Ah, just finished this book. It was a real treat for the senses!

This engrossing novel follows the adventures of Margot Harrington, a book conservator who travels to Italy in 1966 to help recover and restore rare and antique books after the flood in Florence. Margot begins working in a convent, where a rare and valuable book of Renaissance erotica is discovered. As she restores the book and becomes involved with the process of selling it, Margot also beings a passionate affair with an older man, an art restorer also working in Florence.
I loved the way Hellenga treated Margot's love affair and her work restoring the book with an equal amount of detail, passion, and sensuality. I also really liked Margot, especially her bravery in following her dreams and longings, and her bravery in facing herself and getting on with her life even in the face of deep loss. I also happy about the way the book, its restoration, and its sale, not her love affair and its ending, are the drivers for Margot's self-discovery and emerging control over her own life.

Apparently this book was popular in art history circles some years back, and I can see why, with its plot centered on a collection of valuable 16th century erotic prints in need of restoration. Our heroine is in Florence to assist with book repair and restoration after floods, and she is deeply involved with the erotic book and its sixteen pleasures on a professional and personal basis.

I found the central love story believable and that is the strength of this book. I found the description of repairs to books and frescoes didactic and somewhat tedious. But it's always nice to spend time in Italy and this book gives you that.

I really enjoyed this novel of a young woman, Margot, a book conservator from Chicago, going to Florence as a "mud angel," a person to help with the disastrous aftermath of the 1966 flood which destroyed or damaged untold artistic treasures: paintings, books, frescoes, etc. People from all over the world came to help with the restoration and conservation of the until then secret procedures handed down from one artisan to another. It's basically the story of the woman finding herself as they say, immersing herself in various levels of the Italian culture, a fairly detailed explanation of some of the restoration techniques, a love story and an adventure with a rare book. I liked it also because it was quite unpredictable, filled with twists and turns.

Where I Want to Be

I have been hearing about this book for years, but had put off reading it, partly because of the simply dreadful design of its original cover and the implication in the blurb that it was a recherché erotic romp. But I was wrong. Sex is one of its subjects, yes, but so are religion, history, Italian life, book-binding, and art. The novel might almost have been written for at least the younger me.

When the news of the flooding of the River Arno came through in November 1966, I was a junior lecturer in art history, showing slides of the very art works that were now under threat. As American book-restorer Margot Harrington travels to Florence on an overnight train, I was reminded of my own penny-pinching trips as a student, walking around the city or going up the hill to Fiesole, which is the only place where Margot can find a room. She eventually ends up in the Carmelite Convent, where she guides the nuns in the rescue of their precious book collection, part of the dowry of a Medici princess who joined the order in the seventeenth century; not an experience that I have had, certainly, though I have stayed in an Italian monastery.

One of the nuns working under Margot's direction finds, bound for concealment in the back of a regular prayer book, a collection of sixteen sonnets by Pietro Aretino, each accompanied by an engraving by Giulio Romano. Erotic engravings, naturally, for the "Sixteen Pleasures" are sexual positions, like a renaissance Kama Sutra, and the varieties of love-making go far beyond the missionary arrangement. In fact, these engravings exist and can now be found on line—I'll add a small shot of one of the tamer page openings as a spoiler below—but Hellenga supposes that this is the sole surviving copy of the banned book, and thus immensely valuable. If, that is to say, the Bishop of Florence permits the Abbess to sell it. But the two are at daggers drawn, so the Abbess asks Margot to restore the book and use it, if she can, for the convent's benefit.

n  n  
n

I have always enjoyed books written from an intimate knowledge of a technical subject, by any author from Herman Melville to Dick Francis. Hellenga has many such arcana: bibliography, book conservation and binding, fresco restoration, the auction business, legal procedures in the Vatican courts, and life in the Carmelite order. Readers should perhaps be warned that there are chapters where the story of Margot's adventures virtually stops for the author to enlarge on one of these interests, but I always felt I was learning a lot. And the religious aspect is more than the sharing of information. While Margot has a lapsed Protestant's cynicism about Catholic doctrine, she feels a growing closeness to these Sisters as women, and so do we.

Of all the many different threads of Margot's story—professional, extralegal, and romantic—none is as important as the matter of discovering who she is as a human being. The first chapter, in which she risks her prestigious job at Chicago's Newberry Library to travel to Florence, bears the title "Where I Want to Be." It is not as simple as just getting there, and a lot will happen before we take our leave of her in a Florentine piazza, but the ending is nonetheless right:

n  There's no goal implied in a piazza, no destination. It's a place to be, and not just anyplace either. Of all the places I might have been at 7:34 p.m. on 20 giugno 1967, it was where I wanted to be.n

Enjoyed this novel very much, although the ending could have been more decisive than it was, but I was satisfied. Was not able to predict some of the turns and developments. Not formulaic in any way. The story involves a young woman signing on to help restore books in Florence after a devastating flood. She comes across a rare book of erotic poems and drawings, and it’s got to be worth a fortune. The volume, found in a convent, just might save the convent and its library from an overreaching bishop. Along the way, the author treats us to a lot of art history, and the heroine becomes a figure in the art of her own life including several romances. Those who enjoy art lit books such as Artemisiaby Alexandra Lapierre, The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant, The Girl with the Pearl Earring, Falling Angels and The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier, will enjoy this. Sadly, Robert Hellenga died only last month (July 2020). I would like to read another of his novels.

Having read this book years ago and remembering it as a terrific read, this time I was somewhat disappointed. The entire first several chapters could have been left out entirely. This was a great premise, but it wasn't fleshed out as well as it could have been.

Good historical fiction set in Florence, Italy after the horrible flood of 1966. The heroine, Margot, is a book conservator, who begins her exciting saga while staying with Carmelite nuns. There is a surprising discovery which drives the narrative. In addition, the amazing stories about saving art works sets a great backdrop.

A cross between The Book by Geraldine Brooks and Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Interesting, especially the historical background of the restoration of works of art damaged by the 1966 flood that destroyed so much in Florence, Italy. But, generally, I dislike these novels that portray an American woman who goes to Italy and falls madly in love with some hunky Italian guy. On the other hand, maybe I should brush up on my Italian!

Huh. Well don't get the wrong impression - I myself thought it was some kind of teenage erotica, but no. It is actually a COMPLETELY tame, very adult novel about a woman's spiritual/life/maturing developments - in Italy. As a side note, she is a rare book conservator, which of course always fascinates me.

This book started really well, with two chapters which were short stories unto themselves but lost power as it continued. The final chapters weren't really convincing and I never felt like it was a woman's voice speaking; it just came out too flat for me. But as I said, the first two chapters made it for me.

Listened on Overdrive