Mid-August Lunch (Pranzo di Ferragosto)

Definitions

Ferragosto: a major Italian holiday, celebrated August 15, that involves an elaborate meal. The majority of the population goes out of town for a few days. (Americans, think “Thanksgiving weekend”)

Pranzo:  lunch or dinner

Youth, beauty, materialism, and other facets of contemporary culture permeate the cinema landscape today.  Mid-August Lunch (2008), a gem of a movie, is the antithesis of these themes and should not be missed.  The storyline is gentle, uncomplicated but rich, and leaves the viewer with considerable substance on which to ponder long after the film is over.

The movie begins with Gianni, a middle-aged man who lives with and cares for his elderly mother in her small apartment in Rome.  Gianni inadvertently finds himself providing respite care for three additional elderly women, whose families have gone away on holiday to celebrate Ferragosto.  Initially displeased with their disposition, after being dismissed to the care of a complete stranger, the women and Gianni try to make the best of this rather awkward situation.  Liberated from the confines of their prescribed roles within their families, the women’s more youthful, true personalities begin to emerge as the afternoon evolves.  Later that evening, one of the women confides to Gianni, “We live on memories. Without memories what would you do?”  The following day the women and Gianni prepare their own Pranzo di Ferragosto celebration meal, creating new memories for each of these new friends.

 Mid-August Lunch is a directorial debut for Italian actor and screenwriter Gianni Di Gregorio who also plays the central character of this film.  The calculated simplicity of this story and the cinematography, which features close-ups of the actors, images of the delicious meals prepared, and quintessential scenes of Rome work together to create a rich story.  The viewer readily connects with the characters, seeing the individual within each of the women, as well as the caring and generous Gianni.  Foreign language film viewers who oppose subtitles should not dismiss this movie.  The dialogue is not complex and moves at a comfortable pace; the viewer quickly forgets she is reading subtitles.  Charming scenes of the story unfold during the final credits… do not shut the DVD player off too quickly.  I urge you to see Mid-August Lunch, and, if you are like me, you will tell your friends and family to do the same.

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Secret Daughter, by Shilpi Somya Gowda

Babette from Outreach Services loves reading about other countries and cultures. Today she reviews a novel by a first-time author who was raised in Toronto by parents who emigrated from Mumbai:

This is a thought-provoking book that explores the joys and heartaches of parenting through the story of two families living disparate lives.

A baby girl is born to a family of little means in a remote village in India, in a culture where boys are the preferred gender. The infant’s mother, in order to save her baby’s life, makes the heart-wrenching and selfless decision to secretly relinquish her daughter to an adoption agency in Bombay.  This child’s lot in life is drastically changed when she is adopted by a childless couple from California. The child’s new parents, both physicians,  have the means and education to give their daughter all the opportunities and luxuries that money can buy. The novel follows the parallel stories of these two families, living literally and figuratively worlds apart, as their children grow up. Of course, the two families’ lives do intersect when the American daughter, as a college student, makes a trip to India, seeking to gain an understanding of her identity and why her birth mother gave her up for adoption. The reader observes that the joys, trials, tribulations, heartaches, disappointments, missed opportunities and sorrows that go hand in hand with parenting are universal.

Secret Daughter was a good read, filled with rich descriptions and dialogue, giving the reader a strong sense of place and believable characters with realistic problems. I found that I enjoyed the story even more after discussing it with a colleague who recommended this book to me. If you are looking for your next book group book, consider Secret Daughter. This story will generate lively discussions, particularly if the group includes parents of young adults who likely may have weathered many of the themes presented in this story.

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The Buddha in the Attic, by Julie Otsuka

Babette brings today’s review.

Julie Otsuka’s, The Buddha in the Attic, might be a little book, but within the 127 pages is a big story that lingers on the reader’s mind long after the final page has been read.

Otsuka tells the story of the Japanese “Picture Brides” who immigrated to the United States in the early 1900s, established new lives in a foreign land and tried in earnest to gain a piece of the American Dream.  The themes explored are those familiar to many: growing up and leaving home, homesickness, friendships, working and raising a family, and the accompanying joys and sorrows of life, marriage and parenthood.  The book recounts hardships encountered by the Japanese American immigrants during the early twentieth century through their relocation to internment camps during the Second World War.

What makes this book so profound is the style the author employs to recount this melancholy and little discussed segment of our country’s history.  The story is told in the collective voice of the immigrants, interspersed with voices of the individuals, sharing personal feelings, experiences, observances and anecdotes of their lives.  Otsuka carefully chooses her words, sparse and poetic, creating a story whose prose are hauntingly beautiful.

Do not rush through this book, but rather pause and reflect as your read it.  I find I cannot stop thinking about it.  It is the best book I have read this year.

Check the WRL catalog for The Buddha in the Attic

P.S.  I whole-heartedly recommend Otsuka’s first book, When the Emperor Was Divine, which I read while waiting for my copy of The Buddha in the Attic to arrive.  It is an equally moving book.

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From Here, You Can’t See Paris: Seasons of a French Village and its Restaurant, by Michael S. Sanders

Today’s post comes from Babette, who takes us to France.

It is certainly hard to believe that as a librarian I found myself at a coffee shop one morning without a book in my bag and about 30 minutes to kill. I browsed the “give-away” shelf and one book immediately caught my eye, From Here, You Can’t See Paris: Seasons of a French Village and Its Restaurant by Michael S. Sanders. It was both title and cover photograph (a quintessential French countryside scene… tables and chairs in an outdoor café-type setting, potted geraniums, and climbing vines meandering up limestone houses, all this perched atop a winding road overlooking a peaceful vista of a small village in the distance) that called me to pick up this book. And, was I glad I did.

The author, an American, sets out for a year to observe, experience, and record the life of a small chef-owned restaurant in Les Arques, a small village nestled in southwestern France. This is not simply the story of the restaurant and its owner, but, of the village, its inhabitants, and the struggle of this rural town to defy the likelihood of becoming extinct as the dwindling year-round population ages. The restaurant, La Recre (short for “playground”) is housed in a revitalized old schoolhouse building located in the center of the village. Outsiders to Les Arques, Chef Jacques and his wife, Noelle, have cultivated a thriving business over the years and, subsequently played an integral role in the renaissance of this rural village. The challenges and dramas of running a successful restaurant are illuminated in this book. An underlying theme explores how the viability of Les Arques depends upon its ability to retain traditions of generations past while being relevant in the twenty-first century. The push and pull of these opposing goals provides the tension in what would appear to be a book solely about a restaurant and food.

A keen observer of life in Les Arques, the author introduces the reader to the residents, their relationships, and the hum of life in this rural village. As the title suggests the book is ordered according to the seasons of the year and the events in the village’s calendar, including outdoor markets, truffle season, town meetings, local elections, blissful summer days, and the dreary winter months. All of these make for an interesting glimpse at life in this rural French village. Peppered throughout the book are French phrases and rich descriptions of the town, its residents, and the countryside, all of which give the reader a real sense of being in southwestern France. As the book progresses the reader becomes immersed in the lives of the villagers, who quickly become new friends and acquaintances. This is the perfect book to fulfill one’s fantasy of escaping from one’s current life to a world that is tranquil, but never boring, and gentle and satisfying. I encourage you to read From Here You Can’t See Paris, images of life in Les Arques linger with me still.

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