I had put off reading this book thinking that it would be a book similar to others about people buying houses in Tuscany or France and making food and drinking wine. I was wrong. I found it to be hilarious and wonderful.

This was just not really my thing but not bad

This book came along at a time when I really needed to laugh. I read it in two sittings, and laughed like a loon. Delightful. Thanks, Steve!!

hilarious

Deutsche Rezension aus HansBlog.de:

Lewis-Hamilton Paterson erzählt hochintelligent-witzig von zwei Ausländern auf einem einsamen Hügel in der Toscana. Der Autor spielt mit Toscana- und Dolce-Vita-Klischees. Der Witz entsteht nicht aus der Handlung oder aus den Dialogen, sondern aus selbstironischen und gebildeten Bemerkungen des Ich-Erzählers und aus den absurden Rezepten für geräucherte Katze und ähnliche Delikatessen.
Der Humor geht jedoch fast unter in den Mängeln des Romans: Der Autor erzählt eine sehr unrealistische, fast jamesbondige Geschichte mit unerwarteten Hubschrauberlandungen im Hinterhof, Begegnungen mit Popstars und Kultregisseuren, ein Seitenstrang spielt in einer slawischen Familie.
Die Beziehung zwischen den beiden Hauptfiguren ist völlig unklar, die weibliche Hauptfigur insgesamt bleibt gänzlich undefiniert; und doch riecht man das Ende auf 250 Seiten Entfernung. Als Hauptfiguren kredenzt Hamilton-Paterson den Autor Gerald Samper und eine Komponistin – als ob es der Verfasser es nicht schaffte, über den Tellerrand zu blicken und alltäglichere Menschen zu beschreiben.
Assoziationen:
Hamilton-Paterson setzte Gerald Sampers Geschichte fort in den Büchern Amazing Disgrace (2006) und Rancid Pansies (2008). Ich habe Amazing Grace angelesen – es trieb den Aspekt "Selbstverliebtes Geschwafel ohne Handlung" scheinbar auf die Spitze, die zweite Hauptfigur Marta war scheint's nicht mehr dabei; da habe ich das Buch schnell weggelegt und den dritten Teil nicht mehr probiert.
Keinerlei Parallelen gibt es zu Hamilton-Patersons Philippinen-Buch Wasserspiele.

I hesitated to give this book 5 stars only because I may just be so relieved to have enjoyed a book after a long succession of vanilla before it. But after looking backwards through my list of books I've read until finding the last book I enjoyed so much, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, I've decided that, yes, it earned those stars.

The book is told from the points of view of two alternating narrators who are neighbors in Tuscany. Gerald is an uptight narcissist who loves his solitude and is therefore disappointed when Marta moves in next door. Each of them is convinced that it is the other that is butting into his/her life. Also, each of them considers the other a drunk. Gerald is hilarious and Marta is adorable. Over the course of the book I grew to trust Marta more. I'm not sure if that was supposed to happen.

This book was just perfect, and I would recommend it to anyone.

Whatever else we can say about James Hamilton-Paterson, he is a very funny man. If you ever found yourself in the Italian countryside gazing at the villa next door and wondering who lives there and who, for gosh sakes, is coptering in and out, after reading this novel, you may very well decide you don’t really want to know. It may be entangling, and may, after all, be the end of all you hold dear.

Gerald Samper, British biographer to the rich and famous, buys an old villa in need of repair in Tuscany’s Apuan Alps region. He is told, as is his nearby neighbor, that the owner of the nearby villa is rarely in residence so his quest for privacy and solitude is guaranteed. Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, the resident of the villa he can see from his own is none other than a well-to-do refugee from a Soviet republic, with all her entangling connections.

