Botticelli Blue Skies: An American in Florence

Rating:
Summary: Botticelli Blue Skies
Review: A joyous read. Like the sound of the Italian language itself, this book has a gentle, endearing sound of its own. Author Gerber accompanies her husband a teacher, and a group of his students on an extended stay in Florence. Reluctant to go at first, recounting anxieties about traveling to a foreign country, she gradually accepts the frustrations, mishaps, and exhaustion (and does so with humor and laughter at her own foibles) -- that naturally accompany the pleasures and surprises of travel. Gerber is honest and genuine. She writes in first person and present tense, directly bringing us along with her on her many 'journeys', discovering not only the people, language, art, history, music. . . of Italy, but the self-discovery of how she comes to enjoy all aspects of travel, and the feeling of pride at the triumph in managing to deal with every day life far from home. (And this happens at an age that is not young and full of go-go-go energyÐ which I surely related to.) I greatly enjoyed the read, meeting the author, her husband, and all the individuals and places that she brings to life to me along the way.

Rating:
Summary: Botticelli Blue Skies
Review: A joyous read. Like the sound of the Italian language itself, this book has a gentle, endearing sound of its own. Author Gerber accompanies her husband a teacher, and a group of his students on an extended stay in Florence. Reluctant to go at first, recounting anxieties about traveling to a foreign country, she gradually accepts the frustrations, mishaps, and exhaustion (and does so with humor and laughter at her own foibles) -- that naturally accompany the pleasures and surprises of travel. Gerber is honest and genuine. She writes in first person and present tense, directly bringing us along with her on her many 'journeys', discovering not only the people, language, art, history, music. . . of Italy, but the self-discovery of how she comes to enjoy all aspects of travel, and the feeling of pride at the triumph in managing to deal with every day life far from home. (And this happens at an age that is not young and full of go-go-go energyÐ which I surely related to.) I greatly enjoyed the read, meeting the author, her husband, and all the individuals and places that she brings to life to me along the way.

Rating:
Summary: Keep looking....
Review: A pretty pedestrian memoir by a woman who seems like she would be a very annoying travel companion. She's tired, she's hungry, she's unhappy, she's stressed. There must be better books about traveling to Florence than this.

Rating:
Summary: Staring Down the Tuscan Sun
Review: As some of the other reviewers mentioned, there's a lot of complaining at the beginning of this book. This almost put me off, but I was intrigued (perversely, I guess) by someone who did not consider a chance to spend a semester in Florence to be something to jump at. What was the matter with this woman?

When her husband tells her the university they both teach at is sending him to Florence for a semester to conduct a class, she just doesn't want to go. By being a reluctant traveler, Gerber is able to show how Florence managed to captivate her in spite of herself. Rather than going to Italy as an already-intoxicated tourist, she resists at first, but it is Florence, after all, and even she comes to love it. I found this an excellent antidote to the gushing "let's move to Italy (or France)" travelogs.

And she isn't just taken with the usual Florentine charms of museums, churches, wine, and food. She discovers the thrift shops and grocery stores that most tourists would miss entirely. As a temporary resident, she has to deal with the landlady and the staff at the local Chinese restaurant.

I almost gave up on this one, but am very glad I kept going, and suspect that is what Gerber intended all along.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable, Despite An Unlikable Author
Review: BOTTICELLI BLUE SKIES was an entertaining read despite the fact that being in the company of the author, anyplace and anywhere, would be a most trying experience. Ms. Gerber is an effortless, engaging writer who comes across on most every page as a royal pain-in-the-ass, difficult and immature to the extreme. Her high school dramatics when she finds herself in various situations was and is an absolute bore, which would cause anyone to flee from her company. The choices she makes, or rather doesn't make, while in Florence leave the reader amazed, puzzled and frustrated that she missed so much of what that glorious city has to offer, including the amazing museums and the terrific, simple food at the many, many excellent, very modestly-priced restaurants and trattorias.

I've lived in various Italian cities for several years and she captures well the routines of daily life. But the needless carping and belly-aching at every inconvenience which most would accept and graciously and patiently deal with makes her out to be a truly ugly American.

