CBR18 BINGO: Craft (Coco makes her own olive oil. Estelle makes her own wine. People in Italy make things.)
My final BINGO of CBR18: Left, Sheep, You, Craft, Repair
I was so smitten by Andrew Sean Greer’s comic novels Less and Less is Lost that I was utterly elated when I saw Greer had released a new novel. The bright cover and jacket description of “our young man” who goes to Italy to catalog artwork at a country estate promised me this would be another lighthearted yet poignant charmer. After putting a hold on Villa Coco at my library twice (because I was on vacation the first time it came in), I finally got my greedy little hands on it.
Our young man, who is known as Giovedì through most of the novel, majored in Archives and Records Management and just eked out the grades he needed to graduate. He also just ended a relationship that climaxed with him being handcuffed to a radiator, so he’s looking for a way to get his life back on track. At his advisor’s suggestion, he answers an advertisement for an “adjutant” at a Tuscany estate. Upon arrival, he meets the eccentric Baronessa (Coco to her friends) and accompanying cast of quirky characters. The house is a mess, and every time Giovedì starts to dig in and begin cataloging the Baronessa’s valuable collection, she finds a reason to whisk him away on another mini adventure. Although he’s sworn off love during his stay in Italy, he becomes involved with the Baronessa’s young cousin Giacomo.
Page one of Villa Coco delivers Greer’s trademark cleverness when he describes the young man as arriving at the Tuscan station “overburdened with books, luggage, gin, fish oil, and doubt.” Giovedì’s logical mindset (he’s a librarian, folks) constantly clashes with the chaos of the estate and the whimsical approach to life that the Baronessa and her friends espouse, which is the source of most of the novel’s humor. At times, this book feels like Driving Miss Daisy with an eccentric Italian woman and a young gay man filling in for Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman, though there is certainly more to it than that, which becomes apparent as the novel progresses. The problem is Villa Coco never achieves the level of charm that I had hoped for, or that I’ve come to expect from Greer. My biggest issue is that I never fell in love with Coco the way the author wants me to. She is the free-spirited contrast to Giovedì’s orderly mentality (although, really, he’s having an affair with a married, closeted gay man, so he’s not exactly a prude). But Coco is also a master manipulator; much is made of Giovedì’s youth, but he’s an adult with autonomy, and I disliked the way the “baronessa” pulled at his strings. We’re supposed to recognize that her manipulations are good for him in the end, but it left me with a sour taste.
Perhaps we are supposed to see Giovedì as a young Arthur Less; he may very well be. But while many readers are finding Villa Coco delightful, it mostly left me yearning for the next installment in Less’s travels. . . Less Down Under, perhaps?
