Come join me for a trip through Italy during the entire month of May! I'll be posting as I read the wonderful book 'Bella Tuscany' by Frances Mayes, and really hope you come and join me.

I may never get to travel as far as I wish, but with authors who love where they are travelling, and writing lush, lavish prose, I often feel like I've been along with them.

So, dig up a copy of the book, and come join me here for our own online book group discussion of one of my favorite books!

And here is the link for the reader's guide for 'Bella Tuscany'

http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides3/bella_tuscany1.asp

I will try to get a copy of the book soon and look forward to participating in an online discussion

I am enjoying this book so much! I read "Under the Tuscan Sun" after seeing the movie. While the book and the movie are very different, I enjoyed them both. So that led me to "Bella Tuscany". I just finished the chapter about vintage linens. I have a small collection of old lace-trimmed (crocheted) pillowcases from my mother that I love. I believe she got them from her mother. Some are yellowed and stained and I was able to find some advice on-line as to how to whiten them without damaging the crocheted trim (which is not white but blue, yellow or pink). I haven't tried it yet but reading that chapter has inspired me to get going so I can use the pillowcases in our guest room. I've read only one or two books that have the ability to bring back a long forgotten memory of someone or something from my childhood and this chapter in "Bella Tuscany" adds to the list.

Hi there!

I really hope you're enjoying your read! I'll be posting the questions from the reading guide along with my thoughts on them, and would love to hear your replies to what I've said along with your own thoughts on the guide questions!

--Anne

1.Mayes writes, "It can be dangerous to travel. A strong reflecting light is cast back on 'real life,' sometimes a disquieting experience." What does she mean? How does travel change your perception of yourself? Has a hidden piece of your identity ever been revealed to you through travel?

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I thought about this for a while, and basically, I disagree with her about the dangerous part; when you travel, you’re exposed to all sorts of new things. You meet new people, perhaps try new food or life in a different way that you are accustomed to live, see new things – all things that even a small bit, change how you look at your personal universe. It’s easy to make a blanket statement such as “I hate Mexican food” if the only thing you’ve experienced is Taco Bell. But once you take a trip and have fresh hot tamales made with fragrant masa… or a large mug of chocolate as the sun rises… or a yummy bowl of homemade pozole and you might change your mind. It’s a small change, but it changes something—and might make you more adventurous in your eating. The same goes in how you see people and your own life when you return from traveling. The change might be tiny, but it is there, and nothing is the same.

I’ve always felt that change might be frightening, but is often necessary – if things are always the same, people feel as if they’re stagnating… and honestly, eventually it can feel like you’re just ‘settling’ for an existence, rather than living a life.

As for a personal change: I spent a week in a small town outside Boston one autumn, and the experiences touched me deeply. While I went just to relax and do the typical ‘tourist thing’ I also took time to sketch, and write, and since then I’ve never been without a pad of paper wherever I settle for the night. I might add to it, or I might not, but since that trip, it’s always there. It's allowed me to express thoughts and feelings that before I kept inside. Even if the only person who ever sees my journals is myself, the thoughts finally are freed.

Are there any changes you’ve made to your life after traveling a bit? I’d really like to hear your thoughts on this!

2. While in Sicily, Mayes connects existential thoughts of death with traveling. "Why am I here where I don't belong? What is this alien place? I fell I'm in a strange afterlife, a haint blowing with the winds. I suspect the subtext to this displacement is the dread of death. Who and where are you when you are no one?" Do these thoughts of displacement enter your mind when you travel? Do you think they are connected to a fear of death?

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Again, while I can understand what she means, travel to me is always a freeing thing. When I get away from the expected pattern of my normal life and can wake or not whenever I choose, eat wherever and whenever, go outside or stay in and make decisions on the spur of the moment. It’s a release of having to be responsible and getting the rare permission to do as you wish. Admittedly, the fact I have no children and after finding a good person to care for my parrots and cats, it is just myself and the better half to wander where we wish I am a bit more freed than, say a family with 4 kids, but even there you have freedom. YOU choose what to do at what time, and the experiences you will let into your life.

I like embracing the places that are so alien to me; again, I’ve not really gone too far out of my comfort zone into places I felt disliked, or unwanted and perhaps this is why I feel the way I do; if I tried to force myself into a situation where I was not greeted warmly but a situation I felt I had to experience, I might also feel that sense of unhappy disconnection. I’m not sure how I’d feel or react, in all honesty.