Grow up, Ms. Gerber. Your talent as a writer was overcome by your many shortcomings as a likable, go-with-the-flow human being.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable, Despite An Unlikable Author
Review: BOTTICELLI BLUE SKIES was an entertaining read despite the fact that being in the company of the author, anyplace and anywhere, would be a most trying experience. Ms. Gerber is an effortless, engaging writer who comes across on most every page as a royal pain-in-the-ass, difficult and immature to the extreme. Her high school dramatics when she finds herself in various situations was and is an absolute bore, which would cause anyone to flee from her company. The choices she makes, or rather doesn't make, while in Florence leave the reader amazed, puzzled and frustrated that she missed so much of what that glorious city has to offer, including the amazing museums and the terrific, simple food at the many, many excellent, very modestly-priced restaurants and trattorias.

I've lived in various Italian cities for several years and she captures well the routines of daily life. But the needless carping and belly-aching at every inconvenience which most would accept and graciously and patiently deal with makes her out to be a truly ugly American.

Grow up, Ms. Gerber. Your talent as a writer was overcome by your many shortcomings as a likable, go-with-the-flow human being.

Rating:
Summary: Give the Author a Break!
Review: Having read the previous reviews on this book, it appears that it's sort of a "love it or hate it" proposition. I guess I'm weighing in on the "love it" side, and here's why.

Most people who read travel books love to travel. Therefore, when we travel-lovers read a travel book by someone who doesn't really like to travel, we get annoyed. I can see that reaction from some of the reviewers (e.g., "what's wrong with this woman?"). And yet, there ARE some people who don't enjoy travel for travel's sake. They like their creature comforts, their familiar surroundings, their loved ones close by. They don't like the frenetic rush-rush pace of travel, the disorienting feeling of being in a strange place with strange customs and a strange language, where the simplest transaction can be confusing and exhausting. This author was, I think, this type of person. And what's wrong with that? And what's wrong with someone like this writing a travel book? Her experiences and her opinions are just as valid as those of someone who throws themselves into a foreign culture with gusto and inexhaustible energy.

To me, the author was not so much complaining ("poor me"), as she was honest and forthright about her difficulties in adjusting to a foreign culture. Once we understand that, we can approach the book with different expectations. Why should we expect a middle-aged woman with a career and family obligations to learn a foreign language when she is only going to be in a country for three months? Why should we expect her to necessarily be enthusiastic about leaving her career and her caregiving responsibilities for her dying mother to spend three months in Florence? Why should we expect her to put on a happy face at all times? Why not accept that travelling in and adapting to a foreign culture can be a difficult proposition for anyone?

What I liked best about this book, I think, was the honesty of the author. She didn't gloss over the day-to-day trials of living in another country. And yet, all in all, I had the sense that if she had it to do over again, she would go back to Florence in a heartbeat. This tone of this book was NOT primarily negative and whining, in my opinion. That she didn't portray her life as all rosy and wonderful is a testament, I think, to the frankness of the author -- and I would rather read a book like this than one where all is sweetness and light, and where the author treats every problem as an opportunity for comic relief.


Rating:
Summary: Delightful Travel Memoir
Review: Here's what the LA Times says--please post:
November 26, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
Italy through an American's eyes

By Bernadette Murphy, Special to The Times

'Botticelli Blue Skies'
An American in Florence
Merrill Joan Gerber
University of Wisconsin Press: 288 pp.,

Merrill Joan Gerber, who teaches creative writing at Caltech in Pasadena,
is the quintessential reluctant traveler: one for whom the prospect of
roaming translates not into visions of adventure and frolicking good times
but into anxiety of the unknown and a longing for life's daily rhythms.
Yet, as she recounts in her delightful travel memoir, "Botticelli Blue
Skies," she is prepared to relinquish her distaste of roving as she embarks
on what turns out to be a life-altering three-month sojourn accompanying
her history-professor husband and his group of 38 college students who have
signed up for a semester in Florence, Italy.

The entourage arrives in Tuscany, sets up housekeeping, figures out the bus
system and does its best to see the important tourist sites while learning
to live as Italians do. For these transplanted Americans, even the simplest
tasks -- navigating the grocery store, figuring out the money, lighting the
stove -- become both precarious and funny.

Detailing the day-to-day happenings of their stay, Gerber illustrates how
she eventually makes peace with the exotic, learns to see beauty in that
which initially frightens and uncovers the dogged resourcefulness all good
travelers must have, enthusiastic at heart or not.

