Under the Tuscan Sun ~ Frances Mayes ~ 11/98 ~ Boo Export

Under the Tuscan Sun

by Frances Mayes

Finis: "Turning Italian"

"At times it returns,
in the motionless calm of the day, that memory
of living immersed, absorbed, in the stunned light." ---"The Night" by Cesare Pavese

What is the most overwhelming impression YOU got from the book?

Themes in the Book:

1. Symbolism "The house is a metaphor for the self, of course, but it also is totally real."

2. Place: "Where you are is who you are. the further inside you the place moves, the more your identity is intertwined with it. Never casual, the choice of place is the choice of something you crave."

3. Restoration: "The taproot as forceful as that giant root wrapped around the stone."

4. A Feast of Life: "I recognize the desire to surprise your own life."

Final Thoughts

1. Which vignette in the book was most enjoyable for you personally? Why??

2. We don't know one bit more about Ed than we did at the outset: except he forgets to water plants in SF, but is quite the farmer in Italy. He's adjusting, that's good, I guess. And isn't she spending more time, all of a sudden, there? Seems she's there for more seasons.

3. Food images are everywhere in this thing. I, too, yearn for pressed dough star cookies and caramel cake at Christmas. If somebody asked you for ONE important thing to eat at the holidays, what would YOUR answer be?? What's your touchstone, there?

4. Oh, the young man? Shows up with a hamper of Stilton, smoked salmon, oat biscuits, honeys, and jams? Sure. Bought wrapped gifts for everyone? Believable??

5. Lost of mouth watering recipes here, but ugg....chestnuts?? Have you ever eaten a "chestnuts roasting on an open fire?" Do you like them??

6. Cinque giorni! Can you actually believe they are opening those walls again? Can you imagine the plaster dust, the horror? How about those stuffed grape leaves powdered with plaster? Did I miss something or is there a reason they didn't do this while they were doing all the other construction?? Reminds me of the road crews here, they pave a road, paint the edge carefully and then a team comes and scrapes the edges to get the grass off, scraping the paint right along with it.

7. Could YOU eat lunch on a the giant stone with the "Christian IHS topped by a cross, with another crude cross off to the side. A gravestone? An early altar?" So they are going to use it for a small table outside?

8. "During the Renaissance, it was a custom to open Vergil at random and place a finger on a line that would fortell the future or answer a curning question. In the South, we used to do this with the Bible."

Have you ever done this? I have. I didn't know anybody else did, though.

9. How about this one? "Its small keyhole reminds us of what we most want to be reminded of, you are not out there alone." Is that true? Is that our greatest need?

10. You've heard her story, her explanation of what she seeks, are you convinced?

Everyone is Welcome.

References to Literature, Art and History:

Chinese philosophy
The Divine Comedy
Eighteenth Century legal description of land: how long it takes two oxen to plow it.
Feng Shui
Brunelleschi's Dome
Caravaggio's Bacchus
Benito Juarez and Mussolini:
Della Robbia style
Nancy Drew: The Mystery in the Old Well
The Acqua Marcia
St. Francis's The Canticle of the Creatures
Building With Stone by Charles McRaven
Guelfs and Ghibellines
Hephaestus and Aprhodite
Minerva's owl
"boustrophedon"
Vergil's Georgics
Elizabeth David's cookbook
Roman Mile
Giotto
Bachelard's The Poetics of Space
Dante's Inferno
Virginia Woolf
Festina tarde
Piero della Francesca
Museo Diocesano
Renaissance pigment
"Words From a Totem Animal" by W.S.Merwin
Allori
Keats
Uffizi
Plague Doors
George Dennis
Dardano
Troy
Dionysius
The Search for the Etruscans by James Wellard
Zeus
Medicis
Giacometti
Fra Angelico's Annunciation
Pietro Berrettini
Francesco di Giorgio Martini
Gino Severini
Catherine wheel
Henry James's The Art of Travel
D.H.Lawrence's Etruscan Places
Gary Synder
Bertrand Russell
Columbus
Pegasus
Attic
Triclinium
Hippocrene
Roland
Aeneid
Persephone
Actaeon
Rilke
Flannery O'Connor
"The Night" by Caesare Pavese
Branacci
Masaccio
Gertrude Stein
Roman roads
Memento mori
Sisyphus
haruspicationNave
Apse
Urusula
Orvieto
Sirius
Ovid
Signorelli

The Discussion Leader was Ginny

On page 151 there is a description of a "Famous piece" in an Etruscan museum. A fourth century B.C. bronze candelabrum. A center bowl fed oil to sixteen lamps around the rim, There are (In bold relief) Sirens, Dionysis, animals, dolphins and men. In the museum, a mirror is hung above the piece to enhance visability.

I've been subscribing to "Archaeology" and related journals for nearly fifty years and do not recall ever seeing a picture of this piece.

Can any of you ladies (especially the world travelers) who are so efficient at finding paintings etc. find a picture of this???

It may be cited in "The Search for the Etruscans" by James Wellard, and it was found in a ditch near Crotona in 1840.

Best

LJ, I don't know, I wonder if it's in that new museum about the Etruscans in Rome which just opened, and which, of course, I missed? I can't even find a half-way decent photo of the Giant's Steps in Venice, but those sites are all fabulous, even IF they are in Italian!!

I've not started the book yet, but your query has certainly whetted my appetite!

Ginny

Well, I've started it now, and I love it. There are some books you have to read in a hurry that just can't hold up; this is not one of them. You have to stop yourself reading, (it kind of sneaks up on you) and then when you put it down you hope it will be as good as the impressions it leaves you....I can see why so many people are reading it.

Ginny

Believe I'll read this after all. It didn't interest me at first, but then I remembered other 'travel' books I had read in the past. I forgot that they can be much more than just 'travel' narratives (William 'Least Heat' Moon, Zen and the Art, Theroux...). I also read the on-line Chapter. Like her style. I'd recommend reading the on-line Chapters for prospective books - it's a great way to get the flavor of the writer.

Charles, didn't know it WAS online! Thanks for that great idea, so glad you're not going to wander off in the grape fields, have really enjoyed having you with us, purple feet and all!

Ginny

As of today Under the Tuscan Sun is mine for four full weeks! Are we to have finished reading it by Nov 1, or start reading it on Nov 1? Either way, count me in.

Jeryn, how wonderful! Made my day to see that, we'll start on November 1, and continue for those 4 weeks, so you're right on time and in place!

Ginny:

I'm almost thru and astounded at the literary references in the book, look forward to it every day. Spend the days reading and Books and Literaturing and the evenings watching Brideshead Revisited, halcyon days.

Ginny, your cup runneth over!

Just so everyone knows ahead of time: Marcie's Message

Hi Ginny,--Glad your finally reading it!--Remember, I highly recommended Under the Tuscan Sun,--BEFORE you went to Italy ??--Glad you are enjoying it, I certainly did.--

Putney, THERE you are, you must come in now, I do remember your recommending it, that's what gave me the idea to nominate it. It's a subtle book, full of surprising things. I had heard it was all recipes !!

Recipes for philosophy, maybe.

Jeryn, yes, but about to end, I'm about thru the Brideshead!

Ginny

General comment: This is a delightful little book, but not nearly as little as it looks. I won't say that there are no scan-able spots, but they're scarce, and one realy can't go through it "Quickly" because its so devilishly mundane and there are so many "Points of contact" that require thought and elicit empathy that it demands relaxation and leisurely reading.

Best

L.J., Just what I need as we enter the hectic dollhouse season. Seriously, it is hard to stay calm amid the storm and one needs to. I shall try to find the book in the library first. Irene

A grand welcome to all who will be joining our discussion for this book!!

I've just closed the book, having finished the last page. I'm breathless. My head is swimming with Vergil's Georgics, The Lives of the Saints,
St. Francis's Canticle of the Sun , Caravaccio, Roman roads, Etruscan remains, Feng Shui, and the ever present lushness of the Italian life, food, wine, plaster, water....you name it, it's there.

Right, just a simple little book, just an account of an adventure in Italy. Right. Recipes, Ginny, who would want to read a book of recipes. Right.

And didn't she get into the philosophy of Religion itself at the very end? The book is almost an encyclopedia of life itself, and the literary references are just stunning. The whole thing is almost overwhelming, so how to read this one??

Since this book is SO different, have had many calls to take it in the leisurly fashion it seems to be written in, a lazy lie in the lush Italian countryside, suits me.

We have to divide it somewhere and it looks as tho 1-74 are a good third.

In order to discuss this one, however, we'll have to bare our souls a little and go out on a limb or two and philosophize about our OWN ideas a bit, while, of course, looking at the themes of the book itself.

So, intending to cover all the points you may bring up, here's a springboard to begin:

On page 15 the author states: "The house is a metaphor for the self, of course, but it also is totally real."

Metaphor, according to Webster's, is: "a figure of speech in which one thing is spoken of as if it were another."

The whole book supposedly is about houses. The finding of an abandoned house, it's renovation, but early on, on page 18, the author states, " What is this thrall for houses? ...'What is her house like? my sister asks, and we both know she means what is she like?'"

Writers have been fascinated by "houses" for centuries. Offhand, I'd like to start by thinking out loud what does THIS author's view of "house" seem to indicate about her? Do you agree that a house is a symbol of a person? Is YOUR house a symbol of yourself?? Is this a shallow or perceptive comment? I found it interesting that she does NOT feel at home in San Francisco where she lives, nor in South Georgia whence she came, but in Italy. What does this say about her? About us?

If we can't discuss ISSUES in this one, gentle philosophies, we're dead, because in my opinion, the book is one set of circumstances standing for another.

What's YOUR view? Do you disagree??

Ginny

I am at a loss to undersand why my quotation marks in the first quote in the heading do not display.

Ginny

Dear friends,

We leave tomorrow morning for a 13 day cruise, but with "Under the Tuscan Sun" in my carry on bag. It sounds wonderful.

As far as houses go....and we have had a few in different states and countries for that matter. Our houses have always been a reflection of us and our tastes. Books, snowdomes, correspondence, photographs, travel brochures, etc. I think if you did not know this was my home, but knew about me you would know in a minute that this was our house.

Looking forward to coming back home just to read your comments and catch up on what I've missed.

Of course we have already voted absentee in case anybody would think I wouldn't be interested in the election.

Speak to you soon.....Love, Fran

AHA!! I can get in here after all, well, Bon Voyage, our Fran, I picture you on the ship, book and coffee in hand, laprobe on lap, steaming off to parts unknown! We'll all look for your return and also Helen's!

Meanwhile? Boooooooooooooooo?

Halloween is over, should have posted the heading on Halloween? Did I scare everybody off?

What a romantic concept the book outlines: oh, I'll buy a house in a foreign country and begin again. I think I'm very impressed with the author's ability to "start over," after a divorce, with grown children, to buy a house and put down roots?

I'm not sure about the relationship here between her and Ed? Not sure how Ed comes into it all. Not sure if I would buy a house with another person to whom I'm not related or married? There's a good bit left out here about what went on in her prior life. Or, for that matter, what's going on in her life today, beyond the things she'll share, which seem to be the same kinds of things you'd read about in a glossy magazine. Lots of friends in, al fresco, al dente, al..... Yes, guests, just wipe the plaster off the dishes, let's eat. So relaxed and easy.

So many concepts in each page, but back to the "house." When we bought this farm I remember the first time we came out to look at it, and the feelings I had in each room, but especially on the terrace, for some reason. I'd come out and just sit on the terrace the long time it took to buy it, the long months, because from the very first, the terrace felt like HOME, a place one should BE. We didn't build the house, it's not OUR specifications, we didn't own the land for generations, yet, the FEELING was that I should be HERE. It's strange, that feeling. Have never owned a house with a brick porch, so it's not a childhood connection. Have you experienced that feeling ever??

Fran made an interesting point about the interior of a house: could a person tell YOU lived in YOUR house by looking at what you've done with the inside?

I remember reading an article in an Architectural magazine about interiors, and this architect with a wife and two children was into minimaliam? And had nothing about, literally NOTHING. No magazines, no books, no toys, everything stainless steel and sterile. The bathrooms looked like an institution. He was quite proud of it. And she said in the article, that she missed most books. She couldn't have books about, and missed that, but other than that it was OK.

Frank Lloyd Wright's first wife, I recall, used to dress to match the house? In matching colors so she wouldn't stand out? He divorced her anyway.

I wonder if Mayes' desire for something permanent took her to a place where the very ground oozes history, you dig two feet and here's an Etruscan wall, whether she can find permanence in somebody else's history.

And of course, the Polish stone masons are a hoot! Anybody who has ever had home repairs done can sing along.

