Rips isn't interested in pretty commentary on the local produce, but instead brings a sense of humor, history and discovery to this ancient land and tradition-steeped people. A slim volume, yes, but with a deeper purpose than a travelogue or another episode of "This Old Villa". Every chapter explores another aspect of the character of the country - and the characters who inhabit it.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Best of its Genre
Review: I bought this book on impulse when I bought Mayle's new French Lessons, and read them at the same time. Pasquale's Nose was far better written, more evocative, and more interesting. Like the initial Provence books of Mayle, and the subsequent Under the Tuscan Sun, Driving Over Lemons, and Extra Virgin, Michael Rips describes his experiences and observation of characters in small European town--in this case Sutri, near Rome. Rips' style seems sparce, and even a little scattered, but it soon addicts the reader. It is efficient in communicating. One quickly achieves not only a sense of the town but, more important, a sense of its interesting and strange inhabitants. If you liked the better-known (or perhaps better promoted) books of this type, you will like this book.
Rating:
Summary: italian reviw
Review: I think Rips describes italian people in a very real way...reading this book, my firsi impression was "but what kind of idea do americans have of Italy and Italian people?" but when i finished the book, walking in my town ,Collecchio,in Emilia(north of Italy) I realized how many Mezzadonnas, Vittore, Pasquale ecc.ecc. are living next to me! That's strange but that's nice...very nice...that's ITALY!!!
Rating: 
Summary: No life!
Review: I was very disappointed with this book. It has the feel of an attorney's fact sheet. I had four hours to kill on a train ride and still couldn't get into it. No life to it.
Rating:
Summary: Rich with Stories
Review: Michael Rips was a hotel dweller and a cafe sitter. It was the life he preferred. So when Sheila, his girlfriend*, an artist, and the mother of their new daughter, suggested that they move to a small Italian town, he refused. Italian town life was not what he had in mind. It wasn't until his favorite cafe announced their impending closing that he resigned his opposition, packed up his resistance and went reluctantly to Sutri. Thus begins his travelogue, the bizarre, funny and enjoyable Pasquale's Nose. Once in Sutri, he was pleasantly surprised to find that his life could follow the same course, minus the hotel dwelling. He joined the older men in the cafes morning till evening, expecting to while away the time, and never expecting to become so involved in, and even influenced by, the town of Sutri. Sometimes cynical, sometimes idealistic, Rips looks to find himself in Sutri. In a way, he did. Rips takes the charms and peculiarities of Sutri, breathes them in and makes them his own. He becomes involved--if not mired--in aspects of Sutri including generations-old arguments about the origin of Pontius Pilate, decades-old rivalries over the best beans, hushed-up secrets of porcupine eaters, and debates about everything from Etruscans to horse meat to reality. Sheila and their daughter are only briefly mentioned, and exist as only shadowy figures. The reader will know Pasquale, the Guidi's and Vera--even the town square itself with the palazzo built with wine in the mortar-- far more intimately than they will Rips immediate family. I couldn't help but wonder if Rips might have found himself more easily had more time been spent with them than with the Sutrini, but. . . Well, I, too, fell under the Sutrini spell so I can't really blame him. This is a amiable book, with no definite conclusion, no sense of an ending, just a suspension as if the town (and the reader with it) had gone to bed for the evening. Sutri will resume on the morrow, the book will continue, Rips will continue in this fairy tale/alternate universe/timeless place. It was with deep disappointment I noticed that at the time of publication, Rips was living in a hotel in New York City. *On the book flaps, Shelia is referred to as his wife. There is no basis for that in the book or in the one line about the author. The cover also mentions that Rips "quit his life as an appellate lawyer" to go to Sutri. That's another bit that has only the jacket to back it. I was puzzled that details that were so unimportant in the book itself would surface in the advertising thereof.
Rating:
Summary: A drudge of a book
Review: Oh dear, where to start: there are some interesting stories here and it really is the essence of Italian village life and I really wanted to like this book BUT it is so poorly written that is hard to want to continue very far. Though a small book I had to force myself to finish it. Peter Mayle understands character and Frances Mayes is a poet of place. Alas, Mr Rips needs a creative writing class or two as this book reads more like a series of high school essays than a professional manuscript. A real drudge of a book.
Rating:
Summary: A modern Dante
Review: Read this book! It is an inspired, hilarious but ultimately subtle take off on Dante's Purgatorio. Rips goes from the bottom of Purgatory, his local coffee shop, to a medieval village at the top. On his way, he encounters a glorious flock of off-beat characters, including one who seems to be the incarnation of Heidegger. They teach him something about himself but also about the mentality of village life. I read a lot of travel memoirs and cannot remember one which has the debth of this one. I could not recommend this book more highly.
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