Most enjoyable are the scenes of quotidian Italian life, like the chore of
washing clothes: "Unlike my American washing machine, which agitates in
pit-bull furor, shaking the dirt out of the clothes, then spinning them
wildly as if wringing their necks in revenge, this Italian version gives
our clothes a gentle half-turn and then pauses for what seems three minutes
before it gently shimmies them about again for a few seconds," she writes.
"A cluster of soap bubbles appears in the round glass window and then
vanishes while the clothes rest or gather strength for the next little
jiggle." The predicaments are never-ending: Once the clothes are washed,
how to hang them out on a clothesline that's five stories high? And then,
what to do when a piece of purple underwear flies free and lands on a lower
line, accessible only through another tenant's apartment? Depicted with
keen perception, the tale illustrates the way travel wakes us up from our
daily lives and compels us to see existence anew.

Having failed to study her Italian diligently before the trip, Gerber is
hampered by her inability to communicate verbally, but is ingenious in
surmounting this obstacle.

Trying to buy baking powder at the grocery store, she leads a clerk to the
packaged cake section and tries to indicate that she wants something to
make a cake rise. "To do this, I lift a cake over my head. This is becoming
a little like a game show. He cocks his head as if trying to think of an
answer. Then: the light bulb smile. Does he have the answer?" (He does.)

There are moments of human connection despite language and cultural
differences, as well as times when the emotional edge of travel and
discomfort have rubbed raw any sense of openness for new experiences. In
the Vatican Museum, for example, Gerber hears "the thunderous hoof beats of

thousands of tourists behind me" and after a grueling day of museum
madness, she declares she's suffering from "Overload Art Syndrome," a
condition that makes "the victim want to hop on a plane and go home."

When frustrated by the Florentine lack of efficiency, she indulges in
arrogant Americanisms, redesigning the laws of Italy: "Bus drivers will be
permitted to sell tickets on the bus to confused tourists .... Banks and
museums will never close their doors upon a whim .... Flu shots will be
made available in a logical manner so that a person does not have to buy
the vaccine and go in search of a needle. Sidewalks shall be designed
larger than ten inches wide." Yet she retains her ability to be dazzled by
the at-times contrary, often resplendent and even mundane aspects of
Italian life.

Handled with subtle humor and disarming honesty, Gerber's narrative
ultimately uncovers a core truth about travel: To surrender to a place, not
the version from one's fantasies but as it really exists, is the only way
to experience it. (In Italy that means uneven cobblestones, odd rhythms and
quaint customs, frustrations and breathtaking splendor.) And though the
adventure may not always be a comfortable one, even reluctant travelers are
welcome to join in.

Rating:
Summary: Botticelli Blue Skies Is Wonderful
Review: I am finishing Mrs. Gerber's Botticelli Blue Skies and
have found it a joy to read. I've never been to Italy or at
the moment plan on going.

I found the booklighthearted and humorous yet serious
enough to feel I'm learning things I didn't know. The
very reasons I love to read.

Rating:
Summary: Bug on the cover is a hint...
Review: I heard this author about mid-way through a Public Radio broadcast. I love, and think I have read almost every contemporary "Italy-Escapist" book. This book is an obvious attempt to exploit a lucrative niche. The author suffers from a lack of generosity of spirit. Her rough/bitter edges come through regularly. She is invited to a 500 year old villa and remarks that it is not a villa or a palazzo but merely a tiny house. She is treated to an amazing feast and complains that the corn is canned. (Apparently, the author didn't notice that the Italians don't seem to have much corn-on-the-cob in their diet. I would guess that the corn is principally used for livestock.) The author must be very poor (in more than just joy and spirit). She is thrilled when she can talk her husband into buying her an ice cream. She laments that she orders sparkling water which arrives warm and covets the beers the couple at the next table are enjoying yet does nothing about it. Cheap, cheap, cheap. She is shocked and outraged that a meal in the Piazza San Marco costs $60... Would this woman please get a "day" job so she could take a taxi or rent a vespa instead of miserably (and miserly) trying to find her way (at all hours) on the bus. From the little I heard on PBS, her other books are full of family miseries. I am truly sorry, but all the more reason she should try and enjoy life and savor every minute in bella Italia... I guess the bug on the cover of the book should have been a hint. Redeming quality: she does describe an Italian washing machine was surprising accuracy. Linda Alioto - San Francisco