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What could be more romantic than living in an ancient fortress, dining in its rooftop garden, and sleeping under the stars? English artists and intellectuals like the author's parents (painter Aubrey Waterfield and journalist Lina Duff Gordon) have traditionally adored the Italian countryside, and their daughter's enchanting memoir describes the happy haven they found near the Tuscan town of Aulla. Kinta was only 5 in 1916 when she made her first trip by pony trap up the steep road to their hilltop abode, and neither exile to English boarding school nor the Second World War could keep her away for long. Famous friends like Bernard Berenson and D.H. Lawrence make cameo appearances, but the real stars are the earthy, dignified Tuscan peasants who worked for her family. Through them, the author immersed herself in the timeless rhythms of rural existence. The text's highlights include a vivid account of
vendemmia, the grape harvest, and the glories of Italian cuisine. Anyone who can read her descriptions of the local polenta,
zuppa di verdura, and other meticulously prepared dishes without feeling a rumble in the stomach truly has no interest in food. Though Beevor's final chapters note the changes that have come to Tuscany in the postwar era, her recollections pay loving tribute to a way of life that truly seems eternal.
--Wendy Smith
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From Publishers Weekly
Beevor, who died in 1995, recalls her childhood spent in Tuscany with bohemian British parents in this precious yet strangely distant memoir. Beevor has many interesting tales to tell: her parents, an artist and a writer, moved into a castle in the remote countryside of Aulla in 1905; then, in 1927, they inherited from her mother's aunt a villa just outside of Florence in Fiesole, a locale they had visited often. There is considerable charm in her stories of eating in the castle's rooftop garden and roaming through a rustic market where vendors sold wooden clogs and terra cotta pots. Her recollections of the local folk are sweet even if they reflect the sentiments of the foreign elite. "Finding servants was not easy," Beevor writes, although their castle was situated in an impoverished area. As well, her British family often found the informal attitudes of their Italian employees laughable. She delights in relating local traditions, however, such as the use of fennel to cure colic and the consumption of garlic to repel mosquitoes. When the family moved to its inherited villa in Fiesole, they began to associate with a larger circle of expatriates living there, including Bernard Berenson. Naturally, the war caused big problems for both the British residents and the peasants (who Beevor claims saw the danger of Mussolini when others were blind to it). Over all, Beevor's skewed perceptions cause a few problems: for starters, she places the painting-over of an 18th-century fresco of a poodle on the same level as the war-time destruction of the town of Aulla. Agent, Robin Straus.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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