Still Life

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-2

Chapters 3-4

Chapters 5-6

Chapters 7-8

Chapter 9

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Book Club Questions

Chapters 7-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 7 Summary: “Mud Angels (1966-1967)”

Florence is hit hard by rainy season, and the river Arno overruns its banks and floods the entire city. Alys and Cress have driven to Rome, and Ulysses finds himself alone with the pensione for the first time. The cellars in his house flood, and in trying to fix the problem, Ulysses feels an urgency akin to his experience during the war. He also tries and fails to save one of his globes. An elderly neighbor, the Contessa, stays in Ulysses’s house when her electricity goes out, and they watch from Ulysses’s upstairs window as items from ground-floor stores and homes pour into the streets. Voices call across the streets, asking after neighbors. Ulysses sends Claude flying across the street with a candle in his beak to deliver to a neighbor in need.

The next morning, the waters recede, leaving behind a thick layer of odorous mud. Cars are overturned, and storefronts are destroyed. People in the street are shocked and declare that the damage from the flooding is worse than the war. Ulysses’s globe workshop is completely destroyed.

News of the river Arno’s flood and the destruction of roads, stores, and artwork reaches the world. Des, the wealthy first patron of Ulysses’s pensione, hears the news and decides to drive himself and Pete to Florence to help. Evelyn’s former student Jem, now studying to become a doctor, takes a train to Florence to help save the artworks. Young volunteers from all over come to Florence to help clean up and rebuild. Ulysses gets a telegram from Alys that the flooding forced them to stay in Rome, but that they will try to come home soon.

When Alys returns to Florence, she waits at the train station for the many young people coming in to help. She greets a young man, Jem, who needs a place to stay. Everyone participates in saving artwork from the waters and scraping mud from the streets. Des and Pete arrive, and Pete declares his intentions not to return to England. He plays a song on the piano called “Angeli del Fango” (“Mud Angels”). Jem recites a poem he learned through Evelyn, and Cress, Alys, and Ulysses are stunned by the connection.

Meanwhile, in England, Evelyn nurses her ankle after slipping in the pond. She’s devastated to hear the news about Florence and of the artworks that are unsalvageable. In the newspaper, she sees a photograph of Ulysses aiding in the clean-up and instantly recognizes him. She and Dotty head to Florence, where they spend days showing people Ulysses’s picture, hoping someone will know him. Finally, someone recognizes the background of the photograph and sends them to the right neighborhood. There, Evelyn is reunited with Ulysses after 22 years. Evelyn and Dotty stay through Christmas, happy to help with the restorations and spend time with Ulysses and his family.

A year after the flood, the extent of the toll is finally made clear: “[T]hirty-three people had lost their lives, fifty thousand families their homes, fifteen thousand cars had been destroyed, six thousand businesses lost, and the mighty shift of the working artisanal class had begun” (341). The devastation sparks social change, and age-old institutions are challenged by the newly forming culture.

Chapter 8 Summary: “I Do Love Nothing in the World as Well as You (1968-1979”

In 1968, Pete starts working as a pianist in Michele’s café. Massimo and Jem have started a relationship, and Alys starts apprenticing with Ulysses to learn how to make globes. Meanwhile, in England, Ted gets a mistress, and Peggy learns to drive. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated, the whole world, including Cress, mourns. Evelyn decides to move to Florence without Dotty, who finds a new girlfriend, but Evelyn and Dotty remain friends. At 87 years old, Evelyn starts yet another new chapter of her life.

Evelyn develops deep, meaningful friendships with Pete and Cress. Meanwhile, the first photograph of planet Earth is taken from space, filling people with awe. They all hope for a better world in 1969: When Neil Armstrong lands on the moon, people celebrate.

At the start of the New Year, Peggy gets in a terrible car accident. Col is her emergency contact, so he is the first to arrive at the hospital. When Ted arrives, Col feels more resentful toward him than ever. When Peggy is ready to be released from the hospital, Col brings her back to the apartment over his pub. He decides to take Peggy to Italy to get her away from Ted, and Mrs. Kaur agrees to watch over the pub. Peggy’s injuries have depleted her further; she feels she has lost her looks and has no other redeemable qualities. She’s depressed and thinks of the past. In Florence, Ulysses and the others try to comfort her. Eventually, Col returns to England, having developed feelings for Mrs. Kaur.

Rapid changes are happening for the novel’s characters. Alys and Peggy grow closer, as Peggy admires Alys’s work on one of her globes. It portrays stories “of forgotten women who once may have wanted so much more” (361). Col asks Mrs. Kaur, a widow and a maternal figure to Ginny, out on a date. Cress gives Peggy a book of poetry, which intimidates her as it once did Cress. One morning, Ulysses wakes up to a peaceful, slumbering house, but Cress’s absence alarms him. He and Claude go out looking for Cress. To their horror, they find him dead by a church. Claude lays over Cress and his breathing becomes shorter. Ulysses sees that Claude wants to die with Cress. Claude says to Ulysses “And I do love nothing in the world…so well…as you” (366). Pete finds Ulysses mourning over both Claude and Cress. Cress’s chosen family goes for a hike, and they spread his ashes in nature so he can grow into a tree.