I learned so much from this book, I think it might be fun to make a list of the other authors and works of literature she mentions, as well as concepts which were new to me. Also it might be neat to have some references to some of the things she mentions, will try to find some today.

Was there anything new to you in this first section? Did you learn anything? Am I talking to myself here?

Ginny

Gee Ginny, You're so ebulent, so "Bubbling over" with enthusiasm. Don't worry we're here. We have to sleep a bit between posts, but we are all listening AND THINKING.

YES, the business of "Starting Over" is a most important concept. Change of any sort is stressful to us humans and yet everything changes always. I think that one of the most important lessons we must learn in life is that its never too late to change, even to start over. When one gets too oldf to start over, one is dead.

One of the amazing things about this lady is her absolutely astounding patience with the Italian workmen, authorities, banks etc. Admittedly, sometimes she "Blows her cool", but this Gal has traveled, She knows the ropes. In the West Indies, natives delight in seeing an American arrive in a culture that basically moves at a maximum of 50% of the speed we're accustomed to in the stares. The newcomer is so totally, completely and absolutely frustrated. I caught on to this early, and found that if I carried a book with me at all times and simply leaned back and started to read whenever things seemed bogged down, the natives would take care of business in a timely fashion. The Italian authorities seem to require some special modi of proding. I wonder if bribes aren't the rule of the day in Italy. Perhaps things with permits etc. would have been smoother and faster with a little "Palm-greasing"

I agree that a "Home" (or House) is what we wish to project as our persona. But for some and at varying times in one's life, it may be an office, or a room or some other subdivision of one's personal space. (A sewing room or perhaps even just a corner of a room, or perhaps the "Kitchen")

The Etruscan motif in this book is especially attractive to me. I'm afraid I'd have been diging around the place with pick and shovel from the word "Go"

I notice in retrospect, that a few of my questions would have been answered rather clearly if I'd kept in mind that around the mid first century B.C., the cities of southern Italy were mostly Greek. The overlapping of civilizations in this area can be confusing.

I want to cpmment on some truly beautiful "Turns of phrase" in the early pages, but I'e said enough for the moment.

Best

I have really just barely started this book so all your comments, Ginny and LJ, are most intriguing. Personally, my house--my surroundings, are very very important to me so I can empathize with her falling in love, as it were, with a house. That has happened to me twice in my adult life even though neither the houses nor the settings have been quite as exotic as hers!

I'm also seeing a tendency in myself as I read to compare this book with others of its ilk--A Year in Provence and Italian Neighbors spring to mind. I'll think of those authors in a minute--maybe. <CRS attack> Have you read those?

Correction, I meant "First Millenium B.C.", but while I'm here, What did youall think about that comment regarding restorations we do ourselves. "An accomplishment, as my grandfather would say, out of the fullness of our ignorance"

Best

Hello all,

I loved this book. I read it last summer while on vacation in Hawaii - the perfect beach book.

Ginny - I wondered about Ed too, early on. Much about that relationship is explained later, so hang in there. It did feel that the author was protecting her privacy in the early part of the book, but she gradually revealed more and more of her history as the story moves forward.

As someone who is in the process of building another house, I can testify to the odd importance a structure has when we presume it is going to be saying something about the occupants. The pressure that creates! Every decision seems to be so important that if I'm not careful, I can get paralyzed with indecision, triple-thinking myself on every point. In the end, it's not the structure so much as the atmosphere inside that reflects the inhabitants.

The question of where people feel at home is one that has interested me all my life. I was born in the midwest and feel very comfortable there. I live in California, which I love, but I don't feel at home. I visited New Mexico once and felt immediately as if I belonged. I love being in the middle of big cities. Mountains are foreign. Past lives? The author clearly felt an affinity for Tuscany, else I doubt she could have worked so hard and so long to restore that house and gardens.

I'm looking forward to this discussion.

Katie

Doesn't it seem that Frances and Ed's 'idea' of a house is somehow different from the people of Cortona? (See Martini's reaction to their discovery of ancient wells: p.49). Today, many people live where they do because that's where they work. The place where they live is an incidental part of their lives. The lives of those in a more rural society seem to be more integrated to their homes. That's what Frances and Ed seek. Our homes are, in many ways a reflection of what we do, where we are, what we profess to value, a conscious projection of our persona as LJ indicates - but not, I'd argue of WHO WE ARE. Or, perhaps they ARE a reflection of who we are, also. A 'symbol' of ourselves and our "tastes" as Fran stated. But a REFLECTION. Not the essence. I confess that I'm just naturally suspicious of these kinds of assumptions….

Ginny, you note that Frances does not feel at home in San Francisco (where she lives/works), nor where she is FROM (South Georgia). She seeks a new place to be where she can be not just a reflection of her true self, but the whole of it - Tuscany. "Although divorce was harder than a death, still I felt oddly returned to myself after many years in a close family. I had the urge to examine my life in another culture and move beyond what I knew. " (Those of you who have found that place to "BE", like Ginny, are lucky indeed - great line about Frank Lloyd Wright, by the way!!). I'm fond of saying of myself that I'm NOT what I do - that's just what it is - what I do for a living, but IT's NOT ME. Don't define me by my 'work!'.

I love her images of plaster and stucco and pietra serena. There's always something fascinating and irresistible about European Stucco buildings with their paint chipped surfaces - (history shining through) which when I see them in foreign films seem so exotic and desirable a place to be (Bertolucci's Spider's Stratagem). And of course the Polish stone mason vignette was terrific - (anyone see Skolimowski's Moonlighting?)

Well. Must go. I have this sudden urge to whip up Grandma's Pine Nut Torte and repair to the veranda and drink massive quantities of espresso!! "May summer last a hundred years"!!! Sounds like a New Englander lamenting the lost summer as November rolls in. Shiver-shiver.

Charles:

I didn't want to read Under the Tuscan Sun either. But if you put it in the category of Blue Highways, Zen and the Art of Motorcycling and Paul Theroux's books, I'm all for it. Just waiting for it to arrive from B and N, but will try the first chapter online.

Charlotte

CHARLES Might I suggest that what we do, where and how we live and what we've done and where we've lived and most especially what we want to do etc, are all a part of our BECOMING who and what we want to be.

"To sell is to walk away from a cluster of memories and to buy is to choose where the future will take place"

Best

Charlotte: Well, I HOPE this book is in that category....

LJ: I don't know that we disagree...I've just always been suspicious, being a child of the sixties,of the symbols of our existence. I'm much more interested in the "how" we live and the "what" we've done than in the "where" we live. In the words off that Great American Philosopher, Bo Diddley: "You Can't Tell a Book By It's Cover."

Although...I've always been fascinated by the History of a House. Those lives that have lived there before. I bought a house in Boston once and quite a history had been left there...old sheet music, a trunk with vaudeville style make-up, costumes, scores for a small ensemble, the notches on the garage door marking the early years of growth for the neighbor next door, a Fire Department siren from an old engine, a Department cap, an old practice violin, wrought iron music stands (should I say ferro battuto ??)... my own Five Sisters of Perugia...

This is the first time in quite a while that I have posted in one of the folders, but wanted to get in. I think that it was LJ who talked about greasing the palms of the workers and politicians. I have a friend who is working in Italy and he said that that is the only way you can get things done. When Ginny and I were there this lost summer, there were a few times when we should have done just that.

This book, in some ways, reminds me of A Year in Provence. I have not yet finished the book, but would love to be in her shoes.

Katie, I am glad to here that their relationship is explained later on in the book. As of now I, like Ginny, have a lot of questions about them.

I will be back later.

Sandy

OH what marvelous posts, what a wonderful HOST of readers here, almost reduced to tears, as one thought for a few panicked moments, that one was whistling in the dark alone.

Hey hey hey, how great. Must print out these posts and come back later today, am a Poll Manager and have sore feet from yesterday, but WASN'T it a turnout? Don't know about where you are, but we had a hard time even GETTING to vote here, such lines and on after the Polls closed as people in line can still vote.

The most amazing thing to me was (we have those new computer machines) the number of people who, when asked, "Now, you're pretty familiar with these machines??" as they were going in, would say "Oh YES< OH YES<" and practically knock you down, then get in there and say, so WHAT do I do? And then not know how to get OUT? When you've only got 3 minutes you don't have time to think over the mechanics, and writing with a pencil on the electronic key pads won't get you anywhere either.

All in all, a good turnout. We're in a small rural community and we had 2/3 vote.

Back later, will print out your posts over breakfast. I'm not totally sure, having finished the book, that she DOES explain that relationship?

Ginny

Charles, We do agree, but I'm certain that you've been exposed to houses that bespeak "Conspicuous Consumption". As a product of the 30's and early fouties (The lost generation) I recall meeting people who carried a wad of one dollar bills with a single $100 on the outside to impress people. I carry my big bills on the inside and show only ones. I have cousins who live in (Literally) castles, but whose English is poor and whose children are socially maladapted. Houses do project the images of their "People", but its what's on the "Inside" that matters.

P.S. I liked the quote: "I am seven Thousand miles from home, plunking down my life-savings on a whim. Is it a whim? It feels very close to falling in love and that's never whimsicsal but comes from some deep source. Or does it?"

Best

buongiorno tutti...

my beloved is "under the tuscan sun... in the hospital"...and i decided to join you in reading this little book. yes, it reminds me of peter mayle's two books on provence but this woman seems smarter than mr. mayle.

as to houses, i think they are much more connected with one's image in america than they are in europe. in rome, for example, taxes are charged on how the outside of the building looks. therefore some palazzos have peeling paint and look generally doggy on the outside while ravishing inside...with modern kitchens etc.

we had hoped to move to tuscany this last summer (where health facilities are 100% free to my beloved) but didn't get around to it...because of his diminished good health. we would have found a little place on the sea...so i'm really enjoying reading about "bramasole"...and am amazed with the woman's cheerfulness at all the problems. porca madonna.

Ahhh Ginny! A fellow pollworker! I and three other women run our neighborhood precinct of 804 registered voters; we were astonished at the turnout--over 50%! Why do you suppose? We were speculating that it was voter displeasure over all the recent political shenanigans of one sort and another. Ohio is predictably Republican so no surprises there. What else could it have been?

Sandra: What a lovely post (and personal information). Very much hope your companion recovers from his illness. You confirmed my suspicions on the home/status connection in America as opposed to Europe.

"At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair… Marianne Faithfull, from The Ballad of Lucy Jordan

LJ:  

Falling in Love 
When you're buying 
A house 
And trying to gain 
A certain respect 
Even if it is for 
The second (last) time 
Is not recommended 
For head or for heart. 
	from Dancing for the Final Time by Peter Howard 

(Re "The Watermelon Hour" (p63)). 
 I grew up in Miami, Fl. 
 My grandmother lived in Columbus, Georgia. 
 We used to take the train up there every summer. 
 I can still taste the first watermelon of the season. 
 They always kept the best ones at home 
      and sent the others out of state. 

…Charlie

Wow! What a lovely roundtable of friends have come together to discuss this book, INCLUDING one IN Tuscany! Excuse me, but where else save our own beloved Book Club Online, can we find such? YAY!!

I'm going to have to confine my comments up to page 49, there's just too much going on to get farther, but will try to go to 74 tomorrow.

WELL! Going back, what great points you have raised, starting with LJ:

I agree that "starting over" is a theme here and one which underlies the entire book. A new start, a fresh adventure, a fresh beginning. That takes courage, but I wonder if it takes MORE courage to do it where you ARE rather than change continents an ocean away.

Did any of you notice how skillful she is in concealing her personal details? Remember the interviews with the Notaio? Remember all the painstaking details, the little things which kept intruding, the jackhammers? The measure of the land with oxen, the distracting "' All we have here is gold,' she replies glumly." Yes, I was distracted from the actual details of whose name is on the deed and was a fuss made over the unmarried couple buying the house? Swept up, she's very clever.

And I, too, marveled over her casual dismissal of the backbreaking work involved…oh sure we just carted off those rocks and washed off the floor, but that comes later.

Jeryn noticed the Year in Provence connection. I have, but can't get into, for some reason, Italian Neighbors. Don't know why. I agree you can feel empathy here with several of her themes: starting over, love of "home," and am very intrigued by what Charles and LJ are saying about WHO I am in comparison to WHAT I do and WHERE I live.

And of course, our own Katie, whom I am thrilled to see here, you've been away TOO LONG!!, who is involved in JUST such changes, is building a house of her own design, and who says: "As someone who is in the process of building another house, I can testify to the odd importance a structure has when we presume it is going to be saying something about the occupants. The pressure that creates! Every decision seems to be so important that if I'm not careful, I can get paralyzed with indecision, triple-thinking myself on every point."

