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Italian Adventure #1
Extra Virgin: A Young Woman Discovers the Italian Riviera, Where Every Month Is Enchanted
“Extra Virgin is pure delight. Annie Hawes has written a memoir as lovely as the Italian Riviera.” — Susan Isaacs, New York Times Bestselling Author
In 1983, a pale Annie Hawes and her equally pale sister leave England for the sun-drenched olive groves of a small Italian town in Liguria. With fantasies of handsome tanned men and swimming in the sea urging them on, they are hired to work for ten weeks to graft roses -- of which they have little knowledge -- along the Italian Riviera, board and lodging included.
But none of the men seem to be under forty, and Ligurians have particular ideas about life, including swimming ("To go swimming in seawater outside the month of July or August is even worse for your health than drinking cappuccino after twelve noon!"). But Annie and her sister are captivated by San Pietro's quirkiness and beauty, and suddenly their brief stay stretches into years, as they are bemused, charmed, and ultimately accepted by the eccentric inhabitants of their adopted home.
In 1983, a pale Annie Hawes and her equally pale sister leave England for the sun-drenched olive groves of a small Italian town in Liguria. With fantasies of handsome tanned men and swimming in the sea urging them on, they are hired to work for ten weeks to graft roses -- of which they have little knowledge -- along the Italian Riviera, board and lodging included.
But none of the men seem to be under forty, and Ligurians have particular ideas about life, including swimming ("To go swimming in seawater outside the month of July or August is even worse for your health than drinking cappuccino after twelve noon!"). But Annie and her sister are captivated by San Pietro's quirkiness and beauty, and suddenly their brief stay stretches into years, as they are bemused, charmed, and ultimately accepted by the eccentric inhabitants of their adopted home.
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Published January 1, 2000
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December 2, 2012
I’ve been reading memoirs attentively for the past 10 years. I don’t give many five-star reviews, but “Extra Virgin” will be one of them. This delightful story is now among my favorites.
This is the story of Annie and Lucy Hawes, twenty-somethings from Britain who go to Italy for a 10-week agricultural job in a village. When they find out that a charming “rustico” they’ve admired from afar is for sale at a price that wouldn’t purchase a yard of British soil, they buy it. Over the following months and years, they fix up the rustic dwelling and the surrounding olive grove, living in Italy part-time and returning to Britain for work.
“Extra Virgin” is, like “A Year in Provence,” an expatriate memoir. I can say without hesitation that if you like this genre, you will love this particular example of it. My reasons are these:
Her love for Italy. Her affection for the country and for her neighbors and friends is apparent. These pages are peopled with authentic voices and characters, not caricatures.
Her distinctive voice. The grammar is sometimes quirky, but never accidentally so; the occasional sentence fragment or Creative Capitalization is chosen for effect.
Her sense of humor. When you travel or live in an unfamiliar country, the opportunity to look like a clown arises often. You have to be able to laugh at yourself. Hawes has this ability, and she makes us laugh along. At the same time, I came to deeply admire her. She adjusted, connected, found friends and allies, made a new life. It’s a great achievement, gracefully done.
I also appreciated the narrative’s brilliant construction. So many expatriate memoirs follow the “Year in Provence” model, confining the story within the course of a single year. It’s a neat and tidy structure, but the problem is, life isn’t neat. Writers who observe the boundaries too faithfully end up leaving the reader hanging. How did this problem work out? Did that character come to a good end or a bad one?
Hawes solves the problem by giving us roughly a year’s worth of events, ordered by the seasons, but she also guesses perfectly when we’ll be curious how something turned out. Here and there, she satisfies that curiosity by placing a few paragraphs at the end of a chapter, giving “the rest of the story.” After all, we know that she stayed and made a life in Italy. To not find out how things went would only leave us readers frustrated. But with her attention to our needs, we finish the book completely satisfied, instead.
This is the story of Annie and Lucy Hawes, twenty-somethings from Britain who go to Italy for a 10-week agricultural job in a village. When they find out that a charming “rustico” they’ve admired from afar is for sale at a price that wouldn’t purchase a yard of British soil, they buy it. Over the following months and years, they fix up the rustic dwelling and the surrounding olive grove, living in Italy part-time and returning to Britain for work.
