Customer Reviews

Italian Fever (Thorndike Core)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I don't know which I enjoyed more: Martin's prose or being tranported back to Italy, my favorite place on earth. No one has written the definitive romance about this country, and I hope no one does because the literary possibilities are endless. The whole point of reading pleasure is to be able to identify with the character/story/setting which this novel did for me so beautifully. While vacationing in Tuscany I succumbed to the flu...I had an affair with a married man who lived in Rome with his Australian wife, and I remember how frustrating it is to listen to the Italians speak their rapid-fire language and only being able to catch a word here or there. I loved it that Lucy and Antonio "discovered" each other and that she was smart enough to leave. I only hope that Ms. Martin will find it necessary to set her next novel in Venice.

I have just completed "Italian Fever" by Valerie Martin and enjoyed it tremendously. Lucy Stark goes to Italy to tidy up the affairs of a minor writer who died in an accident. While there she meets some intriguing characters, has an affair, learns more about the kind of person she really is, and is memsmerized by the beauty of Italy and the art of its famous painters and sculptors. Her descriptions are portrayed in succinct yet beautiful prose which engrosses the reader's attention. I especially loved her reaction and description of Piero della Francesca's fresco, The Resurection, which she comments on to her Italian escort while on a business trip. This novel has romance, self-revelation, mystery, ghosts, and the flavor of Italy all rolled into one. I heartily recommend it to any reader of quality fiction.

I cannot dismiss it altogether. What I picked up from the book is Martin's satiric writing and that Lucy Stark is similar to the heroine in Austen's "Northanger Abbey" who having read one too many Gothic novels lets her romantic imagination run away with her. Similarly, Lucy is somewhat of a fool (not a cliche of a woman in her 30s as one reviewer here wrote. What exactly is that anyway?) who allows herself to be taken in by all her cliche notions of Italy and Italian men. How can anyone take seriously her head-over-heels, schoolgirl infatuation with Massimo? She never once thinks about the consequences of her adulterous affair although she is fully aware of his wife and children. And she quickly becomes impatient and jealous when she thinks he is also carrying on with the beguiling artist Catherine. The only truly unfortunate element of this story is its flimsy, pseudo-gothic, mystery story element. What began as a teasing story of foul play and an estate haunted by the ghost of murdered WWII Italian partisan quickly fizzles and is forgotten among the trappings of Martin's subtle send-up of all things Harlequinesque. The sequence with Lucy's horrendously detailed food poisoning complete with hallucinations and a bit later the section where she locks herself out of the farmhouse and has to seek shelter in a brewing windy storm are perfect examples of what could have made for a true modern day Gothic novel. So many writers today haven't a clue what constitutes a Gothic novel in its classic from. One need only look at the first ten chapters of "Italian Fever" for a primer in excellent use of classic Gothic mood, description and setting. I only wish there were more throughout the entire novel.

Wow, I am so surprised to read the vituperative reviews about this novel--I admired it on many levels. The writing was exceptionally fluent without in the least straying into the melodramatic, and Martin's blending of genres was nimbly handled. I thought the character portrayals were remarkably subtle and realistically complex. The opening passage (the Prologue) is so beautifully written that I wanted to read it over several times just for the rhythmic pleasure. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire novel and was so pleased to find it, as I have enjoyed some of her earlier novels but have had trouble finding all of them. If you are a "literary reader," I would think you would love this book.

Well...reviewers for Amazon seemed to love or hate this novel, for the most part. I feel rather indifferent about it. Truthfully, I would probably never have finished it if I had actual work to do at my job!

Lucy Stark is a writer's assistant whose employer, writing abroad, suddenly turns up dead. She is left the task of putting his affairs in order and looking for the rest of a manuscript he has been working on. What starts out as a possible murder mystery quickly devolves into simply a diary of an American's time spent in Italy, replete with art appreciation, affairs and lots of cappucino consumption.

This novel didn't seem to follow its initial intentions or promises, although when the end finally comes, everything is wrapped up to some satisfaction. Had the book simply been to detail an American's experience abroad and what she learned about herself along the way, I would have understood how to read it. As it is, it seems the author did a little of this, a little of that, but I cannot complain about the quality of the language and the flow of the writing. My main feeling is that this book did not AFFECT me, the way I feel a good novel should. I probably won't think about it again.

