I picked this up because I love books. I am interested in the preservation and restoration of books. So the description of this book caught my eye. The 70 or so pages that told the story of the flooding of the Arno and the resulting struggle to save the antiquities was interesting. I enjoyed that section. The rest of the story line didn't seem connected to what I thought was to be the plot.

I'm nearly done. I have enjoyed the adventure of the secret book that Margot has restored and is attempting to sell. I wish there was more discussion of her fling with Postiglione and the negotiations to sell the book, especially since she is doing it for the convent that hosted her during her stay in Florence to help after the '66 flood. It makes perfect sense, but the details about Florence and her life there are so pleasant that it would be great to have MORE.

The least compelling of the batch of historical fiction I read on Florence. The male author was not able to convincingly create a female narrative.

This story is about a young female book conservator who travels to Italy in 1966, the year the Arno flooded its banks, destroying the collections of galleries, libraries and churches. While staying in a convent she discovers a lost book of pornography that dates back to the Renaissance. Hurray!

The blurb on the back cover describes this as an erotic book about an erotic book which I think is very misleading. The sexuality struck me as being very tame. However the main charcter is very well drawn. Her experiences seem to resonant particularly well with women who were in their twenties and early thirties around 1966.

If this book has a flaw, it is that Hellanga doesn't seem to know what sort of story he is trying to tell. There are parts where the writing, while beautiful, doesn't really contribute to the story and/or character arc. There is at least one instance where the third person POV, which follows the protagonist, Margot, through most of the book, makes an abrupt leap to a scene outside of her consciousness. All of this contributes to the feeling that one is reading a series of writing exercises that have later been cobbled together into a novel.

This book is a terrific example of writing that is enjoyable but doesn't inspire any desire to imitate.

Algemeen: niet bijzonder enthousiast na het lezen van dit boek, zou het niet bij vrienden aanbevelen. De lezer blijft bij het volgen van het verhaal, zoekende als de hoofdpersonage. Uitermate gedetailleerde zijpaden werden ingeslagen en weer volledig de rug toegekeerd, waardoor het soms lastig was de aandacht te behouden. Ik werd misleid door de achterkant van het boek, waar het verhaal wordt beschreven als gevuld met “spanning, erotiek en romantiek”. Dit herken ik niet als zodanig.
Wel mooie zinsconstructies en breder te trekken levenslessen in verschillende passages.

Favoriete citaten om terug te lezen:
“We zijn uien; je kunt de ene rok na de andere afpellen en nooit een kern bereiken. Maar ik ben een abrikoos. Middenin zit een pit. Ik kan erop zuigen als een snoepje of mijn tanden erop kapot bijten, maar hij zal niet smelten of afbrokkelen. In de put is het beeld van mij als 19 jarige, spiernaakt op een klif in Sardinië”
“In theorie was ik een existentialisme die zelf haar betekenis en waarde schiep, maar in werkelijkheid was ik natuurlijk zoekende”
“De weg die je niet bent ingeslagen is een fantasie”
‘Non vale la Pena’ het is de moeite niet waard.
‘Non vale Il pene’ het is de penis niet waard.
“In elke relatie heb je van die beslissende ogenblikken die ogenschijnlijk geen gevolgen hebben, maar in werkelijkheid de toekomst bepalen”
“De Angelsaksen vluchten naar Italië om van de zoetheid van het leven te genieten, om naakt te zwemmen, wijn te drinken, dicht bij natuur te leven, te experimenteren. Alles mag. Liefde is geen zonde”
“Hij hield van het leven en vond het daarom niet erg een dwaze indruk te maken”
“Dat soort liefde is heel krachtig, maar een fantasie. Je bent eigenlijk verlief op jezelf, op een beeld van jezelf (of op het tegenovergestelde van jezelf) dat je op iemand anders projecteert”
“Wie weet hoe het in de morgen is. Over sommige dingen kun je beter in de nacht praten”
“Alle verwachtingen die ik over het leven had gekoesterd, leken bewaarheid te worden (liefde, huwelijk, misschien zelfs kinderen van mezelf)”
“Hij vindt niet dat je te veel over kunst moet praten, vooral niet als je ernaar kijkt de druk om een oordeel uit te spreken is het grote obstakel van werkelijk genieten. De meeste mensen weten niet wat ze mooi vinden, omdat ze zich verplicht voelen zo veel verschillende dingen mooi te vinden. Ze hebben het gevoel dat van hem wordt verwacht dat ze verpletterend zijn, dus in plaats van te kijken verdien ze hun tijd met het bedenken van wat ze zullen zeggen, iets intelligents of in ieder geval iets slims”
“Caravaggio had een voetfetish”
“De eerste keer dat het tot me doordrong was als een stomp in mijn maag; ik had geen thuis”
‘Spuien’ zou een juistere beschrijving zijn geweest van wat ik wilde, maar ik dat moment dacht ik dat ik wilde biechten
“Het was een avontuur dat door het lot op mijn pad was gekomen. Zonder zou ik niet weten wie ik was of waarheen mijn weg leidde”
“Ik probeerde mezelf te kalmeren, maar mijn gedachten schoten alle kanten op. Ik kom het geluid van water horen, de geluiden van de stad die versmolten tot het geluid als van de oceaan”
“Zie de dingen zoals ze werkelijk zijn, noem ze bij hun naam, wijs vreemdelingen de weg”

