The Lady in the Palazzo: At Home in Umbria
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Product Description
Review
De Blasi is more than a sunny regional food writer - she digs into the meaning of life (PUBLISHERS WEEKLY )
De Blasi is a skilled, quirky writer; her prose is by turns reserved, rococo, earthy and, above all, fresh (KIRKUS REVIEWS )
De Blasi is a skilled, quirky writer; her prose is by turns reserved, rococo, earthy and, above all, fresh (KIRKUS REVIEWS )
Book Description
A charming evocation of life in Umbria from the author of the bestselling memoir, A Thousand Days in Venice.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book was a present from a friend in New Zealand and in fact my copy has the title "An Umbrian Love Story: Coming home to Via del Duomo" but has the same cover and is clearly the identical book apart from its title.
I have to say that had it not been a gift from someone whose judgement I respect, I probably would not have finished it. I had just read the deeply unsettling and sad "A Thousand Splendid Suns" and was dying for some light relief so this looked the perfect book to cheer me up. It's hard to say exactly what is wrong with it as all the ingredients seem to be there: a couple, in love, move to an idyllic Italian village with a cast of eccentric locals. As she gets to know them our "heroine" Chou, as she seems to be known, plans to have a large dinner party in the apartment they are moving in to (the ballroom of a converted palazzo) in order to bring together this disparate cast and heal ancient grievances. I won't spoil the ending, but according to one other reviewer who clearly knows the village of Orvieto, most of the story is "fantasy". Well, that's quite likely, after all what memoir/biography or piece of travel writing is pure truth and fact? Every writer embroiders things to make them more interesting for the reader. And one man's truth is another man's fiction, so to speak.
So, where does it go wrong? There is something horribly "precious" about de Blasi's writing style. It's overly long and overly ornate, and she has some annoying little habits such as referring to her husband as "the Venetian" (why not use his name?), and to another character as "Miranda-of-the-bosoms" which starts to irritate after a while.
Perhaps if I had read her earlier books first I would have enjoyed this more as some of these oddities were presumably explained in those. But I would not recommend you start with this one if you want to read Marlena de Blasi.
I have to say that had it not been a gift from someone whose judgement I respect, I probably would not have finished it. I had just read the deeply unsettling and sad "A Thousand Splendid Suns" and was dying for some light relief so this looked the perfect book to cheer me up. It's hard to say exactly what is wrong with it as all the ingredients seem to be there: a couple, in love, move to an idyllic Italian village with a cast of eccentric locals. As she gets to know them our "heroine" Chou, as she seems to be known, plans to have a large dinner party in the apartment they are moving in to (the ballroom of a converted palazzo) in order to bring together this disparate cast and heal ancient grievances. I won't spoil the ending, but according to one other reviewer who clearly knows the village of Orvieto, most of the story is "fantasy". Well, that's quite likely, after all what memoir/biography or piece of travel writing is pure truth and fact? Every writer embroiders things to make them more interesting for the reader. And one man's truth is another man's fiction, so to speak.
So, where does it go wrong? There is something horribly "precious" about de Blasi's writing style. It's overly long and overly ornate, and she has some annoying little habits such as referring to her husband as "the Venetian" (why not use his name?), and to another character as "Miranda-of-the-bosoms" which starts to irritate after a while.
Perhaps if I had read her earlier books first I would have enjoyed this more as some of these oddities were presumably explained in those. But I would not recommend you start with this one if you want to read Marlena de Blasi.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I tried, I really did. I persevered, bit my lip, and persevered some more. In the end, though, this book got the better of me. I found De Blasi's writing style laborious, convoluted, pretentious and physically painful to read. The shelves are groaning with travelogues, memoirs and biographies, so there is really no need to suffer this one. Try Annie Hawes, Carol Drinkwater, Peter Mayle instead.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Marlena de Blase's books require one to suspend belief and are a light, entertaining read. The problem for me came most particularly with her third book. Is she trying to turn Orvieto into another Cortona? Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun became a Disney film. House prices rocketed and tourism boomed in that grey stone Tuscan town. We who know and love Orvieto wait with fingers crossed that it will not happen there. The book contains a great deal of fantasy and should be read as such.
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