Marcus of Umbria: What an Italian Dog Taught an American Girl about Love
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- ISBN13: 9781605299600
- Condition: New
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Product Description
Tired of laboring in city cubicles, Justine van der Leun sublets her studio apartment, leaves her magazine job, and moves to Collelungo, Italy, population: 200. There, in the very ancient city center of a historic Umbrian village, she sets up house with the handsome local gardener she met on trip only weeks earlier. This offhand choice launches an eye-opening series of misadventures when village life and romance turn out to be radically different from what she had imagined. Like lost with the gardener is establish as a replacement for with Marcus, an abandoned English pointer that she rescues. With Marcus by her side, Justine discovers the bliss and hardship of living in the countryside: herding sheep, tending to wild horses, alternative olives with her adopted Italian family tree, and trying her best to learn the regional dialect. Not reasonably up to wild boar hunting, no excellent at gathering mushrooms, and no mamma when it comes to building pasta, she never reasonably fits in with the locals who, despite their differences, take her in as one of their own. The result is a rich, comic, and unconventional portrait about learning to live and like in the most unexpected ways.
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The marketing of the book and the content of the book are not in sync. I could not end reading the book. The leader was too negative. The book dragged on and on detailing her dreary life in Italy with frequent abrupt jumps back to details of her life in New York which seemed equally dreary. The dog was a minor character at best.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
The title (and back-take in review by the leader of “Marley and Me”) might lead a name to expect this to be another heart-warming tale about a dog and its impact. In fact the dog doesn’t even show up until about 1/3 of the way thru the book, and is not a major player in the tale a la Marley. After breaking up with her boyfriend and leaving her miserable job, the leader winds up in a tiny village in Umbria on trip and quickly commences an affair with a local. Returning to Italy from the US, the book is the tale of her time in the tiny village during which time she adopts a dog.
The reason I gave this book three stars isn’t the quality of the writing, which is superb. It’s that first this book is positioned as prominently featuring the dog, which it doesn’t. Secondly, the leader has a negative view of the world that casts a cloud over every chapter. We meet her relatives, all divorced and unhappily remarried. The back-stabbing coworkers at her job at a magazine. The dilapidated and haphazardly constructed buildings in the tiny town she moves to, the disapproving locals, the under-achieving and bankrupt family tree of her Umbrian boyfriend, the way women are treated, the list goes on and on. It may be how she sees the world, but it doesn’t make for an enjoyable book to read. Nor is there ever any realization that she plays a part in all that happens. We can’t choose our relatives, but we can choose our lovers, jobs, and community. After a year at the publisher she never understands that while she is eligible for promotion, her future boss might want to meet her before she takes the position. She chose to go in with a man she barely knew and could hardly talk to in Italian. She convinced him to use his life savings to buy a horse, at a time when she already knew she was going to place him. She shirked her share of the work harvesting olives, selected the woman who didn’t know how to train her horse, etc.
If you want a book about rural Italy, albeit seen thru dark glasses, this is a excellent read. Persons looking for more uplifting tales, or for a book that is more about the transforming effect of a pet, ought to keep on looking.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
This book starts quick, and holds attention. As I mentioned, the tone is lighthearted, and just fun. There are enough twists to keep the pages turning. It would qualify as a “beach-read” if one were closer to the coast.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
I have traveled throughout Italy a fantastic deal and have rented properties in most areas. I am well aware of how Italians in the countryside treat their animals. BUT, I certainly did not delight in the ongoing chapters where she talked about the killing of lambs, pigs, dogs and every living creature they can get their hands on. Of course, I respect that these people live off the land. If I had known how much this theme was going to be discussed in this book, I would NOT have bought it. I am an animal lover and this upset me. So, WARNING, if you like animals, this is not a book for you.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
Marcus of Umbria: What an Italian Dog Taught an American Girl About Like by Justine van der Leun is about a young American woman who moves to a tiny, rural village in Italy on a whim and ends up falling in like with a dog.
Does it surprise you that I really, really loved this book?
After apt smitten with a local Italian ragazzo on trip, the leader packs up her New York City life and transplants herself to Collelungo in Umbria, the Green Heart of Italy. She immediately becomes part of the family tree, and she is expected to contribute as such. I reflect it’s safe to say this is her first of many culture shocks detailed throughout the book.
As we learn more about Justine’s new surroundings and the people playing prominent roles in her daily life, we also get to know the leader through how she handles new, challenging situations. The picture isn’t permanently pretty, but it certainly seems honest. Being able to trust the leader of a memoir is permanently a huge plus.
Justine’s time in the village wasn’t full of leisurely days sipping wine under the Umbrian sun and raucous family tree gatherings by night, and she pulls no punches on this anti-Under the Tuscan Sun lifestyle she adopts. Her fidanzato isn’t the most attentive (although he seems like a excellent enough guy), his brother has a cruel streak to say the least, and common methods of keeping and training animals are heart-wrenching to animal lovers.
Justine manages to present these tidbits and others in a very matter-of-fact way though, lacking judgment. It is what it is, if you will, and in many instances, it’s been that way for centuries in Collelungo (and additional tiny towns throughout Italy). I can’t speak for what the people of Collelungo might reflect about Justine’s perceptions as related in the book, but from my perspective in what seems to be a similar village, they rang honestly accurate.
But through all the ups and downs of life in Collelungo, Justine’s growing like for Marcus, an English pointer she rescues, keeps her grounded — in fact, factually, as she is reluctant to place town even after her like affair has soured, not knowing what will take place to her beloved pooch. Indeed, the only issue I had with the book is that I would have liked more Marcus!
Witty, descriptive, well-crafted, and just unadorned entertaining, this book gets four and a half espresso cups out of five; more Marcus would’ve had my cup runneth-ing over. Marcus of Umbria is more about Justine’s year living in rural Italy than simply a girl meets dog tale, but what it does, it does well — so I highly recommend it.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5