“Extra Virgin” is, like “A Year in Provence,” an expatriate memoir. I can say without hesitation that if you like this genre, you will love this particular example of it. My reasons are these:
Her love for Italy. Her affection for the country and for her neighbors and friends is apparent. These pages are peopled with authentic voices and characters, not caricatures.
Her distinctive voice. The grammar is sometimes quirky, but never accidentally so; the occasional sentence fragment or Creative Capitalization is chosen for effect.
Her sense of humor. When you travel or live in an unfamiliar country, the opportunity to look like a clown arises often. You have to be able to laugh at yourself. Hawes has this ability, and she makes us laugh along. At the same time, I came to deeply admire her. She adjusted, connected, found friends and allies, made a new life. It’s a great achievement, gracefully done.
I also appreciated the narrative’s brilliant construction. So many expatriate memoirs follow the “Year in Provence” model, confining the story within the course of a single year. It’s a neat and tidy structure, but the problem is, life isn’t neat. Writers who observe the boundaries too faithfully end up leaving the reader hanging. How did this problem work out? Did that character come to a good end or a bad one?
Hawes solves the problem by giving us roughly a year’s worth of events, ordered by the seasons, but she also guesses perfectly when we’ll be curious how something turned out. Here and there, she satisfies that curiosity by placing a few paragraphs at the end of a chapter, giving “the rest of the story.” After all, we know that she stayed and made a life in Italy. To not find out how things went would only leave us readers frustrated. But with her attention to our needs, we finish the book completely satisfied, instead.
October 25, 2011
Well right now a full review will have to wait as I am knee deep in practice exercises in cataloguing and i am sneaking a short break. However I was most inspired and excited the more I read of Annie Hawes adventures of living in Liguria (Italy). I think I have chanced upon some solutions to my home renovation problems (we are still living post 2007 flood conditions). While the roof doesn't leak anymore everything needs repainting and it seems lime is the answer. What a incredible thing Lime is!. Lime out of the ground that is, not the tree, (although Lime fruit has it's uses too). Lime wash for walls - exterior and interior and your floors and furniture. Purify your natural water supply!.
there is a lot in the book about olive production and traditional methods and I would love to plant an olive tree but don't have the space where I live and not sure I could wait the 15 years needed to fruit. Still foodies will love the descriptions of preparing traditional Italian food as Annie learns from the locals. There's a wealth of Italian superstitions surrounding olives and food and many have surprising health benefits.
Well my break was too short... finish this later....
there is a lot in the book about olive production and traditional methods and I would love to plant an olive tree but don't have the space where I live and not sure I could wait the 15 years needed to fruit. Still foodies will love the descriptions of preparing traditional Italian food as Annie learns from the locals. There's a wealth of Italian superstitions surrounding olives and food and many have surprising health benefits.
Well my break was too short... finish this later....
July 21, 2013
It took me just about 1 month to read this book. I kept putting it aside, it was very wordy and very boring. It started to get better in the last 1/3 of the book. If Annie Hawes called the Italian people she was living with peasants, one more time, I was going to burn the book.
This was a bookclub selection and I had to try to finish it.
This was a bookclub selection and I had to try to finish it.
July 10, 2008
Despite my slight embarrassment at the title, I bought this book in a uk airport for the trip home and was instantly drawn in. I had just returned from a month long trip to Italy so I had no problems recalling the images of Cinque Terra. Similar, but superior, to Under the Tuscan Sun. A foreign woman buys a broken down place in Italy. The book focuses mainly on her (and her sister's) plight to assimilate (from how much coffee and wine they consume to how to get a haggard vespa up a rocky hill). Details that others may find boring, I easily related to, having just finished my study abroad program. Although I'm not sure I would read HER sequel, I certainly wouldn't mind attempting to write my own!
November 18, 2010
A lovely book, full of self-deprecating humor. Unlike so many of the expatriate-in-Italy books, this one is light on the home renovation (although it does occur) and centers on a woman and her more sensible sister as they find their way into the social fabric of a small village. The book is full of observations that are chatty and unconstrained, and make no attempt to write poetic phrases about the beauties they are surrounded by, or the charms of the simple peasant lifestyle. They simply live there, enjoying the good things, finding ways to cope with the rough spots, and enjoying the community they are now a part of. An utter charmer of a book.
