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"What´s
a dazzling urbanite like you doing
in a rustic setting like this?"
--Gene Wilder in "Blazing Saddles"
Books
about buying a run-down farmhouse in Italy and
living that rustic, simpler life have proliferated
like porcini in the Umbrian countryside. With
titles like "A Year in Tuscany," or
"A Valley in Umbria," or "A House
in Sicily," or "A House in Umbria,"
or "A Garden in Lucca," or "Notes
From An Italian Garden," or...all of these
books have the same formula: rich, artistic couple
buys run-down wreck of a house (usually without
roof and working plumbing), has fai da te adventures
leading to comic disaster until they meet a wise,
old local who imparts earthy knowledge of said
simpler life and rich, artistic couple is finally,
warmly welcomed into the village, embraced as
"locals."
There
are usually lengthy discussions of food and food
preparation interspersed throughout, with the
sense that the author, like Luke Skywalker with
Yoda, has been initiated into a secret society
of ancient rites and rituals as he or she learns
how to prepare carciofi or melanzane the One True
Way.
I´ve
read only one book that defies this formula: Chris
Stewart´s "Driving Over Lemons,"
but his book takes place in Spain.
Italy
has long held out the promise of rustic splendor
to the Anglo-American mind. "Thou paradise
of exiles, Italy!" Shelley exclaimed with
passionate intensity. Of course, he never had
to drive on the autostrada or deal with labyrinthine
Italian bureaucracy. But starting with the Grand
Tour, Brits and Americans have viewed Italy as
the antidote to a life of corporate drudgery,
marital boredom and competitive material acquisition.
 "If
we only lived in a run-down farmhouse in a small
village in Italy..." or some such variation
usually works its way into the minds of most of
the holiday crowd. With a shrug, most then simply
return home to mortgages, car leases, maxed-out
credit cards, genetically-modified and processed
food, and "Survivor" on the tube, dreaming
still of that rustic, simpler life.
Most,
but not all. So many Brits now live in Tuscany
that it´s referred to as Tuscanyshire. I´m
sure most of them are writing books about their
unique adventure and how the local, rustic village
folk have come to embrace them as paisani.
It´s
all bullshit.
In
1992 I stayed in a farmhouse in the hills south
of Firenze for four days. I remember sitting at
the simple wooden desk, looking out the window
at the chickens and the vineyards below and thinking
"if I only lived in a run-down farmhouse
in a small village in Italy I could write that
novel..." Instead, I returned to a life of
academic drudgery, working as an English professor
and pumping out ten-page gobs of mental masturbation
a.k.a. criticism on the rocky road to tenure.
By
1997 I´d thrown away my academic career
to follow this old dream of living in Europe.
Don´t get me wrong; I´m not half of
a rich, artistic couple. In fact, I´m not
half of anything. I´m single, poor, and
have to teach occasional language courses in order
to survive. But I haven´t written a word
of academic criticism in years. The world is a
better place for that.
After
yearly stints in Switzerland, France and Germany,
I recently settled in Villa di Teolo, a small
village in the Colli Euganae, the Euganean hills
between Padova and Bologna. The rustic dream of
a simpler life...
 The
churchbells mark the hour, mezzogiorno. Legioned
rooks take up the cry from olive and wild cherry
trees, and fire-flecked clouds gleam in the sunshine.
The fruit trees have blossomed, deep shades of
lavender and cream, pale green and gold, and the
crucified vines of the vignoli sloping across
the valley are starting to swell with impregnation
from the sun. Dragonflies dogfight above fields
spotted with periwinkles, poppies, dandelions
and ragged robin. Across the street, a small stream
bubbles past an old pig trough attached to another
rustic, crumbling stone farmhouse, drawn like
a dropped lemming to the irrigation ditches carved
through the brown soil of the valley.
Whoa. The start of "A House in the Colli"?
Far from it. Let me tell you, living the rustic
life in Italy is nothing like what the Frances
Mayes of the world tell you.
After
six months, my neighbors still glare at me with
narrowed eye and open suspicion. Distrustful of
stranieri since the SS occupied the village some
sixty years ago, I´m sure the German plate
on my VW Golf doesn´t help facilitate friendliness.
Unlike the rich, artistic couples who pump money
into a local economy, I´m just some shlubb
who doesn't prop up the local economy with my
charming fai da tae adventures.
My
little house is a run-down mess, but at least
it has a roof. I don´t have a garden, the
water runs in fits and starts and mainly cold,
and semi-functional electrical wires criss-cross
the outside of walls. When I turn on a light switch,
220 volts arch in a blue shimmer under the plate.
I have a wood stove. Use of the wood stove causes
a blitz of smoke to fill the kitchen. Giulio,
my padrone, is a fine specimen of a rustic local,
but other than accept my money he hasn´t
imparted any words of hidden wisdom to me. Sorry,
folks, no recipes to share with you so you can
dazzle your friends and neighbors by claiming
"this is how they really cook in Italy."
Besides, you can´t get the ingredients and
the local ingredients are what really make Italian
food so special.
 Having
lived in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco,
Paris and Munich most of my life I will admit
to that craving for a rustic, simpler life. Let
me tell you one thing about living in the country:
it´s boring. There are lots of insects.
And very little sleep. The churchbells chime all
hours of the night. The roosters crow at 5 a.m.,
the birds start their chorus at 5.30, the scooters
rush through the village at 6, followed by the
recycle trucks four days a week...add the lack
of single, available women under the age of 70
and you´ll understand why I run to cities
like Bologna or Roma nearly every weekend.
Someday,
someone will write a book detailing the truth
of this rustic, simpler life--I am not that person--and
it will disappear like an illegal campaign contribution.
No one wants to know the truth about living in
a run-down house in a small village in Italy.
They crave the dream, they are addicted to the
dream.
Trust
me. Stay at home. Pay your mortgage. Work more
hours. Increase the limits on your credit cards.
Eat more processed food. Watch more television.
And for the madonna's sake stop buying books with
"A House..." in the title.
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