To many, death is an end, or the start of something new; in a way, this is what I feel about travel, but death is also finality, where travel adds to your current experience and grows you, making you different, more. There are moments I do get a rush of disquiet, wondering “did I close the bathroom window?” or a fast moment or worry about the furry ones left behind, or even if I should have just stayed home and not bothered with the hassle and actual WORK involved in traveling, but these moments are rarely long, and I tend to greet them with a shrug and a nod that everyone worry when they step outside the normal pattern into something different.

When you travel do you lose yourself in the experience or feel as Frances Mayes does? I really do wonder if I just enjoy the chaos so much that I never wonder at it and love to hear other points of view!

3. How is Mayes's trip to Sicily different from her travels in Tuscany and the Veneto? What are specific traits of the Sicilian character? What in Sicily's history can account for these traits? Are there regional differences in your own country that are as vivid?

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She seems to become a bit darker when traveling in Sicily, and personally I think it was due to her infusing the land and her travel itself with personal political or social opinion of the Mafia. She was seeing ‘goons’ and oppression where nothing might have been – we don’t know as everything she saw, ate, experienced or did was colored by her dislike of even the thought of the Mafia. It’s understandable, as everything she had read or heard of the Mafia was dark and horrid, and she did not approve of it in any way, but to imbue the land around her with a taint of evil due to her dislike of a single organization.

You can, if you have that sort of mindset, have the same situation if you travel here in the US. Visit the south Bronx and fail to see the people being good and hardworking and the many delectable places to eat, lovely places to shop and places to see – instead see only drug dealers, and gangs and thugs that were showcased in the 70’s. Go to the south and see lynching, and racism, and horrible actions rather than the people there now working together, the wonderful museums, the many places where you can eat and shop and learn. It’s easy to lock yourself into a singular mindset due to disliking something; a person who travels owes themselves the ability to leave a locked mind at home and have an EXPERIENCE rather than a reaction.

4. At one of the many extravagant feasts he attends throughout the book, Ed remarks, speaking of the bitter after-dinner drinks called amari, "Italians seem to have acquired more tastes than many of us." Do you agree? Why might that be the case? How is Italy's relationship to food different from that of other countries?

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Most people from other countries have a more expanded palate than Americans due to the foods they typically eat. Most American’s shun extreme bitter, or too pungent, or any taste not sweet, salty, crunchy or rich. It all depends on the food you are exposed to as you grow. Italy is a crossroads of a lot of cultures and thus has relied heavily on seafood, fruit, vegetables, and cured meats. Sugar was expensive; so many treats are lightly sweetened, or made with honey, a different sort of sweet. In this way, it can be said a lot of cultures have ‘more’ tastes than many of us.

5. On a number of occasions, Mayes describes the many elaborate gestures Italians have for expressing how good food is. Do any of them make sense to you? How many gestures do you have to show your enjoyment of food? How often do you use these gestures? What does it mean to frequently express your appreciation of food through physical gestures? What does that say about a culture?

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I’ve seen quite a few meals from varying cultures where the members of that culture have specific gestures used to indicate pleasure or displeasure, and often they are more than the ones we from America typically use. A lot of the differences is in the way a person is raised. Many Americans are raised to be polite, to act a certain way, during their meals. To most, this means sitting quietly, conversing quietly, eating neatly and again, quietly, and any expression of enjoyment is limited to a few words to the host/hostess or chef afterwards. In other cultures, to be polite is to make extravagant praise to the cook or host/hostess, to enthuse how much you are enjoying the meal, and this is not done via verbal explanations but by broad, sweeping gestures so that it cannot be misunderstood that you are having a truly wonderful time. It is not bad, nor good to express your pleasure either way, unless you fail to see the difference and act the ‘impolite’ way during a meal itself.

6. Why do you think Mayes includes recipes in her book? What is the effect of the recipes on you, the reader? Does it bring her story more alive? If so, how? Do you intend to make any of the dishes? Which ones? Is your interest in these specific dishes connected to Mayes's narrative?

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Mayes includes the recipes so that, should the reader choose, they can experience the places she traveled not just via the images her words offer, but via the food, and since food is so important to the Italian people, sharing the tastes she was experiencing is a very good way to take a small part of the travels Mayes did herself.

I’ve made several of the dishes, and it has offered me a chance to taste, secondhand some of the things she did, to be able to visualize her words a bit better, to make her work a bit more personal to me. Making a few of the dishes and reading the book is not just fun, it makes both experiences better!

