Antonia and her Daughters
by Marlena de Blasi
Published by Allen and Unwin
RRP $39.99
Reviewed by Maggie Rainey-Smith
The great thing about writing reviews for this blog is that
I am pushed to read more widely. Like
many readers, I have my preferred genres and I admit with that comes a bit of
prejudice about genres that I choose not to read. Couple this with my very recent foray into
using a Kindle and the scene is set for my reading of this (actual), hard-back
hold-in-one-hand size, attractive book by Marlena de Blasi.
Without the need to review, hand on heart, I might not have
read this book as I may well have made assumptions about ‘genre’, the whole
‘Under the Tuscan Sun’ sort of thing, and decided that it wasn’t for me. I was holding this book in one hand, while
extolling the virtues of travelling with a Kindle. I think this book is an example of a book
that rewards reading the real thing, holding it, turning the pages and admiring
the romantic scrolls adorning chapter headings and transitions within chapters
– not to mention the reward of recipes at the end.
Marlena de Blasi is a best-selling author with flocks of
fans and she doesn’t need for me to approve or disapprove her themes. She is a chef, journalist, a food and wine
consultant and a restaurant critic... and from the photograph of her, also
beautiful. The book is part memoir and
part (perhaps primarily) biography – as the title suggests, the story of
Antonia and her daughters. This is set
up perfectly in the very first paragraph “To
protect the sacred right to privacy of this family and their way of life, I
have changed names and placed the narrative at a geographic distance from the
actual location in Tuscany where these events in fact unfolded.” And this, “At
many junctures I was tempted to commit my own sins of omission or, at the
least, to sprinkle a touch of rosewater here and there. Several passages I was moved to delete from
my early notes and yet – and not without angst – I retrieved them.” Of course I was hooked!
So, we have de Blasi's own story, a woman with a
‘fairy-tale’ life looking for time and space to finish a book (married to the
rather gorgeous by the sound of it, Fernando).
She takes up the offer of a simple stone cottage in a remote province of
Tuscany to focus on her writing and this requires finding space too in her
relationship. Once there, she encounters
Antonia and her daughters. De Blasi and
Antonia (not her real name) forge a friendship that begins precariously as
Antonia despises Americans and other foreigners who come to Tuscany for the
good life. To her credit de Blasi’s
self-knowledge and her ability to look at both sides of the coin helped to
alleviate my concerns that I was about to read a cliché on American woman finds
bliss in Tuscany sort of thing. There
is an over-lay of philosophical authorial voice which sometimes irritated me
but in the end, this is not a novel and I can see it is a tricky thing to
balance how it is the author, comes to be telling the story of Antonia. They are kindred spirits it seems, in spite
of their age difference, and thus, eventually, Antonia entrusts her story to
the author.
The backdrop is sensual and there is plentiful sumptuous
prose around food – I found myself salivating.
At times I felt the descriptions of beauty and clothing and labels like
Vintage Prada, Doc Martens, Hermes, etc, were overplayed to the detriment of
character development - and yet too, I
can see how they worked in this context, the almost cliché of the beautiful
Italian dynasty. Perhaps an important juxtaposition for the final revelations –
I’m not sure if this is intended or not.
At one point when the author is visiting Antonia’s home there are three
pages of the physical attributions of the house and the clothing that the
characters are wearing. But, the characters
are certainly worthwhile, and there are other stories besides Antonia’s and all
of them very interesting.
Antonia’s story is both beautiful and brutal and although we
wait quite some time for her story to fully unravel, it is worth the
waiting. It seems the author went to the stone cottage
to write one book and met Antonia and her family and wrote this book. It is a very interesting insight into the
Tuscan spirit, the Second World War, the relationship between the Italians and
the Germans and the impact of the German ‘occupation’ and ongoing consequences
for this extended family.
That the book ends with recipes is a bonus, because indeed,
I was salivating for Carabaccia, a soup of cinnamon-scented onions and peas
purported to usurp my favourite French Onion soup.
Footnote:
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