Have You Met The Two Turins?

Alexander Stille's tale of "The Two Turins" is full of contradictions, but Stille is careful to explain these contradictions. Written with carefully crafted imagery language and strong descriptions and comparisons there are many parts of the reading that are relatable as well as informative. The introduction paragraph is a perfect example of this type of contradictory but informative and descriptive language. Stille refers to Turin as a city that is, "...a well kept secret left out in plain view. This may well be because, at first glance, Turin seems so little "Italian": its wide elegant boulevards, long and straight, in rational, grid formation, lined with imposing 19th century apartment buildings with Mansard roofs and French doors, remind people more of Paris than the labyrinthine tangle of narrow medieval alleyways characteristic of the center of so many Italian cities. Its best museum hosts a collection of Egyptian mummies and artifacts rather than works of Italian art". With this passage he has set up a contradiction, and then explained it and in doing so he has captured my interest. I am intrigued by the differences that he has described in juxtaposition to the rest of Italy and in comparison to Paris. He later goes on to explain the contradiction even further by telling the reader, "But Turin's differentness is, in fact, one of the things that makes it extremely Italian".

Now it is shortly after this however that he starts to lose me a little bit, while he continues to be informative and descriptive I feel like I've gone off the grid a bit, his piece doesn't seem to flow or connect anymore and instead feels like I'm jumping from topic to topic. Part of this might be due to the rather immense amount of history that he mixes into the entire piece throughout each section, but it is informative and some of it is important information that adds to my current understanding of the place and people. An example of this occurs when he's discussing the industrial side of Turin; "The city grew rapidly in the 19th century when it became the political center of Italy as well as one of the country's few industrial centers, growing from 200,000 to half a million people in the second half of the 19th century". This is something I did not know, and a pretty significant statistic to take note of, so this type of information was useful.

Some of the information is a bit unnecessary but interesting none the less, if for no other reason than it was something out of the ordinary, like when he talks about the alchemical experiments that occurred in the basement of the Palazzo Madama, and the fact that some people believe the holy grail and true cross are buried somewhere in the land. Or how about that, "To this day, followers of the occult consider Turin a 'magic city,' strategically placed on the corner of a 'white magic' triangle together with Prague and Lyon as well as on a 'black magic' triangle with San Francisco and London".

The piece continues, adding more information and historical background, leaving me feeling a bit overwhelmed then the piece kind of just ends. He doesn't totally just cut off the conclusion but he goes from talking about the Olympics to making a brief connection to the introduction and while the title implies there is more than one side to Turin I kind of got the impression that there was even more than two, I think the piece could have used a bit of cutting, removing some of the excess information and historical background staying more focused on the present situation or information that more directly pertains to the current status of Turin.