Of course, in Katie's case, the house MUST say something about who lives in it, as Katie, you designed it and you are building it to your taste, so it's really YOU! Or may be, if you get those cabinets right! Hahahahahha And it will say something about Katie long after we're all gone, too, as long as it stands. That's a brave new start! And a permanence.

Those of us who bought a house somebody else built, what does it say about us? If we paint it a different color, does that make it OURS? If we gut the inside and change it, does it reflect US?? Isn't it about what LJ mentions later, what we can afford?

Remember the Levittowns when they first started out? Oh boy, the Veteran can own a house. Were they $1,800? Why do I remember that? I went thru many of their demonstration models.

A few years ago I took my sons to the NJ Levittown, wanting to show them the houses of all one of 4 styles, with maybe one scraggly tree in the yard, how you could count the same houses on the block till you could find yours, and how people sometimes stumbled, drunk, into the wrong houses on a Saturday night? And guess what?? The houses have become so different, so added to or sided up and landscaped (good grief, what HAPPENED to those scraggly trees?????) that my sons said, "What's the matter with this development? It looks OK to us?" And so it did, even to me.

So WHAT you can afford, let's face it, either in Italy or the US, is what you can afford. To say, as our author did, what kind of a house does she live in meaning who is she is shallow. And superficial. Sorry, but it is. We are, as I think Charles said later, quite a bit more than whatever we do or wherever we live, and hey, all she put down was $7,000. Or was that her half of the purchase price? What can you BUY in America for $14,000? A three story house?

Charles, as usual, has raised many excellent points. The response of Signor Martini to their enthusiasm for the well: "We are like children and must be humored in our whimsies." DO the Europeans see us Americans as children? IS Frances Mayes actually acting like a child here? IS enthusiasm childlike and do we lose that or should we lose that as we age??

I very much liked Charles's thoughts on a house as symbol, or reflection, not essence: "I'm fond of saying of myself that I'm NOT what I do - that's just what it is - what I do for a living, but IT's NOT ME. Don't define me by my 'work!'."

I think that's why so many men have heart attacks within their first year of retirement. What I DID should not define who I am, unless, of course, you have a vocation to holy orders. Or should it?

What DOES define us, then? If our house is but a symbol, and our work just that, where is OUR essence and how can we make that permanent for others to see???????

Sandy: So glad to see you here, look forward to your comments! We've got TWO Sandras now in this discussion, you and Fairwinds. I wonder if the "greasing the palm" thing comes about from being stymied by a foreign culture to which one really does NOT fit in well? I did get the impression there was a lot of tension and frustration there. What is YOUR opinion of making a house your OWN? I know you have had some of those thoughts yourself in your own situation.

Fairwinds: Ciao!! Our MOST glamorous SeniorNetter has sailed into our discussion! Our report from Italy, live, right here, you can translate many of our questions!! Am so sorry to hear about Cecco (do immediately correct my spelling), hope he will gain strength from being in his homeland again. What a joy to see your post!

That was interesting about the tax on the outside? Is that why one can see stucco peeling off brick in Venice? So what IS the European sense of "home?" There does seem to be a wide divergence in types of homes there. DO the Europeans see Americans as childlike? Naive? Rich??? In a hurry??

Jeryn: The race here had a major Lottery and gambling issue for SC, and that's one reason it was so hot. The first time a governor of SC has not been reelected. Quite a defeat, especially since the Lt. Governor WAS reelected, and is a Republican, with a new Democratic Governor.

Charlotte: Delighted to see you here, always love your insights, join us as soon as you can!

Who?? Can't remember who quoted this, but I think this is what's driving her: "To sell is to walk away from a cluster of memories and to buy is to choose where the future will take place"

A new start. "Bramsole: seeking the sun." But she learns that the house had a different name and she keeps it a secret and looks for the hundred angels….I think of my home with a name, too, but nobody knows it but me. I'd like to name it, but think it's pretentious. IS it pretentious?

I remember an estate in NJ not far from, as a matter of fact, where Mr. Levitt himself lived, which was called "Hereshome." I puzzled over that for years, thought they were Japanese. Hahahahha

What does it mean??

Charles has again made a startling point: her prose IS poetry. When you line it up, it's a poem.

LJ
"I am seven thousand miles from home, plunking down my life-savings on a whim. Is it a whim? It feels very close to falling in love and that's never whimsical but comes from some deep source. Or does it?"

Psychologists will tell us that "falling in love" is really the recognition of "sameness" in another person, a set of shared experiences that one can relate to, the replication of an experience between child and parent with the hope of adjusting wrongs or repeating rights.

So I can't understand how she can feel at "home" when actually has no prior experience there. When the lemon trees of California and all the lushness there don't begin to compare.

Fairwinds: Will you explain the concept of Italian time??

I'm going to try to get all the artistic, historical and literary references in the heading from these first 49 pages of literary feast, and think you'll be surprised.

Incidentally, isn't there a word for that oxen plowing measuring of the land, and do YOU think there's anything in this Feng Shui? The careful and pleasant arrangement of articles in your surroundings to create harmony? I have been in some houses that were so discordant to me I had to go outside! IS there anything to it?? Or is it just a new fad?

Breathless!

GREAT post, Ginny! This is certainly a fun and interesting discussion.

I'd like to comment on the name, "hereshome"... just speaks volumes! Home is where you can be yourself; where things are arranged to YOUR convenience and taste--no one elses; where you have your lares et penates that mean something to and soothe only YOU; where you can rest in peace and do as you please. Hang the concept of "what it says about you!" Who cares! I want my home to please and comfort ME!!! If others choose to analyze "who I am" as they visit, fine--but irrelevant to my own love affair with my home.

Ginny, I'd call that a "Tour de Force". Parri Passu, don't forget "Esse Quam Videri"

One more quote in this section then more direct comments tomorrow: "Americans in cities have realized that migrations are on the increase; that the whole demographic tapestry is being rewoven on a vast scale in the late twentieth century"

Best

On the naming of Homes: It seems to me that homes with names are homes of only the rich or 'second' homes - vacation getaways. I'd bet 90% of homes on Cape Cod have a name!

Re Jeryn's comment: I hesitate to make these kind of broad generalizations, but if I could make a Mars/Venus observation here…would it be way off base to suggest that for men a home is much more a symbol for others - a reflection of station and status? While for women, a home is very much a mode of expression and more truly reflects the spirit of the person…a place of harmony. I won't go any further here, but Mayes really plumbs this in the next chapter…Also, Ginny: " So I can't understand how she can feel at "home" when actually has no prior experience there" - again, I think she explains this very well in the next chapter.

Does anyone remember a movie by Louis Malle with Jean-Paul Belmondo: The Thief of Paris? There is an incredible scene in which Belmondo as a thief, explains why he steals into other people's homes, mainly for the highly subversive thrill of clandestinely observing the secrets of how these people live (the bourgeoisie, of course!).

'Hereshome' makes me think of a famous local sign in Boston which commuters can read while stuck in traffic on the "expressway" beside an huge downtown apartment complex: If you lived here, you'd be home now. Ha!

In England even smaller homes seemed to have names. Even fields!

In the reference to owls as common locally, totemic in the united states, etc; I was amazed that she made no reference to the Athenian owl. She was a studant of the regional archeaology. In the mid millenium B.C., the greek city-states each were identified by a "Totem" Korinth, for instance, used the "Pegasus" whereas Athens was loaded with little owls and used the owl as its totem. Coinages of this age are reradily identified by these totems.

Best

Great points, EVERYBODY!!

I'm struggling with an opinion I formed while reading this book, and I hope I can put it to rest, but it keeps rearing its head, and I keep bashing it down, so I'm going to just keep on bashing and reading your ideas till the end, and then if I can't shake it off one moment longer, I'll ask you all if you agree or not?

Jeryn that was really nice! It may be a matter of self confidence. You say, if they analyze so what, as long as it suits me? I like that.

Yet, look, look in every grocery store! What do you see? How to decorate for the holidays or the rest of the year. There must be a million decorating how to magazines.

And how about those "home tours" at this time of the year?? They always make me so uncomfortable! I don't CARE how they live, I really don't. Some of them have no taste anyway. That was interesting about the Louis Maille film, I've not seen it.

LJ's point is very well made here: "Esse Quam Videri" the motto of, I believe, North Carolina: to be, rather than to seem (to be). I like that too. Still a matter of self confidence, because we'll always SEEM, won't we? You can't control what others think!

Loma is right, too, every house in England seems to have a name, no matter how small, I like that, think it's charming. Let's all name our houses, what WOULD the neighbors say?

Charles, what an intriguing idea, what do the rest of you think of it: "that for men a home is much more a symbol for others - a reflection of station and status? While for women, a home is very much a mode of expression and more truly reflects the spirit of the person…a place of harmony. I won't go any further here, but Mayes really plumbs this in the next chapter…" That's interesting. I'm not a man, so I can't say, but will ask my husband and report. I'm not sure women are immune from wanting a nice looking place. I think the new houses in developments are very interesting, lots of corners and dormers, very English in style, while small inside.

But are houses more of status symbols to men? Interesting thought!

Charles, when we get to where she explains about feeling at home I hope you'll remind me, I find her very......ambiguous about some things.

Still struggling with the long list of references for the heading, but oh the images in these last pages of the first 74! They just make the book for me!

The Polish stone masons! The iron monger and the gate! The pine nuts! Did YOU know what a "pine nut" was? I hate to admit such ignorance but I had no clue!!

I knew the Romans ate pine nuts, I thought they were nuts, I've seen Lucullus's cookbook, but till she actually told us HOW to get the nut, I had no clue!!

And wasps in figs and muscadine jelly and the peaches canned and the bee stones, and her with her book on the terrace in the morning, well, it's blissful and warm and sunny. How can you not like this book?

"Transubstantiated:" Websters: "Roman Catholic Church: Eastern Orthodox Church: The doctrine that, in the Eucharist, the whole subastnces of the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ."

What on earth can the author mean by the term "a transubstianted metaphor?" used in reference to San Biago on page 268 at the end of the book?

IS this book a metaphor for something, and IF so, what is it?

Ginny

Two more concepts before we leave this section: did you know the term:

. "boustrophedon" (p. 69)??

"Some of the earliest methods of writing, called boustrophedon, run from right to left, then from left to right...The etymology of the word reveals Greek roots meaning 'to turn like an ox plowing.'"

I had forgotten the term but remember the reading, it makes sense doesn't it?

I've put up a list of some of the literary and historical references in the first 74 pages at the top. When you come across one in the next section, it would help if you'd post them here with the page number? I don't like the way that looks so will be working on getting it more attractive.

Also, on the olives? Did you know they were bitter off the tree? The olive tree doesn't bear for some long ungodly time, I believe, almost not in a man's lifetime, do any of you know? When in Italy last year I did try one and it was like a persimmon, but I just assumed it wasn't ripe? I loved the olive oil stories.....

Also was interested in the lime trees which bear no fruit: old world lindens on page 69. Now all over Europe you see these "pleached alleys" of trees, and they are usually limes. I couldn't figure out for the life of me how they got LIME trees pleached...now I know.

You can't say you aren't learning anything from THIS book, unless you knew an awful lot of arcane stuff to begin with! And you may have!!

Ginny

OH, calling your attention to our new folder of Book Club Online Nominations for February .

Please feel free to nominate or go look them up. Clickables to each one will appear SOON!

Gee Ginny, So much in one post!!!

I gathered that the dust represented the repository of all the feelings etc she was describing in that long Ceasarian paragraph, in essence, their transsubstantiation. She's very "Tongue in Cheek" about theological stuff.

The "Ox" reference is also used in "B(o)ucephalus" the ox-headed horse famous for being the mount of Alexander the Great.

You did skip a bit to get to Pg268.

Best

Ginny: Re boustrophedon - I came across this - "The Top Ten Reasons Why Linguists Are a Pain to Play Scrabble With", and #4 just cracked me up for some reason: "They use boustrophedon writing to cover the scoring squares". HA!! The book really takes off for me here. The Whir of the Sun Chapter (p. 75-89) - could spend a week on that one!! Back tomorrow.

By the way. Would everybody kick me out of the Roundtables if I nominated Plastering Skills for the February Book???

Is there a "Zen of Plastering" to go along with it, Charles?

Ginny's question about what THIS author's view of a house represents to me misses the target. Nothing! I'm too enamored of identifying my own feelings of identity with those (the feelings and thinking) of the author. At times I also project into the persona of her significant other, but his story is too sketchy and she's the head honcho, so I'm in her persona most of the time. (For the most part I'd use my own recipes tho)

Best

That's a good point about "voice," LJ, this is definitely written in her voice with her perspective, tho she's clever about it. She's very clever totally.

