A Valley in Italy

by Lisa St. Aubin de Terán

Book Overview

Of all the romantic obsessions in novelist Lisa St Aubin de Teran's life, the search for a castle occupied her the longest--until she saw the magnificent Villa Orsola deep in the Umbrian hills. Only after eagerly signing the ownership papers did she and her husband, painter Robbie Duff-Scott, discover they were the owners of a vast ruin lacking windowpanes, parts of the roof, and other essentials. A Valley in Italy recounts its restoration in the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060926198
• ISBN13: 9780060926199
• Release Date: May 1995
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Ok read.

Nice setting and story but I found her usage of her daughters name annoying.

Get lost in this wonderful story!!

I loved this book and it was one of those few books that I actually slowed down at the end because I didn't want to get to the last page. I love her eccentric life and didn't find it distracting at all! It moved beautifully!

Travelers put down roots

In A Valley in Italy, Lisa St. Aubin De Teran tells the story of how she found her dream house in Italy and how her perpetually wandering family put down roots at last. De Teran and her husband bought an unfinished and deteriorating villa in a small town in Umbria and then set about restoring it - or, actually, hiring people to restore it. In the process, they assimilated into the nearby village, entering its life and even following some of its customs. Although I loved the book, it probably isn't for everyone. For one thing, De Teran and her husband are unusual people - the sort of people who would buy an enormous, mostly ruined house without any clear idea of how they would pay for it or how they could rebuild it. They are bohemian, they live casually, and they clearly have values very different from the average American's. But for those who can appreciate people unlike themselves, the characters of the family members will make the book; much of the pleasure of it comes from hearing about the results of these people's unusual choices. Readers should go into this expecting a very personal memoir. De Teran has chosen an Austen-style microcosm - just a village and a manor house - and focuses on it exclusively. The result is a book that is not a travel guide and not a cultural survey, but rather a painting of a particular place at a particular time seen through particular eyes. A Valley in Italy beautifully communicates the nature of San Orsola and its residents - and also, of course, the author and her family. De Teran's prose, while unorthodox, is most enjoyable. Her humor and her descriptive prose are extremely enjoyable. Unlike many of the authors writing memoirs of Italy, De Teran doesn't take her subject with absolutely unleavened gravitas - she can be light and funny as well as artistically descriptive. In fact, the tone and voice not only make up for the somewhat unconventional paragraphing and the sometimes harsh transitions between topics, they manage to turn it into a cohesive style. But probably the biggest single strength of the book is the author's involvement. Too many authors of expat memoirs hold themselves aloof, in their text and presumably in their lives, from their adopted countries. They lack the linguistic and social skills to enter village life, so they observe it and document it from afar. De Teran apparently managed to enter into the local culture, and as a result her book contains much less navel-gazing and is much less patronizing than many books of this kind. In short, Lisa St. Aubin De Teran has written a gorgeous, pleasant, and funny book on the kind of life most of us would rather read about than live. A Valley in Italy succeeds supremely as both an engaging portrait of an Italian village and an amusing tale of one eccentric family's experiences. This book is well worth reading, not just once but again and again.

Umbria!

I sure enjoyed this tale of setting up housekeeping in an abandoned villa! I wish I could do this! I love the way Lisa writes. Her descriptions of the neighborhood people are wonderful. I am now looking through the lists to see what else I can read of hers!

Superbly Written

A Valley in Italy surpasses Frances Mayes' writings on Italy by far. I lived in Italy for eight years and can easily relate to settling in as a foreigner in the most beautiful country in the world. Miss Lisa St Aubin de Teran writes with compassion without becoming mushy, understands the workings of a village and appears to accept the local populous as they are. She is a woman with a giving heart and that shows through in her writing. There is no pretentiousness anywhere in the book as I did find in Miss Mayes' writings. The very best to Miss St Aubin de Teran and Florence, the first Umbriana in her family.

A Valley In Italy: Revisited

I have now read St. Aubin De Teran's "A Valley In Italy" at least three times. It is to be recommended to anyone with a love of Italy and of house restorations. Unlike Frances Mayes' book, "Under the Tuscan Sun", which came after it (and which I also enjoyed despite what follows), this is not a lifestyle book. There are no recipes and there is no dwelling on the sensuousness of eating and drinking as in Mayes. Side by side with St. Aubin De Teran's book, Mayes' appears rather superficial and solipsistic but of course, well targetted to a foreign, particularly American audience. In the course of "Under the Tuscan Sun", there is really only one Italian the main American characters seem to have any continuing relationship with, albeit very fleeting, the man who found the house for them. There is never any sense that they are anything but very middle class tourists who just happen to have a house in bella Tuscany they visit in their holidays. In "A Valley in Italy" the family of the writer who speaks fluent Italian, actually lives in the villa all the year around and engages with the local community on a daily basis and through all their festivities. The two children are pivotal in propelling them immediately into Italian society, an advantage Mayes and her partner did not enjoy. Where Mayes is obsessed with her own personal sensations and can rhapsodize over a sun-dried tomato, St. Aubin De Teran is a cool observer of the inhabitants of San Orsola and documents their lives with a detail that shows her fascination with the objective world rather than simply how it impinges on her. It is a memorable account both of a small Italian village and its tight community life and the achievement of a fantastic dream, the renovation and partial rebuilding of a derelict villa of palatial proportions, boasting 72 windows, considerably larger than the more modest peasant abode Mayes takes on. Everyone I have recommended the Mayes and St. Aubin De Teran books to have loved the latter and found the former rather self-indulgent. It has to be said that St. Aubin De Teran's family are eccentric in the grand English style but as the focus is outwards upon place and people this is not an irritant like Mayes' precious harping on peculiar obsessions like other people's linen in "Bella Donna." Rather, the idiosyncrasies documented are viewed as bizarre and impractical in the Italian setting like the mouldy jars of homemade facial potions the daughter replaces for all the necessities of camping in the ruined villa or the Scottish artist husband's prancing about in full highland regalia which is his way of mocking the traditonal role of almighty pater familias assigned him by the Italian builder who forces him on tours of inspection. This book only improves with rereading. I heartily recommend it.