December 11, 2009
I'm bailing out of this one, a little more than halfway through. It's the tone, I think- two cute and arch English brats go live among the Italian peasantry. Isn't the Italian peasantry cuuuuuuute? And the first person plural narration is so distracting to me I can't get past it. We thought. We said. We felt. Are we fused at the brain, then?
July 7, 2009
This is one of the best books I have read about a person adapting to living in another country. The author is an English woman who moves to a small town in Northern Italy. I enjoyed reading about the Italian ideas of how one should eat, drink, or even swim. For example, I learned that "to go swimming in seawater outside the month of July or August is even worse for your health than drinking cappuccino after twelve noon!" Fun reading and very well written.
August 17, 2016
Somehow or other I got a galley proof copy of this in 2001. I cannot for the life of me remember where. But I still have it and I read it every other year or so, typos and all. I love armchair travel and travel memoir and "A year in Wherever" type books. And I love this one.
March 17, 2009
t took me a little longer than usual to get through this book, but that was only because I relished every moment of it. It was definitely one of the best I read in 2008. The author's writing was so skillful I could just imagine myself in her situation, at every sensory level. As I'm a fan of Italian food anyway, this book constantly made me hungry while I was reading it. I also enjoyed learning much more about the production of olives and olive oil than I've ever known before.
August 19, 2010
It's kind of cheating that I liked this book so much, because what I really like about it is how much it resembles Ceriana. In reality I've heard that some of her descriptions of people and events got her into trouble socially with the town, as she revealed too many secrets. But it still makes me feel like I'm in Ceriana when I read it :)
June 18, 2008
As I am missing Italy, I really enjoyed this armchair visit to Italy. Filled with interesting characters this book is a snapshot of a transitioning Italy. It is amusingly written and I admire the ingenuity and ability to adapt that Annie and her sister show in living in their rustica.
August 27, 2013
First person plural narration style, poor pacing, rambling descriptions and no dialogue make for a tedious read.
March 5, 2008
I read this book on a recommendation from a casual acquaintance and, despite the book's slow start, I'm glad I hung in there and gave it a chance.
The beginning of the book shows Annie Hawes and her sister being swept along by the customs of daily Ligurian life. They bumble around amiably, and before long, they find themselves buying a broken-down house.
The book starts to get interesting once the women are settled in the house and begin to cultivate relationships with the townspeople, Ligurian peasants who are charming and maddening by turns. Much is made of farming and food -- particularly the growing of olives and the process by which olive oil is made.
The sisters' house is up a treacherous pathway, and we're told stories of years' worth of struggle to find a decent car, build a staircase connecting the floors of the house, hook up running water. These stories are told not with "money pit"-like out-and-out humor, but with a lightheartedness and a unique respect for preserving the rustic condition and context of the sisters' home.
Even after the women have been living in Liguria for years, they are still regarded somewhat as stranieri, strangers, foreigners with odd ways. Yet they are trusted enough to be welcomed into homes all over the village. They learn the ways of the "hanky-headed" olive-farming men and get used to being mourned over for not having any husbands to work in the fields for them.
The book takes place over a long period of time and, in that expanse, we see the Ligurian village go from a backwater to a flourishing center of olive oil production. We see Italian politics change, though not easily. We see the womens' friends grow old, move on, pass away.
The dry English humor and heartfelt storytelling made me feel as though I had been welcomed into the village.
The beginning of the book shows Annie Hawes and her sister being swept along by the customs of daily Ligurian life. They bumble around amiably, and before long, they find themselves buying a broken-down house.
The book starts to get interesting once the women are settled in the house and begin to cultivate relationships with the townspeople, Ligurian peasants who are charming and maddening by turns. Much is made of farming and food -- particularly the growing of olives and the process by which olive oil is made.
The sisters' house is up a treacherous pathway, and we're told stories of years' worth of struggle to find a decent car, build a staircase connecting the floors of the house, hook up running water. These stories are told not with "money pit"-like out-and-out humor, but with a lightheartedness and a unique respect for preserving the rustic condition and context of the sisters' home.