Charles!! OK, OK, hahahahah I yield, Mr. Smartie, but just to show there's no hard feelings, go look?

Nominations for February!

hahahahah, don't mess with the Editor here, hahahahahahh!!

Ginny

Right before we leave this section, what did she mean by quoting the child's nursery song, "The Farmer in the Dell?" What did "The cheese stands alone" have to do with Bramasole?

Back later today with some new thoughts, what are YOUR thoughts on this next section??

Ginny

Whir of The Sun: Discovery, Harmony, Balance, Restoration.

"Vieni qua" 
"vieni qua" 
 No matter where I have lived 
 to hear someone calling their dog 
 makes me feel as if I have come home…

The discovery of 'place'…The way the light falls at various times of the day, how the stars line up above, the uncovering of the fresco, adjusting the body rhythm to the rhythm of season-home-place: harmony.

I am interested to find that there are all kinds of 'zoning' restrictions, things the "comune won't allow". And, as Fairwinds pointed out earlier, the tax liability for the look of the outside of the dwelling. I had thought these very 'American' things. How very parochial of me.

Fascinating to listen to their dinner party friends talk about Rome. How they loved it. But how its changed, now…no longer irresistible. How Frances and their friends who've recently bought a place in Rome "love it." The difference, of course, is they loved who they were then, and their memories of that. Rome, or New York, or Chicago (fill in the blank) will change and people will love the place, fall out of love with the place, and new people will fall in love with it…etc., etc. The appeal for the author of this new place, is the "balance" it restores to her life in America - but America (and this is a great line): "it's my culture, my rough edge, my past." My rough edge!!!Great. It's who she is. She can never be defined without reference to this past. A new life in another culture can tweak the essence of her, but without reference to her roots, she cannot be known. I was raised in Miami, a native in a resort town. That central fact is at the core of me . That's why there is always something slightly sad about the term "expatriate", as if a part of the person had been ex-ecuted. There is always something slightly appealing also. If you need a completely fresh start…leave that old self behind!!

Picture this scene. Frances is cleaning the windows, rubbing a cloth over the window, and through the window, over the hills against the sky!!! Great image. She spots Ed. "…the newest in an endless line of mortals" working the fields as those before him have done, and those before that. This is great writing.

She speaks of Restoration. "Restored to what?" The House AND the land restored to their former harmony with each other - their balance. And their personal restoration - the balance restored to their lives.

But, oh Bachelard's The Poetics of Space…Haven't we all drifted away to rooms we’ve lived in….put ourselves there…and let the memories flow. It's amazing what comes. But we first have to put ourselves IN that place, in that room. It's incredible the things that one can conjure up. Just pick a room in a place and let it happen. My aunt, a Pentecostal fundamentalist used to call this the devil's work. Oh, well. "We learn to abide…within ourselves."

Click here for the Bachelard quote (and some others of interest, including one by Dickens for all you Great Books refugees. And check the Duras!): The House Protects the Dreamer

 
"PLACE IS FATE" 
"WHERE YOU ARE IS WHO YOU ARE" 
"THE CHOICE OF PLACE IS THE CHOICE OF SOMETHING YOU CRAVE." Oh, Yes!!

Reread her "early memory" on p. 86. She's playing with the screen latch. I spent many summers as a child at my grandmother's house in Georgia. I played with the screen latches. I opened the screen. I climbed out the window near the back of the house (this is a one-story house) onto a little ledge so that I was able to make my way around to the front porch on this little ledge. Such danger. What a thrill! We had swings (gliders) with pecan trees behind!!!

And, Ginny: Here is where she explains why she feels so at home here. It carries her back to 'ole Virginia (or, in this case Georgia!) Bramasole takes her back to "the first house". She iterates how she is restored: "to the basic pleasure of connection to the outdoors", to her "mother's sense of preserving the seasons and to time" Wake up and smell the coffee! Take pleasure in the moment. Here she is free to "dream of rivers."

 
It's coming on Christmas 
They're cutting down trees 
They're putting up reindeer 
And singing songs of joy and peace 
I wish I had a river 
I could skate away on 
	Joni Mitchell River

Ginny: Can I trouble you for a page reference for "The Cheese..."?? I can't find it.

LJ: Zen and the Art of Plastering is still in the works. I see Ginny has removed it from the Header to the nominations section...In case it receives votes, I'd better get to editing!!

jeryn...what joy in knowing who we are!

charles...i feels as though "the cheese stands alone" was right near the beginning.

ohhh, ginny...i wish i could speak to the question of italians and their concept of time. one doesn't see many "daytimer" or filofax books in people's hands. f.m., when referring to a quality she believes was passed on by the etruscans, speaks of "that italian insouciance and ability to live in the moment with gusto." sometimes this makes people late to appointments. it's all relative, though. and things get accomplished in nanoseconds compared to some other places i've lived...like fiji and the caribbean.

also, i can't really say how europeans view us as americans. you mentioned naive, rich and in a hurry. perhaps you have a fresher point de vue since your recent trip here. francesco never paid much attention to the old stones he played on as a child. but he has learned how much i love walking on them and how i am charmed by the resonance of their history. he just smiled when i aked him whether he thought i was naive.

you spelled cecco, the diminutive for francesco, correctly. it's pronounced check-o. i haven't ever called him that because it reminds me of cieco (chee-eck-o) which means blind man. f.'s mother called him cecchino when he was a child. the most famous cecco was cecco beppe (francesco giuseppe) who was the head of the austro-hungarian empire in the 1800's.

oh yes...feng shui. you asked whether we believed in the concept. i do. without question. i like to be near water, to see the effect of the curves of the landscape, the shadows of the trees, the rays of light and how they ricochet on the inside of a dwelling. for this reason i have the greatest admiration for people who can build a house from scratch.

Fairwinds, that was poetic, too. SO sorry, remembered Francesco's name wrong, mercy, don't want to call him strange names!

I love water too. You're not an Acquarius, are you, by any chance?

I wonder, sometimes, if there's anything in horoscopes OR signs.

Charles, the cheese stands alone on page 40, I'm interested in why THAT song, why THEN?? Speaking as one who has a song for every occasion, that one sorta startled me. It's a child's game and song. "The Farmer in the Dell" starts out by choosing a wife who chooses a child and so on and so on, but then how does it end? Is the cheese left standing in the middle of the ring or on the outside?

Don't you have horrid memories of Gym class when everybody BUT you got picked for sides? Or were YOU picked first?? I think that ought to be outlawed, if it hasn't been already.

Ginny

hi ginny...

i'm not an acquarius but practically everybody important to me is. i'm another water sign, scorpio, and i'm not supposed to mix well with acquarius'. but i defy the astrological gods, i guess.

did you pick up on f.m.'s statement that she might just let her hair grow long? practically all italian women have long hair. even old ones. and this is why. it feels sexy. even when we wear it pulled back all the time there is that brief time over our morning bowls of caffé latte and biscotti when we let it hang loose. there's the brushing, the twisting and the general fiddling with it. i swear i feel like lady godiva sometimes.

italian women also wear mostly skirts and dresses. and jewelry. that big bulgari kind. i go for the skirts but skimp on the shiny metal. oh, and i forgot the Furs. even the very nicest women wear them. it's absolutely scandalous. and they laugh at the people who won't wear furs but will wear Leather shoes.

remember when the neighbors asked how much f.m had paid for bramsole? and she was so shocked and said "too much." this is a basic cultural difference between upper middle class americans and upper middle class italians. this asking what things cost. i still cringe.

p.s. in my u.k. bantam edition of the book there is no mention of either 7000. or 14000. dollars. that you mentioned they'd paid for the house. also, on p. 40 there is no "cheese" story. it makes me wonder what else has changed.

I work for two days and youall "Lap" me. Ginny, Charles, Fairwinds: What delighhtful (or should I suggest "Delicious" posts).

Charles, you beat me to the quote about "Rooms" and I knew we were of kindred spirit when yo latched on to the "Screen latches". I wonder if that isn't a universal part of development, sort of like three word sentences.

By the way how much of YOUR mail do you open before throwing it away. I dispose of about 90% (by weight) and 75% by numbers.

Best

fairwinds! How nice to see you posting here! May I assume [as everyone else probably already knows...] that you are an American lady who has married an Italian gent and now lives in Italy? Your comments on this particular book [even tho' the book may be different!] are so welcome and terribly relevant!

I'm married to an Acquarius but the only water he seems to dote on is his long, leisurely bath! LOL

As I proceed further in this book, it reminds me more and more of Peter Mayle's French house adventures. FM does not strain for humor and has a natural poetic quality that he lacks, but the adventures fall in the same category. So far...

Rushing in to say, this new section for this week, seems to be full of "la dolce vita," (correct that, somebody). All astounding work, just that cleanning of the bricks is a monunental job, the wedding, the cooking, the history, the plaster dust, the sand blasting, almost seems like a flood of images, and every other word capitalized.

Now, when you consider that the human brain can only take in 7 new pieces of information at a time, I can tell you my brain in this section is in "TILT."

This is also the section in which my little doubting Thomas machine started up again, am having more and more trouble beating it down, but I'm cynical, anyway.

AND what about washing off the paint to reveal the fresco? Can you actually believe that? Shall I tell my story again about the farmer and the frescos??

The November 2 issue of Newsweek contains an article on Vittore Carpaccio's long neglected painting, "Supper at Emmaus." It's discovery AS a Carpaccio follows its restoration during a "Save Venice" campaign. They removed three layers of over-painting of a "too dreary" painting to fine a "sumptuously colored, finely detailed painting," with the date, 1513 in the lower right.

Exciting!!

Now, Charles and LJ have referred to "totem," and I must confess ignorance here on my own part.

ON page 145 she talks about travel: the American 8 country in 3 days type of tour, why we travel, why we don't. I thought that section was fascinating.

What DO we hope to get from travel, if we like to travel? IS it escape? Or is it something else? Is she saying something here about her OWN life and motives?? That's a good page of philosophy there.

If you like to travel, why do you do it? What are you hoping to see? Can you relate to the statement on 145, "Im so glad I went to London. ..Now I don't ever have to go again." HAH??

What, in YOUR opinion, is the theme of this Whir of the Sun Section??

Ginny

Well. After the Whir of The Sun, it was the humotha-humotha hum-drum. I can see her editor now: "Frances. Don't forget who your core audience is. You are, after all a food and travel writer." And so we get recipees and a walking tour of Cortona!

Now, I love to cook myself and am not unfamiliar with cookbooks - but these recipes were kinda shoe horned in here, dontcha think?

.....Charlie

Before we go on to the second section, I would like to go back to page 19. We keep talking about what a house means, and how it expresses our value and being. On page 19 she says, after she states all the places in the US where she could have settled, "But I keep remembering that anytime I've stepped in my own footprints again, I haven't felt renewed." She is looking for renewal. No one or no thing can make you feel renewed. That must come from inside. She is, in my opinion, running away looking for "surprises".

I live in a 1906 restored two-story Victorian house in down town Columbia. I love it and have loved it from the beginning. But I have loved it for it's potential. I made it a home as we lived in to and worked on it. It did not bring me renewal. A renewed, self-assured person created the home.

Sandy

Ginny, I took the "London" comment to be like the last time I tried to watch Shakespeare in the Park. A gala production by a polished company. (This was my fourth attempt). Now, I know for sure that I will Never have to go through that again. I decided then that I was not like an infantryman.... Practicing to be miserable"

I'm uncertain about your doubts, except it sounds like one or both of them is/are rather independantly wealthy. Admittedly, that doesn't square with "Plunking down" her Life-Savings of $6000 unless this was written in 1932.

Best

Great thoughts, All. Charles, I agree, this is indeed a hum drum section. I, too, like recipes and travel, but I couldn't help but notice the plethora of capital letters in this passage. After a while all the titles of stuff jumped right out and kept me from a smooth flow of reading, so I, too, just gave up, read on but the dreaded S word intervened: SKIM!!

There's something magic to me about a place where you can wash a wall and have layer upon layer upon layer of history emerge. Thousands of years of histoy ooze thru that ground. I'd be like LJ or like Lucia whom we'll read about in January, my shovel would be IN the ground, not in the house.

I thought the little group of expatriates quite interesting, by the way, didn't you? All literary (tho she honestly notes they're not TALKING literature, they're talking agriculture and basic stuff). If you've ever chatted at length with academics socially, you've heard am amazing variety of stuff: my own recollection includes thoughts on Ouija boards, wood stoves, and gas generators. Intelligent, questing minds which don't shut down when the class is over.

She sure did want to impress Elizabeth, didn't she? Wonder if that's Elizabeth Spencer who wrote Light in the Piazza.??

