ENZO FERRARI TIDBITS FROM THE LRB PART 1

I’M OFTEN ENTERTAINED BY THE LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS. To cite a few examples, see “Just Because I’m a Librarian Doesn’t Mean I Have to Dress Like One”—Belle Da Costa Greene,” July 4, 2025; “Which Way is North? And Why Anyway?,” April, 30, 2025; and “On Greenland, Not Just Over It,” April 26, 2025.

Today and tomorrow in Parts 1 and 2 we glean tidbits from Thomas Jones’ “Lunch With Mussolini,” London Review of Books, August 14, 2025. There, Jones reviews Luca Dal Monte’s Enzo Ferrari: The Definitive Biography of an Icon.

Enzo Ferrari: The Definitive Biography of an Icon, by Luca Dal Monte, Hachette Mobius, 2024. 

Let’s see what LRB Senior Editor Thomas Jones has to say.

A Day at Vallelunga. Jones devotes fully one-quarter of his lengthy (5855-word) LRB article to his participation in a ride-and-drive of exotics: “A nice day for a drive,” he writes, “even if sweat was pooling in my disposable latex gloves as I waited in the pits for my turn in the Ferrari F430.… I’d come for a two-lap ‘driving experience’ at the Autodromo di Vallelunga, just east of Lake Bracciano, for many years the site of the Formula Two Rome Grand Prix.”

Quite a Turnout. Jones recounts, “There were nine Ferraris on the track, along with two Lamborghinis, a Porsche, an Aston Martin, a Maserati, a McLaren, an Alfa Romeo, a pair of Audis and a Nissan (if you think that sounds like the odd one out, think again: the Nissan GT-R has a top speed of nearly 200 mph and can go from 0 to 60 in 2.7 seconds).”

Ferrari 430. Image by Rudolf Stricker from Wikipedia.

Quite an Experience. “Sitting in the Ferrari,” Jones recalls, “with my hands gripping the wheel (‘not so tight’), foot hovering near the accelerator, waiting to pull away, felt more like holding a chainsaw: the sense of wielding immense mechanical power that I wasn’t trained or qualified to wield; the alarming capacity to inflict damage, to cause harm through incompetence. But once I was out of the pit lane, a safe distance from the pedestrians, accelerating along the straights, braking hard before the corners, careening round them, accelerating hard out of them, the g-forces conjured a long distant memory of bungee-jumping. Bungee-jumping with a chainsaw, then? But that would be a grotesque spectacle. And a Ferrari is not only fast and deadly but beautiful, too, like a hand-forged katana, though it cuts through the air not with a swish and a whisper but with a resounding, thunderous purr.” 

Yep, Jones usually drives a Skoda Octavia Estate, but he’s evidently one of us.

Enzo Ferrari and the Manifesto of Futurism. Jones writes, “Ferrari was far from the only Italian to be bewitched by the promise of speed in the autumn of 1908. Around the time that Enzo was watching Nazzaro and Vincenzo Lancia roar past in their Promethean machines, Marinetti wrote the Manifesto of Futurism: ‘We declare that the splendour of the world has been enriched with a new form of beauty, the beauty of speed … A race-automobile which seems to rush over exploding powder is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.’ ”

A related piece of art: Velocità astratta + rumore (“Abstract Speed + Sound”), by Giacomo Balla. Image from the Guggenheim.

“One of Giacomo Balla’s Futurist paintings of 1913,” Jones observes, “now hangs in Tate Modern: Velocità astratta – l’auto è passata (‘Abstract speed—the car has passed’) shows a spray of pink-tinged dust on an empty white road, green hills, blue skies, gestures of atmospheric disturbances.”

But what memorable disturbances. Tomorrow in Part 2 we’ll continue with Thomas Jones’ review of Luca Dal Monte’s Enzo Ferrari: The Definitive Biography of an Icon. ds  

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025