It was a real pleasure to revisit Journey by Moonlight, though it was much slower going this time. Sometimes I wonder what happened to my capacity for reading, and while I think it's partly due to spending too much time scrolling, I've also had a houseguest these last couple months who frequently talks to me in the mornings right when I might otherwise be reading. (Hell is other people.) I still identified so strongly with Mihály's struggle between the attractions of the bourgeois life that is expected of him and his belief that deep inside, in his true self, he is not meant for that life. I'm articulating this poorly, but I occasionally joke that I am the token normie among my friend group. My job and my home and my lifestyle feel in conflict with my inner self. Not all the time — only when I stop to think about it, or when I read something like Journey By Moonlight that brings it to the front of my mind.
The most striking thing for me on this reading of Journey By Moonlight was Szerb's description of Rome — a city I am much more familiar with now than I was when I read the book five years ago. He spends a good deal of time talking about the Etruscans and the museum devoted to them at Villa Giulia — a museum I visited on my 2022 trip to Rome. I now think it's quite likely that it was on my to-see list because of Szerb, but if it that's true, I had forgotten. Mihály also visits the non-Catholic cemetery, a place I tried to go on my first visit to Rome (it was closed due to snow), but which I have now visited several times and count as one of my favorite places in the city. Szerb's accounts of Rome ring so true to my own experiences of visiting the city 90 years later. Of course, 90 years is no time at all in the history of Rome.
On finishing Journey By Moonlight, I decided to go right into a reread of Szerb's travel memoir, The Third Tower. Once again, it had me in tears on the second page, but it was so great to read it with Journey By Moonlight fresh in my mind. Reading The Third Tower, I I feel such a strong connection with Szerb. Like me, he was obsessed with San Vitale as a teenager (who the hell is obsessed with San Vitale as a teenager?!). On my first visit to Italy, in 2001, Ravenna was the only place that was a must-visit for me. (I found Italy disappointing on the whole on that visit and it took me 14 years to return.) I revisited Ravenna and San Vitale about a year ago, and when I read Szerb's chapters on the city and the mosaics they described perfectly my own feelings. There's a chapter of The Third Tower I had forgotten, in which Szerb talks about his own internal conflict that is parallel to Mihály's, called "The Confession of the Bourgeios." He puts it more plainly in his memoir than in the novel. He rebels against it, but he doesn't feel at home without the bourgeois comforts which he is accustomed to — and yet, at the same time, he is not really at home in the bourgeois world either.
I will be in Rome in a few days. This time, I'll be staying near Trastevere, a neighborhood that features prominently in Journey By Moonlight, and where I have not spent a lot of time on my previous visits to the city. I'm looking forward to seeing it with Szerb's words at the front of my mind.