Sandy: That's an interesting point. Would you say that the house forever retains the impression of the builder, or that suceeding renovations alter it to reflect the newest owners? Remember the chateaux? Blois, I remember, and Chenonceau, both were added TO and amended in such a way that their final structure reflects each generation of those who built it?

I think it must be a natural curiosity? Remember the nonna or spirit she constantly envisions roaming around the house at its inception??

We've a ghost here, too (Sandy doesn't believe in ghosts) roaming around.

LJ: Independently wealthy? These two? Don't think so??? University faculty, more like? $6,000 life savings? Grown child? Of course that's after the divorce? Are you all jealous that they have so many many many many friends? Or do you have the same relaxed attitude toward entertainment?

One of the reviews of the book I read, in the QPB, said she and her "husband." Again, are these two married??

Listen, now, if you felt AT HOME in Italy, why would you only stay a few months? Oh, it's just to RENEW you? You NEED San Francisco to inspire you to write tho you don't really like it all that much???

hahahahha OK, sure. It's OK with me, it's her life. Wonder if she could get a similar paying job in Italy if she'd take it. Wonder if that would CHANGE any way she looked at Bramasole??

Wonder if I'm green with jealousy?? hahahahahahha

Somebody PLEASE explain the "totem" thing??

Whence COMES this need to "see" it all? I personally want to go to Egypt and see the pyramids before I die? Why, I wonder?? What good will it do mankind if I trek off to see the pyramids? Why go??

If YOU had all the money in the WORLD, won the LOTTERY tomorrow, WOULD YOU BUY A HOUSE overseas, and how long, if at all, would you stay there yearly?

Did you grow up, like I did, where two addresses in the Obits meant wealth?

Ginny

Ginny, What's the problem with "Totem"? I have one on my right lateral hip, covered even by brief swim trunks but discretely located that it could be shown with modesty. Its "Rafiki" the wise old Baboon from the "Lion King" with his staff.

Best

But what does it MEAN and what does it signify?

Ginny

Think of it as an "Icon"

You realy should read "The Symbolic Species" being discussed now in the Book Clubs.

The discussion itself might make a stab at the answer.

Best

Received the following e-mail from our own Professor Allen:

I thought that your group might be interested to know that I am to be the guest on NPR's TALK OF THE NATION on Thursday Nov. 19th, 2-3 p.m.. The reason is that the book that is being discussed is NAGUIB MAHFOUZ's THE BEGINNING AND THE END, the novel that he finished immediately before the TRILOGY...

Hi All,

Just trying to settle in after being away but have enjoyed reading your posts and see that we have a nice big group enjoying the book of the month. Even our Fairwinds has appeared ( best to you for Francesco's quick return to good health).

Images, images she evokes such lovely images in her writing. I wonder about someone who does something like this. Do you think it takes a daring person? I know it is not my personality. Love reading about it but would much prefer to go to a different place year.

I was thinking about what the American friends said about their reaction to Rome in the 50's and then again so many years later. I could identify with it so because my very first trip to Europe was at the end of my first year as a teacher back in the fifties. Went with three friends. Rome and Venice were my favorites. I actually cried when we had to leave Rome…didn't want to have to go anywhere else… I was in love with the place. A couple of years ago I found it to be very different. But when I really consider it, much of the difference was in me and not being able to walk all day and into the night and then start all over again the next day as I had those many years ago. This time it was an organized bus tour (our first) and while it was enjoyable…it's just not the same.

Later

Yes I have gotten around to the "S" word too!

Helen!! So glad to see you back!! My mind is just blown these last few days with a personal concern and then the H-bomb dropped in the NYC Luncheon folder, but will get right back this afternoon with more great stuff.

WHO KNEW when we started this little book group 2 years ago that it would grow into this? Thanks to all of you, each and every one of you, who have contributed with your thoughts, your energy and your enthusiasm!

Excelsior! We're not thru yet.

Ginny

mind telling us about the h bomb? so sorry to hear there are troubles. i hope they are fixable.

back to the book? i finally finished it. just a few more comments.

f.m.'s recipes may have been skimable to some of you, but i enjoyed comparing them with the way francesco has always cooked, which is typically tuscan. with the exception of that awful chestnut cake her slight adaptations are more along the lines of the "silver palate cookbook", don't you think?

have any of you seen the italian film "la vita e bella"? at cannes in may it won the highest award, la palme d'or. some of scenes were shot near "bramsole" in cortona and arezzo.

superstitions: remember when the workers didn't want to start work on a tuesday because it would never come to an end? well, the 17th, also, is considered a bad-luck date. and owls, in addition, are very bad luck. when francesco and i rafted down the colorado river for five days with my son, we had to get out of the raft to check a big rapid coming up. just as we tied up the boat, a medium sized owl flew in front of us and landed on a nearby branch. francesco, the rational thinking scientist, actually wouldn't get back in the boat for that segment of the river. he walked downstream several hundred meters and we had to pick him up...because of that owl...but only after an oar got wedged in a boulder and snapped in two!

Fairwinds, how fascinating! What a charming story, you should write a book!!

Then the owls that roost at Clemson football stadium are bad luck if they fly in front of you? I've only seen them roosting. Maybe that's what's wrong with the team this year, bad Owls.

Also didn't know the 17th was bad luck, wonder why? Wonder where we got Friday the 13th, I've always thought Monday the 13th was BAD Karma.

No haven't seen the movie, anyone?? "La Vita E Bella?" Life is good? Now we can all go to the movie and drink in the actual scenery, this is so NEAT. Did you go to Cannes, Fairwinds? I saw something on tv about it the other day, and thought of your letter, was it LAST YEAR? about the same.

I did pause a moment over her bruschetta recipes, and the crostini, they are hard to find here.

Oh, the H bomb? Sorry, Everyone, our Books Groups folks traveling to NYC are very excited to be able to meet with, go to lunch with, and listen to the discoverer of the Bury St. Edmund's Cross himself, Thomas Hoving, and his wife on Friday the 11th at the Cloisters Museum. He is the former (about 10 years) Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and the author of many books. It's very generous of him to come and we're thrilled. Thrilled is probably not the word. Hysterical is the word. Well, I am anyway. We read and discussed two of his books, and they were great.

And here we are with our own Dr. Allen, too, who was kind enough to let us know he'll be on NPR on the 19th from 2-3. I just listened to that on the way home. I like that man. We've really been lucky with our authors in our Books, and I'll be there on the 19th. Let's all listen, it would be great to discuss it, too.

Helen, I liked your wondering "about someone who does something like this. Do you think it takes a daring person?"

I'd like to THINK I'd do the same. I'd like to THINK I'd DARE to do the same thing. But would I? Would any of us?? Well, Fairwinds might, she already lives a dream life, but what of the rest of us? Are we bold enough??

I think sometimes my boldness lies in words and not actual life??

And there ARE practical considerations, too, tho. Would she have been able to do that by herself?? A woman alone? Would YOU?? I note there were men alone, but no women?? Now why is that? Why is it that a man can go and fix up a house and live there and everybody invites him to dinner when a woman in the same situation??? What would be thought??

I hate to say this, but my trip to Rome this past summer was glorious. It wasn't a tour, and I didn't cry, but very few days have passed I haven't thought of Rome and Venice. I could spend the summers there or at Hadrian's villa very easily. But I'd want to come home, not fooling myself there, would want to come home. But the very ground seeps history, it's really awesome, and I loved it.

Putting up more literary and art and historic references, what do YOU all think??

Ginny

Jeepers, I've put up the references in the heading from this section, and I must say I'm actually delighted to see page 180 loom up. Listen, LOOK at that list!!

The whole book is a feast. It's a feast of cooking, travel, history and literary references, it's almost too much in this section.

Now, are you this way?? Do you think constantly of these literary references??? If you were writing a book about your own home would this many literary and historic and art things come to mind, or is it Italy in part coming thru here.

And by the way, did you notice her eating a tomato like an apple? Right from the field? Is there any better way?? I love them that way but we don't spray our tomatoes...is that a Southern thing or an Italian thing??

Ginny

it's early in the morning and i awakened realizing i hadn't said hello to you, helen. and, jeryn, your assumptions are in the right direction about my life. ginny, yes, i've been to the festival in cannes for the past six years. don't get me wrong. never walked up the red carpet dressed in glitter. have just seen a few of the films that seemed interesting. btw, la vita e bella ( life is beautiful) is a heartening story about a father and his little boy in a concentration camp. the scenes of arezzo and cortona are incidental to the camp.

i guess the main reason i enjoyed the book so much was that i realize the time is past for me to want to shoulder such an ambitious project. i have lived so simply for so long now that i find ways to keep it that way. but, yes, there was once a time when i would have, did, take on a huge project. when i had three children under five we bought the summer house of the king family who started wells fargo bank. the house was down the peninsula from san francisco in a magnificent woody area called atherton. designed by sanford white with gardens by thomas church. 15 acres. total nightmare. i won't go into it here. but i suppose the most important aspect of the project is that we got the place listed as "historically significant". and now it can't be mutilated, legally, by future owners.

incidentally, i wonder whether ashley's "jess" was from the same "king" family and whether they got married. it's a stretch but f.m. thanks ashley king at the beginning of the book. sounds suspicious since most regular people aren't involved in weddings that take place in westminister abbey.

our 6000 sq. ft. redwood shingle house survived the quake of 1906 because there had been no foundation to crack...just pillars that swayed in all the motion. and no termites because it was redwood. but banks in california don't give loans for houses without foundations...unless the house is "listed"...not an easy project for a young woman with three toddlers.

so i have enjoyed living through all f.m.'s workmen and projects. i hope her neighbors don't have hundreds of people bothering them to find "bramsole" like peter mayle did. he finally had to move from menerbes. and now the place is packed with brits.

Fairwinds: Well there probably are hundreds of people looking for BRAMASOLE. Here's at least one: Looking for Bramasole

This one even sticks her nose into the mail box to confirm that THIS IS THE PLACE! There's a nice shot of Cortona however. .....Charlie

CHARLES!! That is unbelievable! The article is great, the Tuscany Mezzaluna ( I don't think I'll ever see that word again without thinking of Nicole Simpson) is great, and good grief at the bottom of the page? I've never SEEN anything like that WRITE US animation! That is unreal!!

I've asked Larry to upload those photos to our server and will put the whole thing in the heading as soon as he does, thanks SO much!

Ginny

thanks for the clickable, charles. i hope the people looking for bramasole leave the owners in peace. but it seems like a natural thing to go traipsing off to look for the place if one is in the area. f.m. makes us feel as though we're doing the work with her in some odd kind of way.

as to why they didn't look for a place in venice...or firenze...maybe they had a price limit. and those two cities are probably the two most expensive ones in italy. plus there would be no five acre plots there.

Hey, you guys. I've asked Ginny, but sh doesn't know of an on-line photo of the fourth century bronze candelabrum in the Etruscan Academy Museum mentioned on page 151.

Can you visualise the fresh slaughtered cow (where I lived in the Caribbean) there was a Hog too. Hanging in the market. One tells the vendor "Cut me four pounds around there (Pointing). He does and you take it home and tenderize, boil, prepare and enjoy your meals. Forget steak. There is NO SUCH THING as any part of fresh killed meat that can be eaten as (rare) "Steak" (Thank goodness for Chickens and Fish). The names for "Eggplant" were interesting. The West Indian equivalants for the purple and green ones are "Antrober" and "Balangee"

I was familiar with rosemary and broiled shrimp, and was reminded that in Guadaloupe (And I'm told France) no decent restaurant even opens its doors before seven or eight P.M., by which time, I'm faint with hunger.

As for the reference to Puerto Vallarta and Iguanas, I've cooked and eaten them, but the biggest I've ever seen were in Puerto Vallarta.

And fot those who read Dicken's "Hard Times" note the reference to the "Door of the Dead" on page 149.

Best

Well, Larry, of course, got those photos up on our server yesterday immediately, but I was off, so just got on and will put them up, the photos and articles are stunning!

Fairwinds: yes, and I'm reading the biography of the British Veternarian James Herriot which the Wiz mentioned in his last contest, have just started it but it's clear that we hope, somehow, to SHARE, too, in their lives and/ or books, by visiting the site. Poor Herriot actually, it appears, crippled his hand by signing every book presented to him, and the Veterinary Surgery was mobbed with tourists. I have to also admit that the first and last guided tour I took of England went straight to his red door, but the bus didn't want to pause as they said he was a bit irascable!! HE wasn't, but his boss, "Sigfreid" was. That's a great benefit of some of our contests, you do get to hear about some great books.