Even after the women have been living in Liguria for years, they are still regarded somewhat as stranieri, strangers, foreigners with odd ways. Yet they are trusted enough to be welcomed into homes all over the village. They learn the ways of the "hanky-headed" olive-farming men and get used to being mourned over for not having any husbands to work in the fields for them.
The book takes place over a long period of time and, in that expanse, we see the Ligurian village go from a backwater to a flourishing center of olive oil production. We see Italian politics change, though not easily. We see the womens' friends grow old, move on, pass away.
The dry English humor and heartfelt storytelling made me feel as though I had been welcomed into the village.
July 10, 2013
Like most people I know I went through the travel novels on Provence, getting bored with them toward the end and needing a break. It seemed as if flocks of Brits were going abroad, not making money and deciding to write about their woes in order to fund their mistakes.
So why pick this little gem up? It smacks of the same sort of thing, surely. Okay so the scene has changed to Liguria in Italy - it's still the same, isn't it? Well, yes and no.
What makes this a classic in my eyes is the fact that Annie and her sister are willing to integrate, to learn by their mistakes and also to glory in their mistakes and misunderstandings. Annie is not your typical 'I am a Brit abroad looking for a Brit way of life plus good weather' this is a full blown attempt to integrate into the way of life - an attempt to learn how to survive a peasant way of life in a peasant community. It is an eye opener for anyone that thinks Annie is the clever intellectual from a first world country who will laugh at peasant superstition and way of life. In this world the peasant has all the knowledge and the generosity to share that knowledge and to help physically also.
One of the few novels that I have started to read and finished the same day - a must read.
So why pick this little gem up? It smacks of the same sort of thing, surely. Okay so the scene has changed to Liguria in Italy - it's still the same, isn't it? Well, yes and no.
What makes this a classic in my eyes is the fact that Annie and her sister are willing to integrate, to learn by their mistakes and also to glory in their mistakes and misunderstandings. Annie is not your typical 'I am a Brit abroad looking for a Brit way of life plus good weather' this is a full blown attempt to integrate into the way of life - an attempt to learn how to survive a peasant way of life in a peasant community. It is an eye opener for anyone that thinks Annie is the clever intellectual from a first world country who will laugh at peasant superstition and way of life. In this world the peasant has all the knowledge and the generosity to share that knowledge and to help physically also.
One of the few novels that I have started to read and finished the same day - a must read.
February 12, 2011
Fascinating memoir. The sometimes maddening characters have become the English author's adopted Ligurian family. The locals overflow with pride and prejudice, but accept Annie and her sister and their visiting friends, take them under their wing, explaining, teaching, showing, sharing...always looking out for these apparently clueless, helpless women who are at the same time strong and determined. Although the local men are baffled and upset by the English sisters' strange foreign ways, they are happy to train and enlighten, and teach them about their ancient ways of life, food, wine and olive oil. They act like most families do...dysfunctional, but often delightful too. Annie and her sister work hard to assimilate into their adopted culture, so different than you'd imagine when you think of the Italian Riviera. Annie knows how to tell the stories of her new home and people, and tells much of her own story, with charm, wit, understanding and honesty. I've been seen frequently laughing out loud while reading this book at the local coffee shop.
February 4, 2014
Two young English sisters who are doing a spot of work in the Ligurian hills are drawn into buying a rustico with no electricity, running water, or indoor toilet, little realizing all the work and responsibility living there will entail. Their experiences as they bumble along are related with humor and warmth. Mmmmm....did I mention the food? Luscious descriptions of food straight from the garden. Their story relates a much more a total immersion into local life, habits and traditions than other memoirs of this type, such as Frances Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun.
August 3, 2011
great book. it made me realize that sometimes is not that bad to listen to old, sound advices and not try everything "yourway".
May 20, 2017
This was a very enjoyable travel memoir. Wonderfully descriptive writing, puts you in the scene, yet despite that,I never really felt that I got to personally know the two sisters. That is what kept it from being a 5-star read for me. Otherwise I did enjoy my time spent in Italy though this author, and would gladly read the sequel~ 'Ripe For The Picking'.
