Still Life

Do you ever read a book so good that you can’t put it down, yet at the same time you never want it to end? The book that you would take with you to your desert island, to read and reread? When our reading group read Still Life by Sarah Winman last year, I knew it was one of those books for me. Such beautiful, joyful, timeless storytelling and fabulous characters, in what is like one long love letter to Florence, made it a perfect read.

The story starts in Tuscany towards the end of the second world war, as Allied troops advance amongst still falling bombs. A young English soldier, Ulysses Temper has a chance encounter with Evelyn Skinner, a 64-year-old enthusiastic art historian with an incredible zest for life, who has come back to Italy to rescue paintings from the ruins. In each other, Ulysses and Evelyn find a kindred spirit amongst the rubble of war-torn Italy, and as they part, they both agree not to say goodbye.  And so, the story of Ulysses's and Evelyn’s lives unfolds and interacts over the next four decades.

After the war, Ulysses returns home to London taking Evelyn’s words and his own memories of his time in Italy with him, where he resumes working at The Stoat and Parrot, a typical north London pub. (One of my best friends at school lived over one such pub where her dad was the landlord, so I could totally place myself there.) Here we meet an eccentric mix of characters who make up Ulysses’ extended family of friends, including Claude a talking parrot. The parrot divided opinion in our reading group but for me it is a literary device that says the things that characters are thinking but perhaps don’t always dare say. It adds a light humorous touch. When he receives an unexpected inheritance, Ulysses decides to make his way back to Italy to set up home in Florence.

Brunelleschi’s Dome rising above the city

It’s hard to describe this wonderful book because it encompasses so much, it’s about the minutia of life in all its detail. The dialogue is casual, idiomatic and easy to follow (despite the modern trend for not using speech marks) and often hilariously funny.

But although it is about the detail of everyday life, it is set against a cultural backdrop of music, cinema and theatre as well as momentous events of the era, the end of the war, the coronation of a new queen, and the 1966 flood in Florence that destroyed lives, books and works of art. But daily life for our characters still goes on regardless.

“Dante Alighieri. You’ll meet him in Florence, outside Sante Croce. He looks rather grumpy. Give him my best though” Evelyn Skinner

In the words of Evelyn Skinner

“Beautiful art opens our eyes to the beauty of the world Ulysses; it repositions our sight and judgement.”

Art elevates the ordinary into something extraordinary and that is exactly what this book does. It is wonderful story telling, full of unforgettable quirky, eccentric, yet flawed characters that you grow to love because in its heart this is what this book is… a love story that shows how the ordinary can be extraordinary. It is a celebration of love in all its forms written in beautiful tender prose, with bursts of humour that made me laugh aloud yet with passages of sadness and grief that made me cry too.

The Ponte Vecchio from the Ponte Santa Trinita

When I first read Still Life I knew I wanted to return to Florence, a city I have visited a few times but only on day trips as part of holidays in rural Tuscany. The idea of being able to explore the city at our leisure over several days started to take hold and earlier this year I planned a detailed itinerary involving travel by train over two days, starting in London via Paris with an overnight stop in Turin, followed by five nights in Florence and reversing the journey on the way home. My plan was to reread Still Life as we travelled.

Basilica Santa Maria del Fiori - the Duomo

Then four days before our departure I received an email to say our train from Paris to Turin was cancelled due to rain and landslides in Northern Italy. I spent a frantic morning exploring various options but there was no way we could travel over land and make our connections so reluctantly (but also fortunately) I found last minute flights from London to Turin. Looking on the bright side, it meant we had a whole extra eight hours to spend in Turin, a city we hadn’t visited before. Then the day before we left my 90-year-old mother-in-law was taken into hospital for an emergency operation for a broken hip. We arrived in Turin to the news that it was unlikely she would survive the anaesthetic. Needless to say, it was an anxious day awaiting a phone call rather than one of leisurely sightseeing. Despite not being religious we lit candles in Turin cathedral, said a silent prayer and hoped for the best. Someone was listening because at 6pm we got the call that she had come through her operation and was sleeping in the recovery ward. (She is now back at her home and doing well.) We shared a bottle of wine that evening and finally looked forward in anticipation to the rest of our trip.

The next morning, we were on a train from Turin to Florence and I immersed myself back into Still Life, which I enjoyed even more on a second reading. For the next five days we walked miles, visited palaces, saw incredible art and amazing churches, marvelled at Brunelleschi’s dome, we ate pasta and drank chianti and all the time I recalled passages and descriptions from the book.

The original Davide by Michelangelo in the Galleria dell’Accademia

If there was one downside to the whole trip it was the crowds. There seemed to be twice the number of tourists than when we were last there about eight years ago. There wasn’t a hope of seeing any of the major tourist attractions without booking tickets, but it wasn’t really a problem as we had booked for what we wanted to see.

Inside the Basilica Santa Maria Novella

Venturing south of the Arno, the streets were quieter and we found ourselves in the tree lined Piazza Santo Spirito, with its stone benches, fountain and the statue of Cosimo Ridolfi, all dominated at the far end by the magnificent church exactly as experienced by the characters in Still Life. We sat and lingered over aperitivi enjoying our good fortune.

Piazza Santo Spirito

On our final day we escaped the heat and crowds of the city and took a bus up to the hilltop settlement of Fiesole, with views of rolling hills and cypress trees. We sat in the piazza and drank a cold beer while we spoke of our plans to return, because that is how Florence captures your heart.

The view from Fiesole

And if you’ve not read Still Life yet then I can whole heartedly recommend you grab yourself a copy because it’s one of the loveliest life affirming stories you will ever read. You’ll thank me!

I will be back with more tales from Italy in coming weeks but meanwhile don’t forget that I have 20% all my online courses for the remainder of this month if you enter BACKTOSCHOOL at the checkout. Click the link below or see my last post for details