Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy

Bought this as a gift and it was a true hit! It's a great real story about Frances Mayes and her husband (Spoiler Alert! most of the book is nothing like the movie, it's better) and their adventures in restoring an ancient villa in the village of Cortona, in late 20th century Tuscany. It even includes her seasonal recipe ideas. It's a great addition to anyone's library, whether you've been to Italy or not. If you've been to Tuscany, this will bring back fond memories. If you've not been to Tuscany, you'll feel as if you've been there because of the wonderful visuals the words create. In either case, you'll want to go back to Tuscany for sure!

The movie has always been one my favorites. While watching for the 10th plus time, my friend mentioned how different the book was. AND, was she correct. I usually enjoy a book far more than the movie version. Yet, this case was slightly different. So, why the 5 stars? The book is full of wonderful recipes - just too good to not start shopping for ingrediants immediantly!!! Although the book was tedious at times, the 5 plus pounds was my reward for the read.

What a beautiful, inspiring book! I felt like I was in Cortona, Italy WITH the author. She writes in such a way that I could see the soft nuances of colors on the Italian hillsides, and I could hear the Italian voices and laughter in the marketplace. I could feel the warm sun and hear the crack of the thunderstorm. I could smell the rain in the air. This book really transported me to the little village in Italy, with her. I loved experiencing the renovation of a very old and very beautiful home. I loved the sights and smells of the region's food and recipes they cooked up. What a beautiful book. I almost didn't bother to read this book because I thought it followed the same storyline as the movie that bears it's name. Thank goodness it does not. I found the movie to be tiresome and predictable. The movie completely destroyed the story of this book. It took a beautiful, genuine story and went "Hollywood" with it, thereby ruining it. But the BOOK! The book is completely different! The book is deeply thoughtful and emotional.... it draws you in with a beautiful story and keeps you there by transporting you into a lovely place full of authentic and warm people. I loved it!! Thank you Frances Mayes! 💗

Somehow, I do not believe this book needs my review to help it sell... It is a wonderful read and I have really been enjoying it as a summer book. One thing to stress: if you are coming to this book because you love the movie, it is barely recognizable as the same work! The movie is in my top ten favorite movies list, I've seen it about thirty times, so I'm familiar enough with it to make the solid comparison. Tons of the book got included in the movie, like the famous line about the hot grape "it even smells purple" but the movie fictionalized almost all the characters and the romantic story didn't happen in real life this way. Frances and Ed bought the house together, she didn't meet him at the end of the story. If you can free your mind from these expectations, you will find a rich and loving narrative that easily draws you in and keeps you riveted long past the time you should have turned out the light and gone to bed.

If you are expecting to find a book which was along the lines of the excellent movie which it inspires - you will be disappointed. BUT if you are looking for a wonderful journal read of a couple who find a great villa, wonderful town and a unique different life during renovation with brilliant quotes - then you will enjoy this book. It is easy to pick up and put down during reading. I am restoring a century home while living in it, so I appreciate their wonder of discovery... often overwhelming work required but thankful joy in the whole process. Enjoy the process of a couple uncovering history and plastering, painting, sandblasting life into a warm house where every meal is easily eaten outside the kitchen watching sun drenched hills of their own nut, fruit and olive trees ripen with promise.

Wanted to rate this about 3.75 but rounded up to 4 stars. The book is really NOTHING like the movie. Okay, that's not the book's "fault". The screenwriters took some liberties in creating a PLOT, some DRAMA, and some CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. The book is lacking in all of these items. However, the book is a memoir, not a novel. Mayes' writing is lyrical, poetic, beautifully describes the Tuscan scenery and the details of purchasing and refinishing an old stone home, along with the gardens, olive grove, and vineyard adjacent to the home. Part travelogue, part cookbook (she does seem to spend a LOT of time eating)! There was really only one chapter that was torture, and I could not WAIT to finish the book - the chapter describing various Catholic saints and their sufferings, which also somehow tried to tie observations about life in Tuscany with the author's childhood in Georgia. I was lost, bored, wanted to shoot myself instead of reading these disjointed ramblings. But I will wrap up with one of many, many beautiful, descriptive passages I highlighted in this book: "Coming down from Spello, we see the early moon hoisting itself over the hills. We keep losing it as we turn then face it again, the largest, whitest, spookiest moon I've ever seen. All the way to Montefalco, home of the Sagrantino, we dodge the moon. Two or three times we see it rise again, over a different hill." Recommended read taken at a slow pace, savoring the language.

So....so....so...hmmm. What can I say about this book. Uh...I think they got the title wrong. It should be "Food in Tuscany and where to eat it and how to prepare it yourself." That is really ALL the authoress cared about was eating and food...and I'm down with that but still...this was supposed to be about buying a house in Tuscany and fixing it up wasn't it? She did dwell on some of that...but then there were pages upon pages of recipes too and I don't cook! They belonged in a cook book not THIS book! Although Frances is a good writer I'll give her that...I just do NOT get how Hollywood gave her money for the rights to this book when it was NOTHING like the movie. There may have been a name...or a small incident like Polania being engraved into the cement of the home..but it wasn't what the home was named in the book! The screenwriters of that movie were INCREDIBLE. One of the best most emotional movies I have ever seen and Diane Lane was superb. Remember the three Polish men who helped her rebuild. And the really shy one who you could tell had a crush on her? So sweet. And the darling polish boy who fell in love with the worker's daughter? Not there! Her daft blonde climbing in the fountain friend? Nope! NO ONE was there! I related so much being single myself and yearning for the happiness that a partner can bring NO MATTER if you are happy yourself. It still is better to have someone in your life...husband, wife, partner who is there for you. But Frances in real life was married! And had been for years and years! I liked in the movie that a single woman would dare to do this on her own. But the real Frances had a double income! No wonder they were able to do this! But for these writers to turn this skeleton of a book into that heartfelt lovely film...well my God. Why did they even have to pay her for the rights? For the title? Again...there was literally NOTHING in the book like the movie. And this time folks...the movie...was better. I almost stopped reading this book halfway through (boring!) but plunged through hoping it would get better...but nope! And of course where does it end? How can it end as it is just a slice of life. But again, the fab writers of the film turned it into a beautiful story with a beginning, middle and end. Again, if Frances took any money for the rights to this book...she needs to give it all back!!! I give her three stars for her writing but the book in whole was probably only two!

