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October 5, 2003 Issue 
Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes 
Living Vicariously In Tuscany Undoubtedly, the fact that Peter Mayle's books on Provence and Frances Mayes' "Under the Tuscan Sun" have taken such a hold of our imagination, suggests perhaps subliminally, that there are things lacking in our own lives here in the land of plenty and the highest standard of living. Why is it that we have to go to Provence or Tuscany to enjoy sitting in a café sipping coffee or looking at a sunset through a wine glass? Here from Home Unavailable, we seem to rush through lunch and brand it indulgence and luxury if we linger with coffee after we've eaten? Why is it that we find charm in broken-down bathtubs and plumbing, eroding walls and drafty windows and doors over there? Here from Home Unavailable, we abandon these same things to the ghetto or the inner city for brand new antiseptic homes. Frances Mayes, a newly divorced writer and a professor at San Francisco State University, buys an ancient villa in Cortona in the Tuscan countryside, after spending several summers in Italy with the new man in her life. Cortona, the first town they had stayed in when they first started spending summers in Italy, has a tantalizing pull on them. They look for that dream summerhouse all over Italy, but eventually come back to Cortona and buy a villa with the most romantic name - Bramasole. It means to yearn for the sun. After the excruciatingly slow purchase transactions they embark on the villa's restoration. They find workers, contractors, plumbers, stonemasons. They uncover hidden doors and wells and Tuscan treasures. They start to take part in the life of Cortona - scouting the markets for special cooking ingredients and wines, sipping espresso daily in the piazza. They plant herb and flower gardens and learn about harvesting the olives and figs on the villa's property. They meet other American and English expatriates living nearby. They go back to San Francisco for the winter leaving the restoration in the hands of contractors and friends. They return the following summer and continue with the restoration - a formidable task. Slowly, the house begins to shape up. They cook elaborate meals and have long and leisurely dinners and lunches in the shade of ancient trees or under trellis heavy with climbing roses and vines. They sample exquisite Italian wines and stock up their wine cellar. American friends come to get married at the ancient town hall of Cortona and have the reception at Bramasole. Cortona pulsates with the small pleasures of life. There are no stress-inducing schedules to meet or chaotic rushings about. And so it goes. Languid summers at Bramasole, frantic winters in San Francisco. Then Frances Mayes wrote about buying Bramasole, restoring it and making a home in Cortona in "Under the Tuscan Sun." The book resonated with every reader and became an instant best seller. Through the book we experience vicariously life in Cortona: along with Frances and Ed we struggle with the contractors and stonemasons in building the wall and we go shopping for produce at the open market, for cheese at the cheese shoppe, for meat at the butcher's and for wine at the wine store as people not only in Cortona but in most small towns of Europe do. But no matter how loaded with charm this life might be, here from Home Unavailable in the U.S. we are loath to give up the convenience of shopping in a supermarket. And now the film "Under the Tuscan Sun" has taken completely over our senses. The film is entirely different. It is not a memoir as the book is, but a love story. In the film newly divorced Frances Mayes goes to Italy on a two-week tour and purely by accident, ends up buying Bramasole. She starts the restoration process and encounters many of the same problems and situations as the Frances Mayes of the book does. She has a brief affair with an Italian man, plays matchmaker between one of the Polish workers at the villa and the daughter of her contractor, has a wedding reception at Bramasole for them and at the very end meets a new man in her life. The film couldn't be more different from the book and yet, at the end the book and the film blend to leave us with the same feeling, the same memories, the same spirit. Book and movie tug at us, making us crazily unreasonable and impractical, urging us to drop everything and dash off to Italy in search of our own Bramasole. But with a sickening feeling we know that this wild urge is fleeting. That it would pass and that pragmatism would win and the next day we'll be back to our frenzied if prosaic, schedule-driven lives. Which begs the question: Why do we do this to ourselves? Why don't we change the ethic and dynamic of our lives and make room for leisurely meals and conversation, for sunrises with espresso and sunsets with wine? Ophelia Georgiev Roop Library Director San Bernardino Public Library |
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