Botticelli Blue Skies: An American in Florence

As some of the other reviewers mentioned, there's a lot of complaining at the beginning of this book. This almost put me off, but I was intrigued (perversely, I guess) by someone who did not consider a chance to spend a semester in Florence to be something to jump at. What was the matter with this woman? When her husband tells her the university they both teach at is sending him to Florence for a semester to conduct a class, she just doesn't want to go. By being a reluctant traveler, Gerber is able to show how Florence managed to captivate her in spite of herself. Rather than going to Italy as an already-intoxicated tourist, she resists at first, but it is Florence, after all, and even she comes to love it. I found this an excellent antidote to the gushing let's-move-to-Italy (or France) travelogs. And she isn't just taken with the usual Florentine charms of museums, churches, wine, and food. She discovers the thrift shops and grocery stores that most tourists would miss entirely. As a temporary resident, she has to deal with the landlady and the staff at the local Chinese restaurant. I almost gave up on this one, but am very glad I kept going, and suspect that is what Gerber intended all along.

Merrill Joan Gerber's book about Florence is less about Florence than it is about life itself -- and because it is about life, it sheds light all over Florence itself. Here is an honest woman experiencing a foreign country, missing her home and mother, and recording with candor what she sees, feels, and hears. Instead of glorifying another culture, we are invited to see her heart -- and her love for her husband. A welcome read for those who travel for reasons other than Wanderlust.

Merrill Joan Gerber has a wonderful talent for using humor and details to bring her story to life. I loved sharing her adventures and discoveries. Reading her book was like being back in Italy again. I looked forward to each new chapter, wondering where she would take me next. Some places were already familiar to me, and some were new and unexpected. It's her personal story, and she told it well.

I am finishing Mrs. Gerber's Botticelli Blue Skies and have found it a joy to read. I've never been to Italy or at the moment plan on going. I found the booklighthearted and humorous yet serious enough to feel I'm learning things I didn't know. The very reasons I love to read.

Here's what the LA Times says--please post:November 26, 2002 BOOK REVIEWItaly through an American's eyes By Bernadette Murphy, Special to The Times 'Botticelli Blue Skies'An American in FlorenceMerrill Joan GerberUniversity of Wisconsin Press: 288 pp., Merrill Joan Gerber, who teaches creative writing at Caltech in Pasadena,is the quintessential reluctant traveler: one for whom the prospect ofroaming translates not into visions of adventure and frolicking good timesbut into anxiety of the unknown and a longing for life's daily rhythms.Yet, as she recounts in her delightful travel memoir, "Botticelli BlueSkies," she is prepared to relinquish her distaste of roving as she embarkson what turns out to be a life-altering three-month sojourn accompanyingher history-professor husband and his group of 38 college students who havesigned up for a semester in Florence, Italy.The entourage arrives in Tuscany, sets up housekeeping, figures out the bussystem and does its best to see the important tourist sites while learningto live as Italians do. For these transplanted Americans, even the simplesttasks -- navigating the grocery store, figuring out the money, lighting thestove -- become both precarious and funny.Detailing the day-to-day happenings of their stay, Gerber illustrates howshe eventually makes peace with the exotic, learns to see beauty in thatwhich initially frightens and uncovers the dogged resourcefulness all goodtravelers must have, enthusiastic at heart or not.Most enjoyable are the scenes of quotidian Italian life, like the chore ofwashing clothes: "Unlike my American washing machine, which agitates inpit-bull furor, shaking the dirt out of the clothes, then spinning themwildly as if wringing their necks in revenge, this Italian version givesour clothes a gentle half-turn and then pauses for what seems three minutesbefore it gently shimmies them about again for a few seconds," she writes."A cluster of soap bubbles appears in the round glass window and thenvanishes while the clothes rest or gather strength for the next littlejiggle." The predicaments are never-ending: Once the clothes are washed,how to hang them out on a clothesline that's five stories high? And then,what to do when a piece of purple underwear flies free and lands on a lowerline, accessible only through another tenant's apartment? Depicted withkeen perception, the tale illustrates the way travel wakes us up from ourdaily lives and compels us to see existence anew.Having failed to study her Italian diligently before the trip, Gerber ishampered by her inability to communicate verbally, but is ingenious insurmounting this obstacle.Trying to buy baking powder at the grocery store, she leads a clerk to thepackaged cake section and tries to indicate that she wants something tomake a cake rise. "To do this, I lift a cake over my head. This is becominga little like a game show. He cocks his head as if trying to think of ananswer. Then: the light bulb smile. Does he have the answ