Rating: 
Summary: ...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....
Review: ...huh?...oh!...(yawn!)...was I sleeping...?...I thought I was reading...this book about...every single detail about a house.... maybe I just dreamed there was a book that boring.....
Rating: 
Summary: Just want to add to the chorus of praise
Review: The book's fabulous, period. To those emotionally stingy people who can't see that, I'll say nothing more. It's all about watching the intimate changes that go on in a sensitive and perceptive person's life. That it's in Tuscany is more happenstance for me than anything. It's her way of looking at the world that really makes the book for me.
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Summary: Why don't we all move to Italy?
Review: A book's worth of notes and musings written by Mayes, who bought a big old house in Tuscany. A college professor in the United States, spending her summers (and some other holidays) at her house in Italy, she shares with the reader random observations and experiences of fixing up the house and living in Italy. She has a very pretty sort of writing style, restful and other-wordly. Her life sounds wonderful, and perhaps the only downside to this book is that I think I'm supposed to feel a little guilty for (a) being a dumb american (even though I'm canadian) and (b) not spending a fortune and working my butt off on a run-down house in Tuscany. Oh! One more downside: it's also bad for the diet - you'll eat lots and lots of nothing but Italian food while reading this book!
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Summary: Basta cosi!! (Enough already!!)
Review: OK, we all love Italy. We adore Tuscany. Now can we get on with life? The book started off with charming descriptions of life in paradiso, but when Frances waxes oh-so-eloquently about the finding the perfect tomato like 25 times, I found myself yelling, "per l'amor del cielo - for the love of god - eat the f**king tomato already!!
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Summary: Basta cosi!! (Enough already!!)
Review: The book started off as a charming discourse on life in Tuscany, but I found myself by the first third of the book yelling, "per l'amor del cielo - for the love of god - quit going on and on re. the perfect tomato and eat the f**king thing already!!
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Summary: Don't bother - pick up Peter Mayle instead
Review: I read this book when it was first published, so some of the details have escaped me, but the bad taste it left in my mouth remains. I picked up this book because the jacket claims some similarity to Peter Mayle, whose stories of living in the south of France are truly entertaining and original. Mayes, cleverly, borrows many of the charms of Mayle's writing and changes the scenery (not much) to Tuscany. If only her crime stopped there. Alas, no. She insists upon polluting the landscape with her aristocratic, narrow-minded lifestyle. Thus my spoiled appetite. Thank goodness her attitudes and perspectives are rare, indeed, in San Francisco. Stick to the real thing - Peter Mayle - and you won't be disappointed.
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Summary: Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy
Review: In a carefully written story, poet Mayes (Ex Voto, Lost Roads, 1995), who chairs the creative writing department at San Francisco State University, recounts the purchase and renovation of an abandoned Tuscan villa. She begins with the 1990 search with her companion, Ed, for a summer home to take the place of the rented farmhouses of past years. They finally decide on Bramasole ("Yearning for the Sun"), a villa with 17 rooms and a garden that has been standing empty for 30 years. There is the ordeal of getting money transferred via the tangled Italian banking system, as well as bringing together the owner, builders, and government officials to get the necessary work done. The daunting process requires several years. Meanwhile, Mayes finds Italian country life a healthy antidote to hectic San Francisco, enjoying, for example, the fruits of her own garden, friends in the village, and the first olive harvest. This is an unusual memoir of one woman's challenge to herself and its successful transformation into a satisfying opportunity to improve the quality of her life.'
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Summary: Thou Paradise of exiles, Italy!