Why oh why can't I remember to ignore bookjacket flap copy? I might have appreciated "Italian Fever" more if it hadn't been touted as a murder mystery. I might have savored the love story for what it was, instead of wondering why it took up such a large portion of the book, and why the murder was left to the end to be explained away in an undramatic and therefore unsatisfying twist of perception. I might not have minded the ease with which Lucy abandons her "sleuthing" to follow her married lover to Roma, even though she hadn't found much out. I might not have been so surprised by her unexplained expertise and awe of Italian art, with which she impresses Italians, and tries to prove that despite her cowardly cynicism about D.V.'s commerical art, she is moved only by real beauty. Is this what the jacket flap copy should have explained, that the story is about a suspicious American who comes to Italy, the land of love, and learns that if she wasn't so suspicious she would be able to understand the truth--that things can be sadder or more pathetic than she ever imagined?

The reason the flap copy was confusing might have been that copywriters only read first chapters. Or it could be that they are really good at glossing over a story's problems.

Was it a mystery, romance, travel guide?? Clearly the author couldn't make up her mind. The beginning hinted of mystery and romance, the middle took the various aspects off on their own dead-end paths, the end just became a silly summation of misunderstandings and pathetic introspection. It was, however, ironic that the center of the plot was an American author writing insipid novels for masses of inept readers. I feel like I've been had in buying this book. If you must subject yourself - borrow it from the library.

If you love Italy, romance, mystery or good writing, you won't like this book. The critics must have read a different book than I did. Let me offer a contrast between their views and mine: Theirs - "A rich Italian tapestry of a novel." Mine - "A threadbare story written in shades of beige." Theirs - "Smart, taut tale." Mine - "Simple, unadorned writing." Theirs - "Funny, insightful tale of an American abroad." Mine - "Disconnected, shallow tale of a stereo-typical American woman in her 30's." Theirs - "Seamless narrative, remind[ing] us of the power of art to alter our lives." Mine - "A valiant but unsuccessful attempt to weave art and travel into an uninspired story." Theirs - "A pleasure that sticks to and tickles the ribs." Mine - "A light, facile read that will be forgotten before week's end."

I really wanted to like this book. There just wasn't anything in it for me to enjoy. It certainly isn't a bad book. But it isn't a good one either.

I found this novel at the back of the shelf where it had been gathering dust for a decade; I dusted it off, sat down to read, and actually enjoyed it. "Italian Fever" certainly held my interest, even though, as other critics have mentioned, the book went off in surprising tangents, from mystery, to Italian gothic, to romance, adventure (with a bit of art history), to ghost story. I rather liked the central character, Lucy, who displayed a sense of humour, even though I thought she had rotten taste in men. I nevertheless enjoyed vicariously tooting around the Tuscan countryside for a few hours, and looking into the windows of the galleries on the Via Margutta in Rome. I really didn't mind the author's changes in narrative direction; they kept me reading.

The author's scattering of Italian phrases throughout put me in the mood for the story, and as for Lucy's bewilderment and poor choices, I know what a culture shock Italy, with its chaotic magnificence, can be for someone who doesn't speak the language (My daughter was in a perpetual state of stunned consternation on her first visit: "Why is our taxi making a right turn, across traffic, from the center lane?" "What do you mean they've called a transportation strike for tomorrow?" "Mother, this Venetian hotel room is unacceptable!"). The only quibble I had with the book--besides Lucy's passion for Massimo--a not-fully-evolved Neanderthal, if there ever was one--was the author's apparent unfamiliarity with the strict order of Italian menus, whether in elegant villas or in intimate Roman trattorias. The characters kept passing around huge bowls of food, which kept piling up on their plates all higgledy-piggledy, with no indication of the accepted regimented order of dishes: antipasto, primo piatto, secondo piatto, contorno, dolce, frutta e formaggio (actually, in a restaurant, you can get away with ordering just the primo piatto--usually a pasta or risotto--and a contorno--a vegetable or salad, if you want to leave the place with a few Euros in your pocket, but the dishes still arrive in order).

But hey! This is a book review, not a travel advice column. If you want to take a quick trip of the imagination to Tuscany and Rome, and you're not too picky about such details, by all means check the book out of your library (where I'm taking mine for donation). It was both a pleasant surprise and an enjoyable read. But then, I was in the mood to go to Italy. I find that I often am. A telling symptom of 'Italian fever'!

Buon Viaggio!!!

This book could as well have been called "Pittsburg Fever" or "Tucson Fever" for all the relation it had to Italy. Surely there are ghosts there, and eccentric families, which were the only 2 things about this book that gave it any need to be placed in Italy. I believe the author gave it that name in order to seduce people into buying it, thinking they would be reading a story that related to that fascinating country or that had some unusual plot or theme that would not be believable in another locale. This book was basically a story about a woman with no sense at all who spent her whole time in Italy, expenses paid, holed up in an uninteresting villa with a married man who virtually ignored her when they were not in the villa. Not much suspense, not much imagination, not much to recommend it. One star is one too many. Don't waste your time or believe any of the good press about this one. Valerie Martin should be ashamed.