September 8, 2024
grabbed from a hostel in Budapest, took me ages to read but soo good. Not the most exciting plot but beautiful descriptions and characters, and it was really sweet to actually read this in Italy and have some of the story resonate with my travels.
September 11, 2021
"When Annie Hawes buys a hillside cottage in Italy for no more than the price of a dodgy second-hand car, a capable young Englishwoman becomes a surprisingly incapable Ligurian signorina...
"In the overgrown garden of a small, stone house amongst the olive groves of Liguria, high above the Mediterranean, a curious combination of bonfire dinner and business meeting occurs. In the area by chance, Annie and her sister have no intention of moving to the Italian Riviera. Still, they eat the fragrant, rosemary-skewered sausage, drink perhaps a little too much of the local wine, allow themselves to be taken on a moonlit tour of the ramshackle house and garden ... and fall in love with it all.
"Their new neighbours are baffled -- how have these Foreign Females survived without learning to spot wild asparagus or tell good mushrooms from bad? Don't they have any idea how to get their year's supply of olive oil from a couple of dozen olive trees, or good wine from bramble-chokes vines? Fortunately the hard-core olive-farming folk of Diano San Pietro are on hand to ply them with huge meals, plenty of ridicule and all the old-fashioned know-how they'll need to get by."
This book is too long. At first, the tales of the quaint people of the region and how they interact with the two English foreigners is amusing, and the descriptions of the landscape interesting. But 339 pages is approximately 100 pages too long, if not more.
"In the overgrown garden of a small, stone house amongst the olive groves of Liguria, high above the Mediterranean, a curious combination of bonfire dinner and business meeting occurs. In the area by chance, Annie and her sister have no intention of moving to the Italian Riviera. Still, they eat the fragrant, rosemary-skewered sausage, drink perhaps a little too much of the local wine, allow themselves to be taken on a moonlit tour of the ramshackle house and garden ... and fall in love with it all.
"Their new neighbours are baffled -- how have these Foreign Females survived without learning to spot wild asparagus or tell good mushrooms from bad? Don't they have any idea how to get their year's supply of olive oil from a couple of dozen olive trees, or good wine from bramble-chokes vines? Fortunately the hard-core olive-farming folk of Diano San Pietro are on hand to ply them with huge meals, plenty of ridicule and all the old-fashioned know-how they'll need to get by."
This book is too long. At first, the tales of the quaint people of the region and how they interact with the two English foreigners is amusing, and the descriptions of the landscape interesting. But 339 pages is approximately 100 pages too long, if not more.
December 30, 2014
A funny, wry acount of the author's life in rural Liguria. Anne has an inate ability to capture the minutiae of local life and the characters around her and convey both with empathy and humour.
Living part-time in SW France we smiled at the similarities between the rural traditions, behaviours and beliefs of Southern Europe. A simple change of names and expletives and this could have been a rural French village. An easy enjoyable read.
On the flip side the structure of the novel was odd; starting as a chronological timeline of her life in Italy but then moving to a topic by topic account - switching backwards and forwards at will. The last few chapters changed style again with references to more and more recent events. I am assuming that the author did not envisage writing any further books when she wrote Extra Virgin as she seem to be either trying to cram the following 15 years into the last three chapters or scrabbkle around for more to say to fulfill a word count.
I gave the book 4* which is perhaps a tad generous given the latter chapters.
Living part-time in SW France we smiled at the similarities between the rural traditions, behaviours and beliefs of Southern Europe. A simple change of names and expletives and this could have been a rural French village. An easy enjoyable read.
On the flip side the structure of the novel was odd; starting as a chronological timeline of her life in Italy but then moving to a topic by topic account - switching backwards and forwards at will. The last few chapters changed style again with references to more and more recent events. I am assuming that the author did not envisage writing any further books when she wrote Extra Virgin as she seem to be either trying to cram the following 15 years into the last three chapters or scrabbkle around for more to say to fulfill a word count.
I gave the book 4* which is perhaps a tad generous given the latter chapters.
July 5, 2020
This is a super readable book that I must have read this three or four times already. The ultimate comfort read in fact. Because who hasn't wanted to up sticks and go and live in Italy at some point in their lives? ( Pre-brexit obviously. Thank YOU Mr Farage)
One very simple trope runs throughout - the simple peasants' apparently odd and unreasonable behaviour turns to be wise. This ever recurring theme should really wear itself out, but it somehow it doesn't. There's a real love for Liguria and the locals around Diano san Pietro which shines out the book.