In the beginning years of the 1970s, Italy faces more protests and politically motivated bombings and assassinations. Peggy divorces Ted and starts performing with Pete, kicking off her singing career. Pete is cast for a small role in a Fellini film. Massimo’s mother dies, and he moves into Ulysses’s pensione. In London, Col chains himself to Cress’s beloved cherry blossom tree to save it from being removed. Pete and Alys attend an abortion rights demonstration, where they witness a vespa crash into a living statue. When they rush to help the fallen performer, they are startled to discover that it’s Romy. Romy falls in love with Alys, and they restart their teenage romance.

Peggy finally gets news about Eddie one night when she performs in a club with Pete. An American man named Glen, who knew them both during the war, assures Peggy that Eddie had meant to divorce his wife and marry Peggy, but Eddie died in the war six months after leaving London. Peggy gives Glen a photograph of Alys to show Eddie’s family. A year later, Peggy and Glen fall in love.

In 1978, abortion becomes legal in Italy, and the same year, Col’s bar is demolished. Col buys a new one, and the Kaur’s and Ginny help him to get it up and running. Glen proposes to Peggy, but she doesn’t want to leave Alys again, now that they’ve spent years developing a better relationship.

In 1979, Evelyn turns 99. Dotty and her girlfriend, Penelope, come to Florence to visit Evelyn. The family of the pensione has a celebration for Evelyn.

Chapters 7-8 Analysis

Chapter 7, “Mud Angels,” is an important homage to the historical 1966 flood of the Arno. An estimated 100 people died while thousands were displaced from their homes. Storefronts were destroyed, and millions of masterpieces and books were ruined. The loss of art and life was traumatic for Florentines. It was an especially tragic event because Florence is not a city that generally needs to worry about flooding; unprecedented rain combined with poor infrastructure led to an event that made the city reevaluate its future direction. In the novel, characters experiencing the flood and its aftermath compare it to the war in terms of its devastation. Moreover, because Florence is not a flood-watch city, Italy was unprepared to give them the aid they needed.

The title “Mud Angels” refers to the hundreds of people, mostly university students, who arrived in Florence to help with cleaning and restoration. Florence is a world center for art; all Italians, even those who are not from Florence, take pride in Florence. Florence and its artwork are a bastion of Italian culture. The Mud Angels and the aid they provided proved that Italians can and will come together in times of need, especially to protect their priceless art: In Italy, art is culture, nation, and identity.

The flooding of the Arno is another example of the theme of The Co-Existence of Beauty and Ugliness. The irony in this event is that out of something awful comes something beautiful. The flooding of the Arno brings Ulysses and Evelyn back together: Without the flood, there wouldn’t have been a photograph of Ulysses in the newspaper, and perhaps Evelyn and Ulysses would never have found one another again.

Several other important historical events appear in this section: In 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a major civil rights activist in the United States, was assassinated in Memphis. His death shocked the world, but it made people pay closer attention to the racism and segregation not just in the United States, but in other nations as well. The 1969 moon landing marked a seminal event in the Cold War and in world history.

The 1960s and the 1970s were a turbulent political time for Italy. Italians found themselves torn between old religious values and the progress of the new decades. Italians battled on sectarian lines based on capitalism and Marxism, which escalated tensions that had existed since the war. Italy never resolved these tensions, especially because they lost the war and had to rebuild through that loss. Now, decades later, the ripple effect of political and social differences escalated into protests, riots, and assassinations. This historical background is important to Still Life because it demonstrates that even when an individual finds security, as Ulysses has in his pensione, life is full of large-scale struggles.

In 1972, American astronaut Harrison Schmitt took the first photograph of planet Earth from space. This photograph was immensely significant: Seeing the Earth from space gave people around the world the opportunity to think about our shared humanity from a perspective they had never seen before. It highlighted how small human life is in the grand scheme of the universe and showed the darkness of the space that surrounds Earth. This darkness metaphorically parallels the existential journey of a human being: In this novel, every character experiences highs and lows, darkness and light, happiness and sadness. The interplay between these opposites is what makes life rich.

A significant example of this is Peggy’s accident. While she could have died, it prompted a series of decisions that changed her life. Similarly, the grief of Cress’s death leads to something beautiful. His loved ones sprinkle his ashes in nature so that he can become a tree, a symbol of new beginnings. Yet another change occurs between Alys and Romy, as they find each other again and restart their relationship.

The biggest character resolution is that of Evelyn. Evelyn and Ulysses reunite and live together for the rest of Evelyn’s life. There is a kinship between them that surpasses friendship; they are soulmates. At the end of Chapter 8, Evelyn celebrates her 99th birthday. Surrounded by loved ones in the city that marks her first and long-standing love, Evelyn is happy. She has seen many things, experienced many important historical moments, and has loved and been loved. Celebrating her a year before her centennial emphasizes the longevity of life, the beautiful possibilities and coincidences of life, and the joys of being able to choose your family and life.