Was interested to hear that Peter Mayle has left Provence for that very reason. I saw he was living in the states, and wondered why. Seems like if you find a good thing everybody else would like to share it too, and then it's not such a good thing. Maybe that's why the rich and famous have to own islands or compounds with tall walls around.

Seattle used to be that way? I remember how anxious they were that the world not hear about how great it was there, and move there. Haven't been back in a while, but loved it the last time I was there.

LJ: Yes, and how does anybody live with eating that fly covered hanging meat?? I know in Guadeloupe the bread out for sale always had birds perching on it....I've always been intrigued by the different names for Eggplant: in England, what is it: aubergene ? Or is that France? Wonder why we call it eggplant. Hope to look that up sometime.

I've not seen a photo of that candelabrum, and don't know how to find it, somebody with more smarts than I please give it a go, would like to see it myself.

Putting up the great photos and URL's to the article!!

WHY does this section remind me of the song "Summertime?"

Summertime, and the living is easy.
Fish are jumping, and the cotton is high.
Your Daddy's rich, and your Mother's good looking,
So hush, little Baby, don't you cry.

Gershwin??

Ginny

Definitely Gershwin. Porgy and Bess.

Best

Well, here we are at the end of the book!

OOPS!~ I've been monkeying with the heading and got carried away.

But what a feast this book is, and I think it's a good thing to be ending it up right before Thanksgiving, as the images of food and hearty living seem to go right along with the season of harvest.

Some random thoughts, what are yours? Do react???

1. I loved her story of the olive oil press: learned a lot here. Loved the little mill with the stone grinder, has to be just so!! I love that, am not going to dip an orange in olive oil, but love the idea just the same.

2. We don't know one bit more about Ed than we did at the outset: except he forgets to water plants in SF, but is quite the farmer in Italy. He's adjusting, that's good, I guess. And isn't she spending more time, all of a sudden, there? Seems she's there for more seasons.

3. Food images are everywhere in this thing. I, too, yearn for pressed dough star cookies and caramel cake at Christmas. If somebody asked you for ONE important thing to eat at the holidays, what would YOUR answer be?? What's your touchstone, there?

4. Oh, the young man? Shows up with a hamper of Stilton, smoked salmon, oat biscuits, honeys, and jams? Sure. Bought wrapped gifts for everyone? Pertty perfect.

5. Lost of mouth watering recipes here, but ugg....chestnuts?? AGG. Have you ever eaten a "chestnuts roasting on an open fire?" Do you like them??

6. Cinque giorni! Can you actually believe they are opening those walls again? Can you imagine the plaster dust, the horror? How about those stuffed grape leaves powdered with plaster? Did I miss something or is there a reason they didn't do this while they were doing all the other construction?? Reminds me of the road crews here, they pave a road, paint the edge carefully and then a team comes and scrapes the edges to get the grass off, scraping the paint right along with it.

7. Could YOU eat lunch on a the giant stone with the "Christian IHS topped by a cross, with another crude cross off to the side. A gravestone? An early altar?" So they are going to use it for a small table outside?

8. "During the Renaissance, it was a custom to open Vergil at random and place a finger on a line that would fortell the future or answer a curning question. In the South, we used to do this with the Bible."

Have you ever done this? I have. I didn't know anybody else did, either.

9. How about this one? "Its small keyhole reminds us of what we most want to be reminded of, you are not out there alone." Is that true? Is that our greatest need?

10. You've heard her story, her explanation of what she seeks, are you convinced?

Ciao,

Ginny

OK, I give up!! If you look at the View Source version of the heading, you will see apostrophes and quotations where they belong. I have no clue why they don't display!!

Ginny

TYING IT UP??? I'm only half through with this discussion!!!

The hot volcanic stream. Have you ever gone even higher to find an ice cold spring feeding into the same stream?

Those flying horses and the local greek influence indicate "Korinth" At the time there was a "Koppa" (Not Kappa) in the greek alphabet which along with the "Pegasus" indicated the city-state of "Korinth"

Here "Red on top, Green below, Yellow says wait, even if you're late. There Red is just a suggestion, Green means "Avanti" and Yellow is for gaity.

The tongue in cheek reference to Mary's ascent into heaven due to the local heat was amusing to some of us. Only I would dare say so,

"Piano Piano" doesn't mean "Slowly" (That's "Largo") It means "Quietly". Piano, Piano, Piano means "Pianissimo"

I agree "Cleft for me" is a bit like "Bringing in the Sheaves". I always thought it referred to the wash "Bringing in the Sheets"

In what country is "Hadrian's Wall" to be found?? Well, I think it was a delightful and relaxing and entertaining book to read. I'd give it a good solid seven,

Best

That's RIGHT. It's in England !!!

Best

Well, I too am not done! About 2/3 way through the book and starting to fall asleep a bit as they do a sort of vacation around Italy. I keep thinking she should stick to Bramasole--was more interesting.

Anyhow, to answer LJ, I think Hadrian's Wall divides England from Scotland; remnants of the wall can still be seen today.

Ginny's Item 3: My touchstone is Springerle cookies--not Christmas without them! And Item 5: Is this a survey? <G> I never tasted a chestnut; saw them roasting in open braziers on the streets of Rome, for sale, but didn't have the courage!

hahahahah, yes, "Survey Says," it's time to wrap it up, Elmer Gantry starts on December 1, and we're got a host of books nominated to chat about.

LJ: That was so interesting, now, is that TRUE about "piano?" When I read that, it did strike a bell, but I was on a tear to get thru it, so only paused and said, OK, huh? OK.

And that was fascinating about the koppa, too.

Jeryn: Springerle? I have heard the name, hate to be so ignorant, it's a cookie? Do you make them yourself?

I always ask everyone at Thanksgiving and Christmas what their favorite food would be, what, if it were missing, would they miss most? Of course, it's not about food, we all know that, still you have your oun touchtstones.

But every year I try something new and this year will do Hummingbird Cake for Thanksgiving to go with the pecan pie, instead of Caramel Cake or Cocoanut Cake (which seems, for some reason, to be associated with Easter by me).....

I have heard that very few people have ever eaten a chestnut and that they are miserable soggy messes. Obviously they have to be done properly: continuing my quest for somebody who has actually EATEN one. They say they are horrid. Perhaps an acquired taste?

I really MUST pounce on Hadrian's Wall. The first trip I ever took to England on Globus and the last tour, I might add, featured Hadrian's WALL!! OH boy!! Yes and the bus, after touring 899 cities in 2 days, pulled up to this little stack of rocks near York. THERE it is!! Exclaimed the guide!! We'll not get out, we can't touch it, but you can get photos!! OH, half the people didn't even open their eyes.

OH, but YOU go up, above Carlisle, and ride down the old Roman road, and it stretches for miles and miles and each of the old fort sites has a museum and model and endless information. It stretches across the backbone of England almost like the Great Wall of China, less kept up of course, people have been taking the rocks for their own building for almost 2,000 years, but still a presence. There's a bus which will stop all day at all the forts, and you can't begin to see it all in one day. It's not a little pile of rocks, by a long shot. Has a public latrine system in the camps, running water under the privies, and a sponge for cleanliness, something else.

LJ: No, have never seen a volcano in my life, except for extinct ones, but it's on my list!!

Ginny

Deviled eggs are my family's choice for "don't leave it out" for every holiday feast, forgot to say that!

Two years ago the cut glass deviled egg plate decided to disintegrate right into the deviled eggs, shards of glass everywhere!!! Needless to say I now use a regular plate.

Ginny

Ginny: How many Hummingbirds does it take to make a pie? Never heard of it...enlighten me please.

Ginny and Jeryn: Re: Chestnuts...When you come to NYC there should be vendors on the street corners roasting them on open grills and selling them after they are placed in little brown paper bags. Great for a frosty day in Manhattan. Are they an aquired taste? I would think I would have to say ,"yes". But not to be afraid...try them. Then every time you hear Nat King Cole doing his thing about "chestnuts roasting", you'll know!

I agree with you about the book. Loved it up to a point and now find that my attention in wandering,tis enough.

Fairwinds: Went to see,"Life is Beautiful" last evening and it blew us away. What an amazing film. We left the theater absolutely drained and am still haunted by it. He actually pulled off making what they are calling a "comedy" about the Holocaust. I was so afraid they would trivialize it...but it was anything but that. It was truly remarkable.

I was able to get the audio cassettes of Under the Tuscan Sun from our library. I am in Madison,WI with grandchildren and have spent some time alone in the car and have enjoyed listening to the tapes. Listening for me is not the same as reading--I don`t retain as much--but--your comments are always so worth while so that helps. Yesterday, I went someplace with my 12 year old granddaughter and she loved listening to the recipes as the author was preparing for the holiday.

Ginny--I, too, want to know about the hummingbird cake.

Ginny:

aubergene is the Italian name for eggplant. I found it in an Italian cookbook.

Have been trying to get Under the Tuscan Sun from B and N for weeks. Now they promise delivery in 5 weeks. Finally gave in and ordered the next expensive version. They promise that in 2-3 days.

Helen: I saw Life is Beautiful at the Malverne yesterday. I made some comments in the movies folder.

Charlotte

hi charlotte,

actually, aubergine is french for eggplant and melanzane is the italian word. one of the things i learned in u.t.t.s. was to cook eggplants whole by popping them into the oven for 20 minutes at medium heat. THEN slice them and grill them. sounds much easier than standing over the grill forever.

helen and charlotte...i'm so glad you liked "la vita è bella". i'll just add a cultural twist. my dear francesco views roberto begnini like i do jerry lewis. with distaste. so i'm glad when i hear that americans enjoyed the film.

didn't f.m. talk about persimmons and pomegranites hanging like jewels on the trees? well...now is the precise time. they are the surprises in the countryside. i adore them both. but persimmons used to give me the creeps because of the slimy texture.

and, speaking of texture, i think chestnuts are a textural two. out of ten. but i am enough of a romantic to enjoy buying them on the streets in their newspaper cones and getting my hands all black trying to crack them open. just think, "no fat" when you eat them and they aren't so bad. if you are ever unlucky enough to run across the canned sweetened ones, they are absolutely scary. and expensive, to boot.

Hummingbird Cake?? Well, gosh, you just sit out under the feeder and when they hum by....

hahahahahaha no, no, it's a Southern tradition, and when I went to the hairdresser's last week I found a Church cookbook from my little area and it was obvious somebody had been making copies and my hairdresser's husband said he had made it and it was the best thing they ever ate in their lives. So tho there are many versions, here is the one everybody is raving over, and it's from a lady renowned for her baking:

Hummingbird Cake

3 c. plain flour
2 c. sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon

Sift above into big bowl

1 1/2 c. vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 1/2 tsp. Vanilla
1 8oz can crushed pineapple undrained
2 c. mashed bananas
2c. chopped nuts (optional)

Add to dry ingredients

Stir till mixed

Do not beat

Pour into greased & floured 10" tube pan and bake 1 hour 10 minutes at 350 degrees until done.

Cool.
Frosting

1 stick butter
1 8 oz. Cream cheese

Cream together

1 tsp vanilla
1 box confectioners sugar

Beat together until smooth

"I usually put a light coating of the icing on the warm cake and then when it cools completely, frost it heavily all over ---- EH"

You know what I think would be a neat coda to the book? If we all shared a recipe (you too Charles and LJ!!) this Thanksgiving season!!

Now, none of that lard, LJ!!

Ginny

Well, For thanksgiving I like to take any ready-made stuffing mix for fowl, use Gran Mariner instead of water. throw in some raisens, stuff it in a duck the insides of which are lined with mandarin orange slices, and bake it off at 350-375 20-30 min/lb (Slower and longer if its a wild duck). I make extra dressing and pour Grand Mariner over the serving dish (Extra dressing around the duck), then generous splashes of brand. Light it and stand by with a fire extinguisher.

Best

I just came in to make a little comment about the 'wrap-up' of the book, and find myself in the middle of a recipe for an elegantly sozzled duck! LOL. It sounds flavorful. If everyone posted a Thanksgiving recipe, would it be in the Favorite Recipes folder?

I did not get the book as all copies are still checked out at the library (and I have already bought plenty this year) but I really have enjoyed following the postings of this great group. Everybody's views of what Home is, was interesting. The list of the author's References to Literature, Art and History is impressive. As I recall, "boustrophedon" was described as the way an oxen plows, a row from right to left, then turn and go from left to right, and so on. That is exactly the way that Sections are numbered in a Township in our legal lands descriptions. That is a classic township of 6 miles x 6 miles, in lands Ohio westward; starting at the northeast section of the township. I worked in a real estate office and have typed many deeds, and was surprised to find the explanation in this book!