On the latest re-reading, though, I'm more aware of the bits Annie Hawes left out of her book . It's entirely understandable that she didn't want to offend any neighbours, or family, but it would have really added to the book if we'd know that she had a small son at the time. This would have made her neighbour's assumption that she was married, e.g. entirely understandable. From a selfish point of view, some other details as to the practicalities of how to manage living in the UK and Italy would have been interesting too.
One very simple trope runs throughout - the simple peasants' apparently odd and unreasonable behaviour turns to be wise. This ever recurring theme should really wear itself out, but it somehow it doesn't. There's a real love for Liguria and the locals around Diano san Pietro which shines out the book.
On the latest re-reading, though, I'm more aware of the bits Annie Hawes left out of her book . It's entirely understandable that she didn't want to offend any neighbours, or family, but it would have really added to the book if we'd know that she had a small son at the time. This would have made her neighbour's assumption that she was married, e.g. entirely understandable. From a selfish point of view, some other details as to the practicalities of how to manage living in the UK and Italy would have been interesting too.
December 7, 2010
Perhaps this book is a little generic but since it's in a genre I've never read I enjoyed it. It's an account of the author's first year in the Italian province of Liguria. She goes out there from England with her sister in order to work for a while and ends up buying a tumbledown cottage in a hillside olive grove and staying where no decent Italian would dream of living at the time. The book's honest about the fact that it's not all happening in one year; mostly it's the first year they are there but events and visits from different years are brought in to liven up the story and trips back to England to stock up on cash are elided too, but that's not a problem. The extra dimension of the passage of time means that you get to see how rural Italy has changed over the past twenty years or so as well as getting a good story.
I thought it was charming and fun, but not the kind of thing I'd want to read all the time though.
June 17, 2011
This book was laugh out loud at times and I really enjoyed it - these ladies set out to experience a different culture than their own and fully embraced it with a good sense of humor without seeming pretentious. I didn't finish Eat, Pray, Love because I thought the author was self indulgent - this book was much more "real" and the journey of these two sisters was more about the people they met and how it changed their lives, as well as becoming part of and being embraced by this Italian village and it's people. And the food descriptions - don't read this book hungry!
December 20, 2009
Substitute Portugal for Italy and this could be the story of my best friend's life. Annie Hawes and her friend go on a working holiday to rural Italy and come home having purchased a derelict cottage in the mountains. This book (the first of her travel writings) is about how they make their new home habitable, get to know the neighbours and embrace their new lifestyle. Interesting stuff and made me want to do the same!
January 22, 2011
I loved every moment of this book. It is an truly enjoyable read about the quirks of life in an ancient house on a mountain in the middle of nowhere, yet close enough to a village full of the most amazing people (garbagemen, cardplayers at the village bar, young men willing to do home improvement in order to listen to a soccer game...). It is a realistic, likeable, and enjoyable memoir that I didn't want to end!
June 28, 2014
An excellent read! Annie Hawes has given us a close up and personal view of her new life in Liguria. And has done so with such wit and precision that I could not put it down for interest and humor. How she is able to untangle the peculiarities of the small Italian community she inhabits as seen from an outsiders perspective is impressive, so much so that I have devoured her next two books in short order as well.
November 4, 2010
At the risk of sounding Sound Bite American, this memoire could have used some serious paring down/editing. However, this was a detailed, thoughtful and observant anthropological recording of one Englishwoman's settling in a "peasant community" on the Italian Riviera in the mid eighties, pre Our Obsession With Olive Oil.
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June 5, 2014Loved this. Great humour and empathy. The first of two (there may be more?) stories of Annie's move to Liguria, Italy, with all the trials and tribulations, friendships and misunderstandings that go along with a move to a foreign country and strange dialect. In the same vein as Driving over Lemons.
July 16, 2016
Charming! The author found her Italian retreat at a time of huge changes in the countryside and in Italy itself and this memoir perfectly captures this upheaval in attitudes and lifestyle. Absolutely lovely for anyone who loves Italy or olives!
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