Review: Thou Paradise of exiles, Italy! Percy B. Shelley (1792-1822) This memoir was given to me by my girlfriend, with the concise notice, "you must read this". Smiling, I graciously accepted the book and stuck it at the bottom of my towering stack of "must read before I die" books. Susan is a sweet, sensitive Southern girl, who also possesses the tenacity of Scarlett O'Hara. Thus, within days, she pulled this book from the bottom of the stack and coyly placed it back on top, with a yellow 'stick'em' note attached: "read it!". She knew that I had recently experienced the undulating joys and sorrows that go with building, reconstructing or refurbishing a house. The fact that my house is in a remote valley, near Cusco, Peru, makes Frances Mayes' book an imperfect fit, but at still very pertinent. Although the people in my Peruvian valley are stuck a half century behind Italy, I have mirrored many of Frances Mayes' building and learning experiences. That said, this book is a required and enjoyable read for anyone before, during or after building, reconstructing or refurbishing a home in any country. Besides being an engaging read on life in Italy and its sumptuous food, Frances Mayes has pollinated her experiences with various interesting vignettes: beekeeping, the life of a fig, pine nuts, food, more food and still more sumptuous Italian food. Different people read any given book in different ways. Many of the reviewers of this read touted and raved about Mayes' travel memoirs, others raved about the sensual epicurean nature of the book. But, as a male, a divorced male, a divorced male that has labored on the restoration of a past girlfriend's house, I cannot but wonder about Ed. Frances Mayes was recently divorced when she found her "new identity" in the house in Bramsole. She also started a new relationship with a contemporary professor named Ed. Ed's name no longer is mentioned when she wrote her preface, dated five years after the story begins. So, "What happened to Ed?" Throughout the book you will read about Ed's endless efforts in helping Frances Mayes rebuild her Italian farm house. The writing of these memoirs took a few years and without a doubt, as the book attests throughout, Ed worked his derriere off. So my male nature perks up and wonders what the heck happened to Ed? Maybe Ed will write his version of "Under the Tuscan Sun" and title it "Sunburned in Tuscany". I know, it's a male thing. That said, and after I put the book down, with a sigh of enjoyment, I remember the words that I read halfway through the book. Frances Mayes wrote words that echoed my sentiment about building a home and living in another country. She says, "I know the appeal (of having a home and living in Italy) to me is partly the balance it restores to my life in America." She, like me, knows America is home, but she recognizes that a hiatus in another country not only refreshes the soul, it enhances the spirit of life itself. That is what "Under the Tuscan Sun" is about, life itself. Recommended
Rating:
Summary: Nothing fantastic besides the food
Review: I wasted precious money on Mayes' blow-by-blow account of her annual months of self-exile--something she calls 'life in Italy'.No use going into details here (they're already in other reviews),but her rambling passages about the many houses she's lived in and especially how they affect her (unstable) psychological state (i.e. 'free to dream of rivers')are simply too much!Hearing Gregorian chant,'the mind goes swimming'.My mind is swimming in amazement that she received so many glowing reviews.She accuses D.H. Lawrence of being something she herself is,an 'obnoxious ...ass'.I'd like to know who disappears from the text more often.She's alternately gushing,patronising and presumptuous:just keep long hair and ride a Vespa into town etc. to 'go native'.Her shallow knowledge and comments regarding Roman Catholicism were appalling,sometimes laughable.She even has 'holy water' to go with everything else!
Thankfully the book contains enjoyable descriptions of food and good recipes--too bad it can't be shortened to just that.
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Summary: a meandering journey...
Review: True, this book will inspire you to live simpler and plant basil in your garden. However, the unlikable author is from an obviously privilaged background (childhood memories of her familys cook/housekeeper and seamstress), and is quite self-absorbed in her charmed life. It leads me to wonder why such a "worldly" and "educated" woman such as Mayes would balk at buying a live rabbit from an Italian market and criticize women (in Italy) who wear the fur from slaughtered "wild animals". She has no qualms, however, about consuming veal on a seemingly daily basis. The book is less about the re-construction of an old villa but focuses more upon the making and consuming of food, Mayes tunnel-vision through Italy and Italian customs, and the preoccupation with herself while she does so. A flight of fancy and afternoon read, at best.
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