That should have been "BRANDY" not "BRAND"

Nellie, I have heard it said that the definition of "Home" is "Where they have to take you in when you come back"

Best

Yes, that's some recipe, LJ, may surprise self by trying it.

Oh, Loma, HOME? Home to me is a sanctuary, where you pull up the drawbridge and rest untrammeled by the outside furor. So glad to get home, always. Have always felt HOME here in this place where I live, don't know why.

I guess one of my little quibbles with the book is that I sort of think that our Frances is not being quite honest with us, about a lot of things. Home, roots, etc.,etc., but not living there permanently. Why NOT, you ask? Oh, well, it's not for the need to earn money, it's for the need to have S Francisco to be creative?

Oh well, I'm not a famous writer, nor likely to be, will just stay home and enjoy YOUR comments.

Ginny

Fairwinds:

So nice to hear from you!! I don't like Jerry Lewis type comedians either, but I do enjoy foreign films. One of the things I also liked about Life is Beautiful iss that it doesn't further expose us to the horrors of the Holocaust. It assumes that after 50 years we know about that already. Gravanesse is sensitive to our feelings, shows us only what the little boy sees. Even when his father is shot, it is done off-camera as Shakespeare often does. What comes through is that hope and optimism is what saves the human spirit and helps us to survive. Of course the ending was superb. Don't want to mention what it was here so as not to spoil it for future film goers.

Charlotte

Regarding Life is Beautiful assuming we know about the Holocaust, the head of the History department of our City Library told of something rather disturbing. He said that he had people -- I assume the younger generation, and college students -- come in and say they just do not believe it. He tells them to research, that there is a lot of documentation from the time it happened onward.

There is quite a collection of photographs and films of the Holocaust, but many have never seen them, quite graphic, I think. That's like saying the astronauts never walked on the moon, but, instead, filmed it in Hollywood. I guess the mind tries to block out horrible things, to rationalize such horror.

Ginny

Question was long while back but, yes Ginny, Springerle is a cookie. Square, white, anise-flavored with little relief picures made with your springerle rolling pin! Yummmmm! If I don't make them at Christmas, my son does! I think they're German in origin.

Jeryn, yes, I've seen the molds?? Big angels?? Gorgeous stuff, I though it was Flemish for some reason, but who knew??

Are you going to make us some and pass them around??

hahahahaha

Ginny

I'll send you some like I sent Rex the apple pie! [digital picture in an e-mail] But you have to wait till next month...

I'm going to take a stab at Question #7? I think, personally, it's a question of respect. Regardless of what religion it may be part of, I'm sort of uneasy about using something that once meant or symbolized something for trivial purposes?

We've all seen the churches which have become stores and restaurants. And I know it's particularly difficult in Italy, where every hole dug for a plant reveals another ancient find, still. I do think it's a bit cavalier to disregard what, at the least, was a religious symbol to somebody and use it as a table for afternoon munching.

If I were supersitious, or a Native American, or maybe an Egyptian concerned with the "curse of the mummy," I'd say that's bad karma, bad Feng Shui? I sure wouldn't eat off it.

I think, to go out further on my little limb, that the entire book is cavalier. It's almost, to me, a "to hell with you and your conventions and whatever you think. I'm off to make a new life, am drawn to the church, this long umbilical cord, you see, but hey: an object of symbolism or veneration: great al fresco dining."

Oops, just let a judgment call slip thru there?

Ginny

Ginny,

One MIGHT defend the "Table" on two grounds. First, there are some who would find nothing amiss with a "Cavalier" attitude, but more importantly the question, "Whence commeth the "Alter", if not as a table?

Best

LJ, I must say, sometimes you really knock my socks off.

Nah, not as she's using it?? It's flawed logic?? Perhaps?? She didn't make the connection, or did she and she was afraid to mention it? I'm not seeing respect there.

So what, I'm interested in knowing, is the definition of "cavalier?" I'm thinking it has a pejorative connotation??

And yes, as some have asked, do share your favorite Thanksgiving recipe right along in here with our incisive comments on the book: she did it, we can too!!! I've already slayed the colorful hummer for the feast? NEXT?????????

What's a knish, by the way??

OH, and are you ALL going to incorporate what you've learned in this book into your OWN meal this Thanksgiving??

Ginny

I'd suggest that Cavalier is to Reverence as a Table is to an alter, but a tomb (or Sarcophagus) cover could be either a table or an alter. (Or of course, just a tomb cover)

Best

Oh, now, look out, I'm good at those. Let's see: Cavalier is to REVERENCE??? ok ok, as table is to altar?

Hmmmmm reminds me of the SAT.

Cavalier: Reverence

Table: Altar

Hmmmmmm

Obviously one of us sees the word "cavalier" differently? I looked it up, (don't you love something that makes you look up a word?)

Cavalier: 1. An armed horseman; knight
2. a gallant gentleman, esp. a lady's escort.
Adj1. casual
2. arrogant

Isn't that interesting? Need to think on the new comparison, tho.

Ginny

I've found myself with nothing much to say about this book. After The Whir of The Sun, the book fairly dried up for me. I read one more chapter after that, then didn't pick it up again for three or four days. Then slammed through to the end. She had one central idea and after that, ran fresh out. Very disappointing. Nice style, but substance??

Ok. For me the Thanksgiving Season thru to Christmas means: FRUITCAKE ...(do I hear laughter?). Yes. Put me in that small minority that LOVES fruitcake. Hey. I also love Hot Cross Buns at Easter time!! I even just put up a big round one and a bunch of loaves soused with Brandy (hey LJ!). First time I've tried to make them.

Dear friends,

Okay...I am back from the cruise, and must say I enjoyed the book a lot, but did not love it. I was a little confused about Ed. Is he her husband....and why didn't she go back with him to the U.S.A. for his Mom and Dad's 50th anniversary celebration?

I thought the young man bringing all of those delicacies and wrapped gifts was totally believable. This does not describe my son, darn it, but does describe my ex son in law. Now you know why we are still so fond of him.

Springalee is a cookie that you can find in Dover, New York, and elsewhere. I think it tastes a little like licorice. Very delicious.

I enjoyed reading the recipes, and what they ate. I adore "peasant food", and on this trip had Hutspot a Dutch dish that is out of this world. Picture this.....Mashed potatoes with onions and carrots mashed together as the base with two nice slices of pot roast, very tasty on the top covering it. Alongside was some tasty cabbage, I think. A grand dish.

Chestnuts.....We try to have them every year, and roast them. Very good, and very filling.

I thought these people must have oodles of money to keep those renovations going. Big bucks. Loved the part where the Polish workers redid the Italian workers labors toward the end of the day.

About it being very important to everyone to "not feel out there all alone". I think that is a true statement. Perhaps there are people who don't think they feel that way. Is that why religion is so important to so many people?

Sorry to go on and on......Glad to be back.

After I finished reading Under the Tuscan Sun I read Anna Quinlan's Black and Blue, and would like to recommend that book for our reading enjoyment and discussion.

Speak to you soon.....Love, Fran

FRAN'S BACK!! AND not sick, so glad you're back!! I'm putting Black and Blue which sounds like spousal abuse? up in the February nominations folder, Fran. Please go there and tell us something about it, we'll vote on it the days after Thanksgiving.

Charles: you've made a good point, about her having the one idea and that was all. So you felt the book just.....flopped at the end? That may be where I get my idea about her not being honest, I think there's a great deal in this book unsaid.

HEY!! Hot cross buns?? How about the recipe??

Now, to extend the holidays a bit, Christmas to me means mince meat pie. I don't think anybody makes a better mince meat than Cross & Blackwell, and it has rum and brandy in, also. Don't drink, myself, but it makes it really good, and just have to have a piece with vanilla ice cream: yum.

I love fruitcake, what do you mean? The funny thing about fruitcake is the variety of kinds? My husband is from Claxton, Georgia, "The Fruitcake Capital of the World," is, in fact, related to the Parkers, who own it. They make several different kinds. I used to think Benson's made the best, but I like one with tons of fruit and little batter, and like the Claxton now, tho I didn't in the past.

Fran: ha!! What a good point about not going back with him to his parents 50th Anniversary?? Good point. That's probably where the old doubting machine started cranking up again. Yes, we're pretty close mouthed about our Ed.

Peter Mayle wrote an entire book without mentioning much about his wife, so guess she thought she would, too. However, a lot of the action of THIS book revolves AROUND Ed, unlike the Mayle books. Maybe this is the old male / female thing again.

Maybe she's fooling herself again.

Maybe it's her money that bought the house.

Maybe I need some fruitcake!! Springerle tastes like licorice? Mercy, no thanks!!

Ginny

Today's THE DAY!!
Tune in today to NPR at 2pm
And hear our own Dr. Roger Allen
Speaking on Naguib Mafouz
And his Egyptian tales of the al-Sayyid family!!
Then come back in here and tell all!!
AT LAST I find out how to pronounce Naguib!!

Oh good point, Loma, I think so. yes. Where, anybody help, does NPR originate from?

To complicate matters, we get TWO NPR's!! And they don't broadcast simultaneously. One is on the state PBS radio station. We'll need to do some fancy fiddling with the dials this afternoon at 2 Eastern, I assume till I am corrected, that's WHAT?? 12 noon in CA??

Since the time change or is it 11:00 am??

Ginny

NPR originates in Washington, D.C. I do believe.
Haven't been posting here because I got so far behind in the book, but I can't keep quiet now! I ,too, wondered about the author not returning with significant other to parents' anniversary. Also, I was intrigued by the analogy (LJ and Ginny)! Is the intention to note that cavalier and table are casual, ordinary and that reverence and altar both imply awe, respect? So in that sense cavalier and reverent are opposite adjectives and altar and table are opposite nouns?

"What is the most overwhelming impression YOU got from the book?" is one of the questions in the heading. With the books in the library being already checked out, I have just been following the so-interesting discussions, and from them it would seem that what attracted the author to that country, that place, that house, was ambience. Michener in Iberia discussed this in a way I remember, using an example of the Spanish lady looking for just the right picnic spot along the road -- it might have been "ambiente" in Spanish.

After reading everyone's comments, I asked myself why I enjoyed this book so much and remembered (I read it almost 6 months ago) that it was the wonderful writing that made it special for me. Even when she rambles on, it is very good rambling. And I really enjoyed the recipes.

About Ed: By the end of the book I assumed he was a long-term significant other and a part owner of the place. Toward the end, she writes, "We must go to Arezzo....to pay our insurance for next year."

I remember wondering how a teacher could afford such an adventure, but decided that that is certainly her business and not for me to worry about. I'm assuming an inheritance or lavish divorce settlement. As for Ed, maybe his contribution was in the form of sweat equity - but again, who needs to know?

No Christmas around here would be complete without a fabulous cookie called Auntie Mary. My sister would weep if I didn't make them. And there's a really excellent anti pasta made with pepperoncini and tuna and shrimp and lots of other good stuff that has become my husband's specialty and holiday contribution.

I keep meaning to try the Lemon Cake recipe in the book...

Katie

Ginny: Claxton Fruitcake!! That's the one I was raised on. Yes. The more fruit the better. Citron. Citron. Citron..

Tuscan. Cotton Candy - but really tasty!! For those of you who followed along with Frankie Silver: Is it my imagination or is the blackberry imagery getting out of hand? Note the last paragraph in Tuscan: "One Final Blackberry Cobbler and I'm gone." See ya!

(You can be sure I'll be combing through the banquet scene in Sir Gawain just to see if they're eating Blackberry Pie!)

Hahahahah, Charles, BLACKBERRIES again!! Maybe we need to rename the Book Club to the Blackberry Club hahahah. Oh I needed that. Is that spots of blackberry juice I see dotting the screen??

My goodness, what neato comments, Everyone!!! Now, Katie Bates, you made up that word, " pepperoncini!"

And Jo, yes, am totally confused on the cavalier thing, tho I must admit that would have been my first description of her? Oh I'm jealous, can't you all SEE? hahahahahaha

Honestly, it's no wonder the Egyptians keep threatening to rebury the mummies, R*E*S*P*E*C*T*! We may find out the hard way before I ever get to see one in Egypt, what it means to them. Let who will eat off a tombstone or altar, as they say where our Frances grew up, "what goes around, comes around."

As for where she gets "all" that money, I still maintain that's not a great deal of money. Especially for somebody at full salary at a University in CA?? Full tenure even here is in the $60--$80 range, not hard, or would it be, to save up $7,000 as life savings? Just one person struggling to live on $60,000 per year?

And Fairwinds has pointed out that the prices may be a little less in that region than elsewhere, for instance. Tho I bet you could get below Naples for a song?

