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46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
italian adventures -- and not a la frances mayes, January 16, 2001
Annie Hayes' view of Italy is far from the dappled, sensuous quality that has defined that "other" book about newcomers (and subsequent converts) to the beauty of Italy. Mayes' books excel in recalling the fabulous foods, landscapes, neighbors and gossamer days of Tuscany. Extra Virgin does that, too, but here's the difference -- Hayes' book goes deeper. She and her sister make mistakes. A lot of them. They don't instantly assimilate. The farmlands of Liguria are a far cry from the rolling and tourist-friendly hills of Tuscany, and the townsfolk, puzzled by these seemingly naive English girls, give them hard-knock lessons on the road to becoming honorary Italians. Whereas the Mayes series focus on the earthly pleasures of Italy, Extra Virgin is about character -- from the social protocol amid the local gentry at the village coffee shop to the laughs the sisters endure when they take another helping of antipasti or primi (shame on them!) Here is an outsider's honest, non-academic attempt to dissect the prejudices between Northern & Southern Italians -- to probe their grudges and prejudices -- and maybe even bend the rules a little (never too much!) Yet the reader never gets the sense that the Italians aren't warm to the author -- on the contrary, despite the occasional playful ridicule they are portrayed as kind, generous, resourceful, rugged, and hardworking. Hayes conveys the idea that Italy and Italian culture can be as foreign and oftentimes preposterous as our own culture appears to us. I'm half Italian and found this book very valuable in showing me the character of my forefathers (and my Italian-American mother!) It also serves as a terrific and necessary guidebook cloaked in a travelogue -- it has the fantasy aspect of moving to Italy, but it's done with a heaping dose of reality. I would recommend Extra Virgin to anyone intending to visit Italy -- to grasp what it means to be fully immersed in things Italian. Haye's recipe? Go with a healthy dose of respect, a lot of humor and keep on hand the odd dash of scepticism wherever necessary. That's Italian!
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48 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A real-life look at living abroad, September 7, 2001
Don't let the soppy title fool you - Extra Virgin is an excellent memoir of the author's life in small-town Italy. Annie Hawes has created a down-to-earth (and back-to-the-earth) book that, in addition to an excellent description of life in Liguria, gives a close up look at topics we can all relate to: learning to maintain and improve that first house, fitting in to a new place, adjusting to new customs. Probably the main strength of the book, though, is Hawes' portrait of her adopted home town and its changes through the years. She has lived at least half the year in Diano San Pietro for 20 years; she's become at least as Ligurian as English, while her town has become more modern and continental - but only a bit. Reading about Hawes' transformation, I learned along with her - about the excellent reasons behind some of the strange peasant beliefs, about the culture and society of rural Northern Italy, and about the everyday life of a small Italian town. In the background are other stories, equally involving: the small gossips, scandals, and events of 20 years in one place. One of Hawes' virtues is to make her neighbors and friends seem real, with real-person traits and flaws, rather than merely colorful characters, especially as time progresses within the book. The book itself is a pleasant, fun read. Hawes writes with a lot of gentle and mostly self-directed humor, and her style is breezy and light. It's easy to identify with her, also, both because of the style and because of the life she describes; I felt less a spectator and more a sympathizer in her struggles and delights. All in all, Extra Virgin is one of the most enjoyable and knowledgeable living-in-Italy books I've read to date, and it lacks the self-conscious, overblown prose stylings that have rendered some similar books less engaging. I would recommend this to anyone who loves Italy or travel; it's a book worth reading and owning.
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50 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Don't Let the Title Fool You, May 26, 2001
Readers might miss this book solely because of its silly title. "Extra Virgin" has really nothing to do with the story except that olive oil is made in the region. And that ridiculous subtitle--"A Young Woman Discovers the Italian Riviera, Where Every Month Is Enchanted"--suggests the kind of soft-centered, caramel-dipped, high-fructose prose found in Harlequin Romances... This is not a gooey romance written by a birdbrain but a consistently engaging tale of a young Brit and her sister who take seasonal work harvesting olives in a little-known peasant village in a lesser-known region of Italy--and end up buying a houdse there. The opening drags a bit. The author struggles with her pose as the bright young thing taking the traditional Brit's view of benighted foreign peasantry. Too pert by half, frankly. But what makes this book work is that the author observes closely, learns, and grows--grows up, too. She began by thinking of her neighbors as jolly but backward folk who just love to feed people--and keep on feeding them. So typically Italian! Well, she gets over this; she begins to understand that these people actually know a thing or two and even know things she doesn't. As a result her prose calms down and her story moves along pretty briskly. There's humor and passion as she and her neighbors come to terms with each other--and as she increasingly becomes not merely a summer visitor but a person who comes to have some standing as a genuine member of her community. The change occurs gradually through innumerable small steps (steps too small to mean much if taken out of context in a review) and one large event that can't be discussed because it would give away far too much. Look at it this way: We've had the sugary stuff of "Enchanted April" and the cold and cynical exploitation of "A Year in Provence." Annie Hawes's story is different; it might even be what would happen to you or me.
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