tThe book, "The Sixteen Pleasures" is covered in praise, and the all-telling mark of "National Best Seller." I kept going back to the declarations that read "…an erotic book about an erotic book…","…a genuine literary treasure…", "…an adventure under pressure…," and "…amazing…how intensely you care about this women."

t

Somehow, these phrases did not appear to match or describe the book I was reading. Then towards the end of the book, the main character, Margo, tries to explain her initial disappointment to the Elgin Marbles:
"Have you ever read a great novel, or listened to a great symphony, or stood in front of a great work of art, and felt absolutely nothing?" (The Sixteen Pleasures, pg 354)

n  
n  
n

Err…yes.

t

I'll say this, I found the details on art and book restoration really fascinating and if not for these I'm not sure I could have finished this "…illuminating meditations on life, art, and love." (Chicago Tribune)

Most disappointing were three chapters that pulled out of the first-person narrative into third person. First, I take issue with the "easy way out" methodology the author chose in fleshing out Margo's love interest, and secondly found it disrupted to the overall narrative. Thirdly it added no substance to the story, very little is spent developing this relationship in any case, so it was hard to really care whether this May/December romance made it or not. The affair starts, goes on uneventful, and then poof he's gone. So three chapters, interspersed throughout the book, could have been cut and nothing lost from the story whatsoever. In general, there are a lot places where the book just repeats itself, endless back story of back story. Three specific cases were a character's thoughts are described and then repeated verbatim in dialogue a few chapters later. (I actually checked, and then checked those rave reviews again. The New Yorker called it "elegantly moving" ???)

t

Margo Harrington is naïve, and lost. She is a character you could relate to if it didn't become more and more of the same. Her liaisons with convenient men (apparently anyone she worked with-she as a character apparently has no type or preference) became formulaic and predictable. The book never becomes clear what it wants to be. At moments its historical fiction, at others it's about a woman finding her way, or it's about family. A single book could be all those things but this one never seemed to pull it all together.

t

At the end of the day it breaks down to this: an expensive book is found, restored, and sold.

I was reading this book for the second time! There are so many things I like about it. The main character, Margot, takes her lackluster life in hand and makes a huge gamble to change it! She leaves her home somewhere in the midwest and goes to Florence, Italy where she had traveled and lived briefly years before with her mother. The book is partly a love story to the city of Florence, which in 1966 has experienced horrible floods that damaged or threatened thousands of books and paintings. The book makes you want to go explore every nook and cranny of that amazing city. A book restorer, Margot is a mix of confidence and not much like we all are but she is willing to put herself forward and take chances and she is confident in her craft!