Even if I never get to go back, I've been able to travel to Tuscany (Florence, specifically), and that makes me incredibly lucky. But it's one level of privilege to be able to visit briefly. It's a whole other level to be able to buy property over there and actually live there for parts of the year. But what some of us can only dream of, others are able to make happen and Frances Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun recounts her experiences buying and renovating a farmhouse in Cortona, Italy, and the first years she spent with it as her Christmas and summer home.

First things first: the movie (which I've never seen) is apparently not a strict adaptation of the book. While in both cases Frances' divorce from an apparently very wealthy man (she mentions it only vaguely in the book) is what enables her to purchase the home, the movie apparently gives her a hot new Italian man to mend her broken heart. In reality/the book, she is already happily remarried by the time she decides to start looking for a summer home in Italy. Let me stress that again: they have the means to start searching for a summer home in ITALY. If rich white people doing home renovation, eating food, and contemplating their navels is not your deal, this book will not be for you. I've seen rather a lot of negative reviews focused on the premise that the book is not like the movie and/or annoyed that it's about nothing more than wealthy people doing construction and eating.

There are reasons I found the book to be a mixed bag (hence the very middle of the road rating), but they don't have anything to do with either the lack of romance or the privilege. Well, sort of the latter, I guess, because my biggest beef with the book is that there isn't really any conflict. Story structure has remained remarkably consistent over recorded history, which means there are clearly elements that are naturally appealing to people when they're taking in a tale. One of the fundamental pieces of a story is conflict: we want to see our protagonists struggle with obstacles. Frances...doesn't, really. She obliquely mentions that things are expensive, but there's never any indication she has to scrimp or save or go without in order to afford them. She and her husband do a lot of DIY to fix the place up, but the impression is that they enjoy doing it, and don't need to do it for money's sake. It all just seems to roll along...they find the house, they buy it, they do gradual repairs, they start spending a lot of time there, they make new friends, and they're happy. Which must be lovely to experience, but pretty boring to read about.

What saves it from being a total snooze is the writing. Mayes is a poet, and it shows. It's beautifully written, and the way she writes lets you see with your mind's eye the lawn at Bramasole with the bright yellow table she had painted, loaded with fresh and simple but delicious food, looking out on the olive trees and flowers and rolling hills. There's an enjoyable element of wish fulfillment fantasy...very very few people will ever get to live the kind of dreamy life she shows us (I have no doubt there were and are less wonderful elements behind the scenes, but she doesn't go into them), so it gives us a window into what seems like an incredible experience. But I had trouble focusing on it because I was honestly mostly bored after about the first 100 pages or so.

Reading Frances Mayes tribute to Tuscany is akin to sitting in a hammock on a bright sunny day listening to a bumblebee droning amongst the flowers in a nearby garden: the luscious descriptions make me thirst for some equivalent in my own life, while the lack of overall plot drowses me to a gentle lull of sleep. This latter result, by no means represents an insult to Mayes' writing style; on the contrary I commend her abilities to create an atmosphere so dense with detail that this old insomniac had no other choice but to close her eyes being nearly blinded by the bright gold of the sunflower fields and deafened by the bombardment of so many adjectives and adverbs used in chains of prepositional phrases that rival the links in a DNA helix.

In my opinion, Mayes, like Martha Stewart, capitalizes on her found good things. As she put together a scrap book/journal of the time spent renovating her home and her life in Cortona, her publisher, some other artsy friend or "right connection" wondered at the marketability of the saga of yet another American looking for La Dolce Vita in a foreign land. The 'Under the Tuscan Sun' corporation was hence born and is now growing rather steadily and quite nicely, morphing from one book into three, a movie and now associated merchandise. Alas, America has now recreated Tuscany at Walmart prices.

For the most part "Under the Tuscan Sun's" popularity rides solely on its ability to recreate the Italian ambiance. But you don't need Mayes for that, anyone who has visited Italy understands the sense of well-being and almost childlike happiness that bursts out of you like some mystical revelation when you first see the rolling hills, the citadel villages and experience the warmth of the people. American writers have been pondering over this treasure trove of simple living for well over a century.

Although Mayes describes her conversion from one way of life to another with the effervescence of a newly uncorked bottle of spumante, she still lives part time in the United States. Perhaps the yearning note in her poetry and prose suggests that the glass is somehow still half empty rather than half full---an idea alien to the Italian spirit which Mayes strives so competently and technically to replicate. The desire to analyze a way of life that defies description---and actually has no need for such rigorous retelling is almost criminal. Such an existence simply is and will continue to thrive without, indeed in spite of, the spotlight of Mayes' making.

So instead of buying into this American globilization of Tuscany, book that trip to Italy and make a scrapbook of your own. If you already purchased Mayes' book, take it along: it has some really good wine suggestions and explains the concept of seasonal eating. I have not tried any of Mayes recipes, but I am sure they are good, if you can find the ingredients in the US. Recommended to those who want to get a sense of life in a foreign land, shed their Americanism and travel back to the old country where life is simpler. If you are buying the book because you have seen the movie, forget it---the movie's plot revolves around a theme of renewal after emotional disaster rather than the search for a simpler life.