Among the most popular English-language travel books of the past decade are Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence and Toujours Provence. Published in 1989 and 1992 respectively, these books describe the life that Mayle and his wife construct for themselves in the Provence countryside after they decide to leave their home in England and buy a centuries-old farmhouse in the Luberon area of France. Mayle's books are rather unusual in the travel genre in that they focus on what the author views as a permanent move to a foreign country; they are not books that recount a "there and back again" journey, but instead a citizenship shift from one nation and lifestyle to another nation and lifestyle.
More recently have come two books by American writers that follow a vein similar to the one that Mayle struck: At Home in France by Ann Barry (1996), and Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes (1996). Like Mayle, Barry and Mayes concentrate in their writing on obtaining a house in a foreign country and fashioning a home there; unlike Mayle, these women maintain jobs and living accommodations in their native country and stay in their "continental" home during vacations. Barry and Mayes present their houses in France and Italy as spiritual homes to which both long to return.
Mayle, Barry, and Mayes all write at length about the frustrations of speaking in a language which is not their own, of the sensuous delights of European cookery, of the exasperating qualities of old homes that constantly demand repair, and of the occasionally wayward personalities of those hired to make these repairs. Barry and Mayes go beyond these rather obvious topics, however, to explore more complicated issues related to living abroad.
The most compelling element in Barry's book is the current of loneliness that runs just below its surface. A single, middle-aged woman, Barry observes her French neighbors with a mixture of admiration and wariness; she yearns for their acceptance and friendship, yet seems fearful of asking too much of them and risking a rebuff. She loves her house, her neighbors, and her neighborhood so ardently that she can't allow herself to believe that she might belong among them, even for short intervals, and she can't bring herself to test the objects of her love to see if her feelings are requited.
Mayes, who describes herself as "a fallen-away Methodist, then a fallen-away Episcopalian" (260-61), surprises herself by the depth of her feeling for the Catholic Church in Italy. She seeks out cathedrals, churches, relics, and tombs, exploring the Tuscany countryside and her newfound fascination with religion simultaneously.
In my paper I will consider the ways in which owning and living in a home abroad prompt Barry and Mayes to feel emotions and examine spiritual issues that are unavailable to them in the U.S.
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