I was very surprised when in Italy to see the notices in the window of places for sale and what seemed to be pretty cheap prices? The mind boggles, as Mayes pointed out, with millions and hundreds of thousands of same, but it seems you can GET a place for a song, and then struggle to get it fixed up.

But now do you all agree with Charles? Is this a one idea book, a one trick pony??

One of the best images for me in the book was the one where she got an album, which looked Florentine, and began writing her experiences. I love that image, the entire thing.

Maybe we can use this book as a "touchstone" for our own cynicism? In that case, I fear I'm somewhere around 8+.

Ginny the Jealous

CON fusion!! WHERE was Dr. Allen? Did any of you get to hear him? We had the hearings here!! Did they postpone it? Did he speak?? What??

Ginny

Ginny:

I waited anxiously to hear Dr. Allen. Found he had been preempted by Ken Star. Would have preferred Allen. We already knew everything Star was talking about.

Just got Under the Tuscan Sun. I had ordered the cheaper version from B and N. Made several calls to them without results. Finally odered the next one up--got it in a couple of days. It looks great. Sorry you are finished with it, but am sure I will read and enjoy it anyway..

Charlotte

Ginny, We can get "Pepperoncini" in the groceries, even here in the hinterlands.

Best

Came dashing out of my office to head for home at five of two yesterday. With the help of your reminder I actually remembered to get to my car in time for Prof. Allen only to find that the program had been pre-empted by the Judiciary Committee and Ken Starr. So what else is new. WHEREVER you stand politically, don't you just wish you didn't have to hear about it anymore?

Ginny: A KNISH (the K is not silent) is a New York institution. Knishes are pastries filled and then baked with any one of a variety of stuffings (ie.potato,liver,cheese and now veggies) The most popular, potato, often topped with a sprinkling of pepper and sometimes some mustard (according to one's own personal tastes). My cookbook tells me they started out in the Ukraine where they were a celebratory food. On New York's Lower East Side, they were a convenient hot finger food that the sweatshop workers could buy and take to work as lunch. But today Knishes have gone mainstream and smaller versions are made and are popularly served as hot appetizers at parties. They are great to have at a good deli with a hot dog and a side of cole slaw...yum.

A recipe for Thanksgiving: A popular one at my house for an appetizer is Brie en Croute, delicious and fairly simple to prepare.

1 Baby Brie (1 lb. Any flavor), 1 sheet puff pastry thawed

Roll out pastry to 1/8". Place brie in center of dough and bring up sides to top of cheese like a package. I tie heavy red twine around the dough as I gather it at the top. Place in fridge for one hour before baking. Brush top with 1egg yolk/ dash of milk beaten together with fork. Bake in pre-heated 400 degree oven for 15-20 minutes or until puffed and golden brown. Let set for 20 minutes before serving. Enjoy!!!

MMMMM! Sounds great, and I love the easy part! Just printed it out, Helen -- Thanks!

Speaking of easy, of course you noted how to put together Ginny's Hummingbird Cake (post #85). "Stir till mixed. Do not beat." Way to go.

Here's the latest from the good Professor:

Helen: That is right! I am to be on 2-3 on Thanksgiving Day!

ROGER ALLEN

Loma: You're right,easy in the kitchen is good these days. Ginny's cake is a cinch once you've rounded up the birds.

Jo: Glad you like the recipe.

Ginny, A "Knish" is a "Nosh" served to russian Czars so that they wouldn't "Kvetch" and turn out the peasants from their homes.

Best

P.S.

A lot like Tevye's prayer (I know it was the Rabbi)

"May the Lord bless and keep

The Czar

Far away from us"

Helen, so glad to hear about Dr. Allen, I'll be bursting at 2pm, so will crank up the radio and put up feet and listen to the broadcast! What a day to schedule it, tho!!

Thanks for the WEE BRIE recipe, it looks fabulous. Yes, I too noticed, Jo and Loma, that her directions were simple, I wonder why the old recipes were so simple, so few ingredients, and so logical, and the new ones so complicated? It may be the herbs and stuff now substituting for all that old fat?? Whatever it is, if you were intimidated about cooking, you'd not do a new one first!

And thanks, Helen, also for the knish stuff, had gotten a catalogue from Wolferman's with several different kinds and just may now have to have some.

I don't think it's out of place in this discussion since both Fairwinds and Helen have mentioned it, to say I did see La Vie E Bella last night, ("Life is Beautiful") and it's truly something that is almost overwhelming. Of course, it's in Italian, I'm sure that's why it's mentioned here, it just left me speechless. It's about the Holocaust, and is heartrending and also poignant, and it's amazing what it dredges up in your OWN psyche. I think it would be a wonderful movie to discuss, so many points.

I'm going to make the Brie En Croute for Christmas, and when I do I'll think of all my SeniorNet Book friends, how far we've come and what a great presence we've become!!

It would be fun to have a recipe from all, LJ, have you really MADE that now, or are you pulling our leg??

Starting Monday, we'll chat about the February Nominations. I think we've got the most impressive list we've probably ever had. You can see them by clicking on the February Nominations in the heading. I must say that the heading is very pleasant to look at, and I'm going to miss it. Let's all also give our Rating for Under The Tuscan Sun in these last few days.

We'll vote right after Thanksgiving.

Ginny

GINNY, In a word "YES". But surely you realize that the stuffing is open to as much variation as one might wish. One might want to use "Some" water (Or cranberry juice) Certainly I'd like to add chopped celery, and depending on preferences and the brand of dry stuffing, one might add sage, marjoram or thyme to taste. (I add a bit of thyme myself). The cooking time and temp depend on the bird and the oven, and its helpful to use a meat thermometer or to check the hip (leg) joint for doneness. Just for the record its O.K. to use ANY bird and its called "Cunnard LaOrange au Flambeau"

It's more than just a "Nosh" Best

LJ, it does look delicious! If I make it I'll call it LJ A L'Orange!

hahhahahahaha

I noticed her reference to our "aloneness" (cf. Question #9: "its small keyhole reminds us of what we most want to be reminded of, you are not out there alone," and even tho we're supposed to be discussing the new books, I can't help compare this theory with that of Stephen King, expressed in his treatise on the horror genre, Dance Macabre : "I believe that we are all ultimately alone and that any deep and lasting human contact is nothing more nor less than a necessary illusion--but at least the feelings which we think of as 'positive' and 'contstructive' are a reaching-out, an effort to make contact and establish some sort of communication. Feelings of love and kindness, the ability to care and empahize, are all we know of the light. They are efforts to link and intergrate; they are the emotions which bring us together, if not in fact then at least in a comforting illusion that makes the burden of mortality a little easier to bear.

Horror, terror, fear, panic: these are the enotions which drive wedges between us, split us off from the crowd, and make us alone..."

I thought it was interesting that two such different writers would both be talking about the same theme: being alone. And it's also interesting that THIS medium, the Internet, provides us with the ability to reach out, and in our case, discuss books and ideas, when some of us, at least, might be hard pressed to find neighbors to chat over a book with.

I do see a difference in the two approaches, tho. Mayes seems to be saying that we most need reaffirmation that we are NOT alone, and King seems to be saying we ARE alone, but we can comfort ourselves with the illusion that we aren't and stave off our fears that way.

I'm wondering which one of them, if either has it right??? What do you think?? Are you surprised to see such depth of thought from either one of them??

Ginny

LJ:

You are so cute. I loved your yiddishisms. Hope they don't need further explanation.

Charlotte

Ginny:

Your comments on aloneness makes we think of the solitariness of trying to be a writer and of the work of Thomas Wolfe, which I read in my youth, but find it too verbose to read now. It is a problem which begins in sensitive, artistic youth.

Milt posted two statements in our computer room. They were calligraphed by an artist friend. They are:

LEARN TO LIVE WITH AMBIGUITY. and

RETAIN THE EXCITEMENT OF INQUIRY.

These ideas along with our belief is that CONTINUING TO LEARN IS A REASON FOR CONTINUING TO LIVE. It's what keeps us both going.

Charlotte

Ginny:

An after thought I just remembered. My six year-old grandaughter asked her mother: "Are we real or are we in a dream?"

Charlotte

Dear Charlotte,

I have often thought about what your granddaughter said..."Are we real, or is this a dream?" I hope this is "The real thing", because right now I would find it hard to imagine anything better.

Speak to you soon.....Love, Fran

Charlotte, LOVE the computer room posts by Milt! He is so right! They do say there are only a couple of themes in literature and they are played out over and over. It sure seems like "aloneness" is a major theme. Think of "The Ancient Mariner:"

"Alone, alone,
All all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea.
And never a saint
Took pity on
My soul in agony!
"

That'll teach me to look UP quotes! Anyway, aloneness, separation from God, it seems to be a constant theme.

I must say after having seen "Life is Beautiful," Mayes's little book seems very superfluous and empty. Now I wonder why that is??

I think that was very perspicacious of your granddaughter!! Obviously brains run in the family!!

So glad our Fran's back, too! We're all back safe and sound.

We've not set a day for ratings of this book, so let's do:

I believe I'll rate it an 8. It would have been a lot higher if I'd not seen "Life is Beautiful." I don't know why that should impinge on THIS book, but it has. I keep changing the rating as I speak: it WAS 7.

It's an interesting book, but to me, it's a one trick pony with no plot which soon dies. Lots of literary references but not cohesive as to plot. The livin' may be easy, but it gets borin', too, and that's the fault of somebody not editing the last 1/3rd of the book.

Plus, as I've stated before, she really irritates me with Ed, I don't know why.

What's YOUR rating??

Ginny

I'd rate the book a 7. She is a very talented writer. Perhaps, when she retires to her villa in Tuscany, she'll have time to develop a real book.

Ginny: Your Ed thing has gotten out of hand!! I don't think you're so much irritated WITH Ed as irriatated with Frances for not giving us enough details - whereas I could care less. I guess like my wife always tells me - "details, details". Get 'em.

Charles, that's true, I'm not irritated at Ed at all, who could be irritated at a shadow man? I don't know, if I think on it more, I'll be back to 7, so better shut up!

Ginny

Have a
Very
Happy Thanksgiving!

Vote Friday!!
Don't forget Dr. Allen Turkey Day at 2 on NPR~!---Ginny

Ginny

As the Tuscan sun sinks slowly in the west, I want to invite everyone to consider participating in the December discussion, which will be based on Sinclair Lewis's muckraking Elmer Gantry, truly a novel without a hero but one which can serve us as a springboard for examining, not only the author's bitter and sarcastic view of organized religion, but the true nature and function of religious institutions. "Warts and all" would have been an understatement for Lewis: He seemed to see the warts and omit the rest. Again and again, however, as he challenges complacency, questions power for power's sake, and seems to exult over human weakness, the thoughtful reader can discern a shadowy alternative for the feeble and faulty puppets on his stage.

Please plan on joining us December 1. Even if the book itself is not yet available to you, there will be a synopsis.

And meanwhile - happy Thanksgiving to all.

Ros

Today's the Day!!
VOTE TODAY!!
Vote Today!!

Well, I sure did hear Dr. Allen!! How about you?? And here he is, this day, on his way to Cairo and Nah GEEB Macht...FOOZ himself!

The only thing that disappointed me about the broadcast was the people calling in? I expected to hear our Helen or our Charles from the great, the one and only SENIORNET Book Club Online.

That's an interesting concept NPR has there, the Book Club of the air? And he announces the selection a month in advance and then the broadcast date? And then we callers call in and we're all there discussing with each other? Interesting. We may have to get in on one of those.

Anyway, the man/ woman thing was definitely a bit hedged by Dr. Allen, whom I would liked to have heard more of and less of Lois from NY. It may just be me, but if I'm in the company of a man who can translate a book from the Arabic, and personally knows the author, I might personally want to shut up and listen to what he has to say.

He made the point that Macht FooZ loves the cinema and soccer, and was a good enough player of soccer to have played professionally. He married LATE in life (Macht Fooz) and confesses to not fleshing out the women characters in his books due to an unfamiliarity with women....tho his newest book apparently has quite a heroine. I haven't read it.

There was, however, a bit of hedging on the women's rights thing, with Dr. Allen saying that women in the country have more rights than those in the city, a point somebody should have followed up on. Also that men in Egypt traditionally rule society while the woman rules the home.

Dr. Allen has a very soft quiet voice which could, after a Thanksgiving dinner, put you to sleep, but he sounded very knowledgable and kind, and I wish he had spoken more and the other book club members less.

Two callers disagreed on one point: one thought the descriptions of Egypt were realistic and the other didn't. One was from Egypt, but I can't remember which was which.

If you heard the broadcast, which IS available in print, what did you think? Did Dr. Allen sound like you thought he would? We need to pay attention to this NPR Book Club of the air stuff!

Ginny