William Weaver's Eco Chamber

William Weaver, the American dean of modern Italian literature, died last Tuesday in Rhinebeck, New York. Weaver ('Bill' to friends) was a musicologist and cineaste as well as a translator, a man whose close and passing acquaintances included virtually every literary luminary of post-war Italy and whose voice was recognized by thousands of loyal listeners of the Metropolitan Opera's radio broadcasts in the 1970s. But I knew him as a shadow. As a man whose presence was outlined on dozens of great...