Samper likes cooking, and we are treated to recipes inspired by the abundant local produce, but dreamt up entirely within the convoluted confines of Samper’s own twisted mind: Mussels in Chocolate, say, or Baked Pears in Gorgonzola with Cinnamon Cream, Lampreys in Sherry, Alien Pie, which features smoked cat mixed with baby beets, nasturtium leaves, pureed prunes, and green bacon (what on earth…?), or my personal favorite, Tuna Stuffed with Prunes in Marmite Butter. But Samper deprecates (with good reason) the specialties his neighbor offers him, delicacies delivered direct from the former Soviet republic of Voynovia. As described by Samper:

”…brightly colored voynovian objects that were delicate to the same extent that traffic cones are. There were awesome pellets like miniature doughnuts wrapped in candied angelica leaf and injected with chili sauce. Others looked like testicles set in dough. I gathered these were pigeon’s eggs and couldn’t catch her name for them although the phrase that came to me immediately was Christ on a Tricycle. Spearmint eggs?”

But this book is not about cooking, despite the title. It is about living the good life in Tuscany among other artists—writers, musicians, filmmakers, realtors--magicians of all stripes. And what of Fernet Branca? It is a digestif concocted in Italy that, given as a gift to the new arrivals of Le Roccie, is purchased a second time to return the courtesy, and becomes a central feature of the misunderstandings among the residents and visitors there. It is described in Wikipedia as having the flavor of “black-licorice-flavored Listerine."

Hilarious - a cross between Patricia Highsmith and P.G. Wodehouse.

A laugh-out-loud farce set in Tuscany and superbly parodying the British obsession with books set in that region (usually with recipes). Gerald Samper, a ghostwriter for illiterate sporting figures, retreats to a rustic hilltop but there finds a female East-European composer as a neighbour. Their parallel stories develop with gross misunderstandings and while the jokes are less prevalent towards the end, the plot does come together. Any book with recipes involving smoked cat and otter with lobster sauce has to be worth reading.

Having read this almost a decade ago, I decided to see if this hysterical and charming book lived up to my memories of reading it. Thankfully, it did in spades!

Gerald Samper, an effete Englishman, lives on a hilltop in Tuscany. He is a ghostwriter for celebrities, and a foodie, whose weird tastes include 'Mussels in Chocolate and Garlic' and 'Fernet Branca Ice Cream'. His idyll is shattered by the arrival of Marta, a vulgar woman from a former Soviet republic now run by gangsters, notably male members of her family. She is a composer in a neo-folk style who claims to be writing a score for a trendy Italian film director. The neighbours' lives disastrously intertwine. The entourages of the rock star and the director come and go; mysterious black helicopters bring news of mayhem in Voynova, Marta's homeland; and along the way the English obsession with Tuscany is satirized mercilessly.

We all have at least one Gerald in our lives. We all have at least one Marta. And we all live for the day that some dinner party puts them sitting next to each other. We know fireworks are going to ensue, for all of the wrong reasons. And that is what makes this book such a delight.

Told in alternating narrative perspectives, we get to see how simple events and misunderstandings can be viewed in entirely different ways by each party. How prejudices and preconceptions run both ways. How no one is every quite what you think they are. And how sometimes the best laid plans for revenge are foiled by different tastes in ice-cream.

And through all of the sniping, cattiness, neighbourly battles, bizarre recipes, bald rockstars, lothario film directors, Eastern European mobsters and English colonial attitudes, we get to watch these two miss matched individuals thrown together by circumstance form a true friendships.

Did I mention it's hysterically funny as well?

Hamilton-Paterson is fantastic writing in both voices and does it so convincingly that I actually took to Google to check if a few of his more outlandish (but maybe just slightly plausible things) were fact or fiction. Let's just say Google returns some interesting items using "Smoked Cat" for a search string.

This book won't tickle everyone the way it did me but I loved it. I'm glad I decided to re-read it, and will most likely do so again. But first... I have to get my hands on the two sequels!

4/5

Hilarious !

Witty and goofy, complex, farcical. Lots of somewhat contradictory adjectives come to mind. The recipes are truly horrendous and therefore truly hilarious. The plot is bizarre and entertaining. The two main characters take turns telling their stories in first person, and their differences and similarities are fascinating to watch develop. A fun and twisted book. I love the fact that this was nominated for a Booker prize--not what you'd think was a typical nominee!