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Tarah's Reviews > Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy
Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy
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Here's the thing. I loved this book when I first read it (was I 20? maybe 22...). Because I was young, and hadn't learned how to resent those people who gallivant around the globe with too much money on their hands telling us how charmed their lives are while describing the picturesque landscape. That being said, the book is well-written and the descriptions of Tuscan life are, of course, deeply seductive. Because that's the point: a life where you worry whether your wrought-iron gate is cast in period-appropriate design, or you wonder if the grape vines cascading down your porch are wine grapes or grapes for eating *IS* a seductive life. But reading this again while wrapped in the cynicism of my 30s, I just can't get excited about it. Again, the genre of memoir is partly to blame. But more than anything, I'm just supremely uninterested in reading about how fantastic, and rustic, and beautiful your life is. I'm giving it three stars not because I like it, as I'm not sure I do at this point, but because it is beautiful. How much of that is really just the landscape, I wonder.
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Finished Reading
October 6, 2010
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Kate
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Oct 07, 2010 06:25PM
Brave woman. I couldn't even make myself pick it up for all the reasons you gave.
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oh yeah, it's brutal. you're like "oh, you discovered a secret vineyard of wine grapes on your land? ... I hate you." Or "oh, your olive trees are producing olives you then make into your own olive oil though a charming process with your neighbor? ... I hate you." Or "oh, you look out past your balcony to rolling Tuscan vineyards and onto the ruins of a Roman wall conquered by Alexander and past that you see a Medieval castle? .. yeah, I REALLY hate you."
also, there are parts where she's sort of whining about her choices and how much things are going to cost (not too much of this, but enough) where you're like "get a FUCKING grip! You are complaining that the full renovation of your SECOND home that is in TUSCANY is more expensive than you hoped because the original fucking tiles hand painted by 12th century Trappist monks and washed by the tears of 1,000 virgins have to be sand-blasted before they can be cleaned??? Are you fucking kidding me?!" So the book was a lot more fun when I was younger and had some delusions that one day, couldn't we all have such a life... I mean, I know we still can, but it's hard not to hate her for it.
Hilarious! Where's a "Like" link when you need one?!
So sorry for the late post - but I was just purusing my 'to-read' list and this is on there. After reading your comments and laughing out loud.....I've decided to skip it. Thank you for sparing me.
Stanci wrote: "So sorry for the late post - but I was just purusing my 'to-read' list and this is on there. After reading your comments and laughing out loud.....I've decided to skip it. Thank you for sparing me."ha! Thanks for the comment... Maybe watch the movie? Then you get the benefit of the landscape without a narrator you want to throttle... :)
Sounds like jealousy to me.. to resent those people who gallivant around the globe with too much money on their hands telling us how charmed their lives are "
Sadie wrote: "Sounds like jealousy to me.. to resent those people who gallivant around the globe with too much money on their hands telling us how charmed their lives are ""One can critique a lifestyle without being jealous of it, Sadie. I'm troubled by the barrage of petty, bourgeois concerns, like whether or not one's floor tiles are the right century to re-assert a rustic motif (which begs the question whether you can "restore" something with new, or whether you are simply imitating authenticity in your desire to live it). At any rate, such questions-- and they take up the majority of the book- are self-absorbed and trite. And it turns her workforce and an entire country of people into a landscape. That's not something to be jealous about; it's something to be concerned about. And it's boring. That doesn't mean other people can't like the book or are bad people if they do. But you seem to think someone who disagrees with how you like the book has a personal problem rather than a literary critique. Let's try not to make personal attacks against people because they dare not to like a book you like. It's petty.