This states it was a novel however the details on how to conserve a book we’re so thorough that it read more like non-fiction. I would have enjoyed it more if the personal interactions between characters had been expanded upon and far less technical detail.

I'm a little skeptical when it comes to books written by old men from the perspective of young women; I always expect there to be some sort of disconnect as if the author is writing about a subject matter that they obviously know nothing about. The Sixteen Pleasures captures all the romance of art, travel and young love, yet the love isn't so young and the heroin Margot seems a little world-weary for her 29 years. Despite Margot’s lackluster view on love and sex she falls into a life totally consumed by both, coming into possession of a unique book of 16th century pornography and falling in love with a married man twenty years her senior. By the end of the book Margot is supposed to have discovered her sexual identity and purpose in life but to me she seems just as lost as she did at the start of the book, searching for love in all the expected places, settling for another old man.

The characters weren't drawn too bad and the Italian settings were nice. Thankfully, the erotic stuff wasn't overdone too much. It was just kind of weird reading a male penned novel in the first person with a female heroine that is specifically about an erotic work of fiction. Probably more of a 2.5--it wasn't bad reading, just not very groundbreaking or mind-blowing. But you might wanna skip the cunnilingus stuff. Fortunately it's uh...brief. I wonder if he has a female friend, wife, SO, or whatever , to help with his nuances? Or maybe even someone that ghost writes?

With very little forethought or planning, our spirited heroine, Margot Harrington, leaves the security of her low-paying job restoring books at the Newberry Library and heads for Europe. She throws herself headlong into an exhilarating Italian adventure, her destination the ancient city of Florence where recent floods have ravaged a historic part of the city. Priceless pieces of art, artifacts, and books lie beneath a layer of mud and the city needs volunteers to help with the cleanup. Margot becomes a volunteeer. We suddenly find ourselves pulled along with her on a captivating if sometimes heartbreaking journey of self-dicovery and rebirth.

Florence provides endless pleasures. It is a city filled with quaint shops and restaurants, picturesque streets and vistas, and masterpieces of art and architecture everwhere. There is a passionate affair with Santo, the married Italian doctor, and the discovery of an amazing collection of pricless books hidden away at a Carmelite convent.

The greatest pleasure in this book is a slim volume, the erotic Aretino itself, tucked away in the convent library. The almost voluptuous descriptions of its meticulous restoration were worth the price of the book for me. Margot's "love affair" with and passion for the Aretino becomes all-consuming, helping her to rise above personal loss, and eventually giving her the sense of purpose and identity she has been lacking. Never tedious, maudling or sappy, this book was a pleasure from beginning to end. I would read it again. Loved it!

Another get away and dream of Italy book.

From Amazon:
In 1966, 29-year-old Margot Harrington heads off to Florence, intent on doing her bit to protect its precious books from the great floods--and equally intent on adventure. Serendipity, in the shape of the man she'll fall in love with, leads her to an abbey run by the most knowing of abbesses and work on its library begins. One day a nun comes upon a shockingly pornographic volume, bound with a prayer book. It turns out to be Aretino's lost erotic sonnets, accompanied by some rather anatomical engravings. Since the pope had ordered all copies of the Sixteen Pleasures burned, it could be worth a fortune and keep the convent autonomous. The abbess asks Margot to take care of the book and check into its worth: "We have to be cunning as serpents and innocent as doves," she warns.
Soon our heroine finds her identity increasingly "tangled up" with the volume and with Dottor Postiglione, a man with an instinct for happiness--but also one for self-preservation. Margot enjoys the secrecy and the craft (the chapters in which she rebinds the folios are among the book's finest). Much of the book's pleasure stems from Robert Hellenga's easy knowledge, which extends to Italian complexities. Where else would you learn that, in cases of impotence, legal depositions are insufficient: "Modern couples often take the precaution of sending postcards to each other from the time of their engagement, leaving the message space blank so that it can be filled in later if the couple wishes to establish grounds for an annulment." Luckily, however, there are also shops that sell old postcards, "along with the appropriate writing instruments and inks."