The Garden of The Villa Mollini

by Rose Tremain

A stunning collection of stories: wide-reaching in subject and setting, each beautifully evoked and brilliantly imagined.

Renowned opera singer Antonio Mollini begins construction on what he hopes will be the most beautiful garden in Italy, unaware that its development will have tragic consequence for both him, and his series of lovers. Elsewhere, a farmer's son has high hopes for his inheritance, a young girl dreams of following in the footsteps of a famous arsonist, and the pressure of the annual Gardening Cup exerts a heavy toll on seventeen-year-old Dougie.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2003

About the author

Dame Rose Tremain is an acclaimed English novelist and short story writer, celebrated for her distinctive approach to historical fiction and her focus on characters who exist on the margins of society. Educated at the Sorbonne and the University of East Anglia, where she later taught creative writing and served as Chancellor, Tremain has produced a rich body of work spanning novels, short stories, plays, and memoir. Influenced by writers such as William Golding and Gabriel García Márquez, her narratives often blend psychological depth with lyrical prose.
Among her many honors, she has received the Whitbread Award for Music and Silence, the Orange Prize for The Road Home, and the National Jewish Book Award for The Gustav Sonata. She was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Restoration and has been recognized multiple times by the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. In 2020, she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her services to literature. Tremain lives in Norfolk and continues to write, with her recent novel Absolutely and Forever shortlisted for the 2024 Walter Scott Prize.

Reviews

[Emmapettitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

An easy read but not superficial.

[Rosemary · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Rose Tremain’s novels, but this collection of short stories didn’t quite live up to my expectations. They only seemed to scratch the surface of their characters, and I don’t think I will remember many of them.

I wonder if she was going through a bad time when she wrote them, because a lot of them seem focused on loss and decay – the owners of a house destroy more and more of the local population’s land and amenities to prettify their garden, a man revisits his childhood home to find it’s no longer standing, an elderly poet suffers the loss of fame and respect… generally, they are not happy stories.

[Kiki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall (considering the high expectations I have knowing what a talented and versatile writer Rose Tremain is) "The Garden of the Villa Mollini" was largely an unremarkable collection of short stories and none of them were particularly memorable. But if I were forced to pick a couple of stories that stood out in some way then, in addition to the title story, I enjoyed "Wildtrack". A slightly disturbing story was "The Kite Flyer". And probably the most touching story, which also was the shortest, was "The Bellows of the Fire"

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately I found most of these stories just... boring. They didn't hold my attention at all, and some of them were a struggle to get through.
That being said, I did like 'La Plume de Mon Ami'.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of short stories was written more than twenty years ago. Each is an exquisite gem. Tremain’s characters are usually very ordinary. They remind me of Brookner’s characters who somehow never escape their lonely limitations but in Tremain’s stories they glow (or sometimes explode into destruction). Small acts and experiences become very significant.

My favourites were Wildtrack and The Kite Flyer. In Wildtrack the character Mickey Stone finds and records sounds for radio plays. His long held dream of recording the voice of the girl on whom he had a crush as a boy unexpectedly becomes possible. The Kite Flyer is a stunning analysis of a marriage where Olivia has always taken comfortable second place to her vicar husband and his God. Her discovery of the history of a local woman martyr leads her to a new sense of purpose but her husband becomes jealous, depressed and murderous.

[Russ Webster]

I thought Rose Tremain was first class until I read the title story. It reads very badly, but the other stories are, for the most part excellent.I particularly liked
The Kite Flyer, which is wistful and thought provoking about the nature of what we can worship, and then when things go wrong, end up doing. It is a surprise ending and a strong story. I liked the european setting of La plume de mon ami, and she can infer a lot sometimes quite subtly.
She is very good on abroad. Wildtrack is interesting about the nature of our aural faculty and touches on disability,
and how it can be overcome. All her stories, usually,touch on that hidden realm she magically captures. She can transmogfify the most mundane affair into something special.

[Ruth Brumby · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven't found that these stories have stayed in my mind and the metaphors didn't resonate for me. I enjoyed reading them, but they weren't as powerful as I expected. The prose was enjoyable, the construction was good, but I felt they lacked some sense of humanity or depth. I think perhaps I should re-read them.

Rereading in 2021, I didn't recognise that I had read them before! However I admired them more, particularly the variety of form in the stories and the characters.

[Dottie · Rating 4 out of 5]

From my first encounter with Tremain, it became clear she was to be one of my authors and that whenever there was a "what shall I read? moment" I could rely upon on one of her books to come to hand and fill that moment with a wonderful reading experience. These stories did no less than her novels in that regard.

[Wayne]

The first review says the title story wasn't up to scratch...

( WHEREAS I enjoyed it immensely...opera, gardens, 19th Century Italy,
Italians being passionate, a good flow...WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE????? )

...but they enjoyed the rest.

You can see what's going to happen here, can't you !!!!
But I will continue to venture on and on.

[Lizzie Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore Rose Tremain and this is my very favourite collection of short stores EVER!! Brilliant reading.

[Simon Slidders · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprisingly a few of these stories had an air of menace and Dahlesque quality about them, which I had not expected from her novels. I enjoyed the writing but think I will stick to the novels.

[Annie Holmes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I relish and admire her stories, language, imagination. The many worlds she can conjure.