Review: Hard Work But Entertaining
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 25, 2012
A so-called mystery Tuscan Dream tells the story of a British writer, David, tormented by his memories of the Falkland's War who has travelled to Italy in the 1980's where he finds himself embroiled in personal lives of two local sisters; Kitty and Mary Zuccato.I use the phrase "so-called" however because the mystery element of the novel does not even begin to appear until at least Chapter 18; prior to this the reader is treated to eloquent and expansive descriptions of the beautiful landscape and surroundings of Florence, as well as a number of convoluted and awkwardly written establishment conversations.The author, Narendra Simone, clearly has an impressive vocabulary and a fantastic ability to describe scenes, this ability is what takes the foreground in Tuscan Dream; which would be fine if the book were a tourist guide rather than a novel. As a novel it is very hard to feel a connection to the characters, and any desire to read is fuelled either by a mild curiosity rather than any kind of emotional investment. The writing talks of the wonders of Tuscan art, history and culture, speaking in great depth about the architecture and delving into the most intricate descriptions of beautiful and famous paintings; these large chunks of text are separated by frigid character interaction and forced, unrealistic conversation that reads in a jittering dissonant fashion.The chapters, though short, are very difficult to plough through. Even a reader with a well-honed ability to skim read would find themselves pushed to their limits with this book, finding page upon page passing them by with literally nothing happening; there is an entire chapter in which David has coffee at a café, leaves, walks around Florence for a few hours only to return to the café and drink more coffee: there is little discussion of his internal musings, no hints at his past or personality, simply a step by step account of his walk around the streets of Florence, complete with almost ordnance survey level detail of each left turn and road crossing.All of this is incredibly to the book's detriment as once the first threads of the mystery are dangled before you you are immediately interested; the unusual situation in which Mary and Kitty have found themselves and the impact of David's arrival in Florence cause a dark and intriguing mystery to evolve. However it takes real perseverance to get to that stage of the book.Unfortunately for Tuscan Dream the laborious and pretentious prose is extremely off putting and as such makes one reluctant to get past even the first couple of chapters, let alone slog through to find out what happens with David, Maria, Antonio and the Zuccato family home.