7. Throughout her travels in Italy, Mayes frequently encounters ancient Roman and Etruscan monuments. How does the historical scope of Italy change her perception of time? Does it change yours just by reading about the ancient landscape? How do you think growing up, surrounded by so much ancient history would change a person? Do you see those differences in the Italians that Mayes encounters? How do these Italians feel about their heritage?

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Having the past so very real, living, as it were, alongside the present makes for interesting travels. You can see how the present is influenced by the sights and experiences of the past, directly, without studying it, as all you need do is look up at the arches and columns of the houses you are passing which are currently inhabited, and then look to the ruins nearby wit many of the same lines. The images in the frescoes, things seen in sculpture, in images preserved from ancient times imitated in the hotels and restaurants you visit; it makes you see life in amore linear way rather than a random bit of chaos forming bits and pieces of your current reality with no touch of the past that used to be in the same space. Italians are used to having these bits of the past all around them; some try desperately to preserve the past, but many just let the ruins be, figuring they were always there, and always will, and so their life is influenced by the past without much real notice.

8. Mayes writes of the balance between "ambition, solitude, stimulation, adventure...What is replenishing? What is depleting? What takes? What gives? What wrings you out and, truly, what rinses you with happiness?" Do you think restoring Bramasole in the summers and teaching the rest of the year in San Francisco is a good balance? What balance have you struck? Are you content with it?

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I think that Mayes has managed to find the perfect life for her; she has split her life in half, in a way, while also keeping it very much intact. Knowing that Bramasole is there makes dealing with the most stressful day easier. She knows that life is not perfect either in San Francisco nor in Bramasole, but has managed to find a way to put her mental and spiritual stimulations/refilling/depletion into categories that keep her going well, replete with the joy in her life and able to handle both halves of the whole quite well.

Personally I am still working on my balance; I don’t think it is an easy thing to do, and it takes some of us a lifetime. I like to think of myself as a work in progress, and for now, am comfortable with that.

9. What is the relationship of the foraging woman, who used to work at Bramasole, to the estate now? Is she trespassing when she picks their fruits and mushrooms? How is the sense of land ownership profoundly different in Tuscany than in Mayes's native California?

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The foraging woman went from being a shadowy thief to someone that is human, a teacher, a friend in a way after the conversation with Ed. She never felt she was trespassing, but now, Mayes and family feel the same way. Trespassing in Tuscany is entirely different than it is in the States. In Tuscany, if you once lived in a place, or if you forage in a neighbor’s wood for mushroom, puck the nearly ripe fruit they will never miss, or find greens they will never use, you are just doing what any neighbor does. In the states, we feel that if we own the land we own it ALL; we own the rocks in the stream we never walk upon, the fruit we will never pick in the trees we barely cultivate, the mushrooms that grow deep in the back lot we got to screen out the houses down the road. I’ve been lucky enough to have a few neighbors who were new to the US, and have opened the back door to bags of tomoatoes from their garden since they took some of the lettuce in my garden that I was letting get too big… to fresh strawberries since they parked in my driveway for an hour a week ago and more and I like this way of property ownership better than the way we all normally feel.

10. Mayes writes, "The garden, I begin to see, is a place where I can give memory a location and season in which to remain alive...Scents operate like music and poetry, stirring up wordless feelings that rush through the body, not as cognitive thoughts but as a surge of lymphatic tide." What do your plants or garden mean to you? Is your garden a repository of memories of places, events, or loved ones? Do you use scents to remember?

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I no longer garden, but when I did, it was a place I went to escape reality for a while. There were no phones, no computers, and no radio – just myself, the soil, and the things dependant upon me for their very existence. I tended them gently, and carefully, and they rewarded me with blossoms and fragrances, and tastes and sights. Plants react without thought, they have no ulterior motive, and even now the scent to turned earth, or scents of fresh greens, even of fertilizer moves me in a visceral way.

Scent is a very powerful memory aid. Every spring my father would bring violets in for my mother and myself—the scent will instantly transport me to waking with a tiny bouquet there on my side table. Every year I brought roses from our many bushes to school for my teacher—the scent of a wild rose takes me back to the classroom, dust in the air from the chalkboard, and the excited feeling that I’d be going on my OWN to the teacher’s room to fill the vase with water; the woman I adored as a mother loved lilacs and so every year I’d bring her a bunch from the bush in my backyard—one scent of real lilac and I think of Liz. Scent will nearly always bring you somewhere.