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| the list reviews non-fiction books to love films comics Constance Fenimore Woolson and Henry James in Venice The Garden of Eden Doors and windows Venice & Cats Vivaldi and my trips in 2002 2005 2006 2007(1) 2007(2) |
The essence of fictional Venice is dampness, shadows, death and decay. Characters in novels set in Venice often go there to die, by design or by chance. So picturesque funerals with hearseboats are far from unusual. Deception and the not-what-they-seemness of things is another not uncommon theme for stories set a city famous for its Carnevale and masked intrigue. Donna Leon is the Magdalen Nabb of Venice - writing fine crime novels about a domesticated detective. Casanova is a popular subject, as the foremost native exponent of Venice's other famous activity - the pursuit of pleasure. The city's famous learned courtesans once attracted as many visitors as its leaning buildings. Antonio Vivaldi is another of Venice's famous sons and 2007/8 gave us two novels and two plays, all concerned with the women in his life and those he taught at the Pieta.  |
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A-D Aarons, Edward S. Assignment: The Girl in the Gondola 1969 Adelson, Dorothy Cupid In Venice 1955 Adler, Elizabeth Meet Me in Venice 3.2008 Aldington, Richard The romance of Casanova 1947 Alison, Jane The Marriage of the Sea Allen, Michael Mr Fenman's Farewell to His Readers Andahazi, Federico The Anatomist Andersch, Alfred Red-head 1961 Appiah, Anthony Another death in Venice 1995 crime Appleby John Venice preserve me 1954 Ballia, Mimma Ruskin's Rose: A Venetian Love Story Balzac, Honoré de Massimilla Doni Baron, Alexander Strip jack naked 1966 Beamish, Noel de Vic Venetian lady Beaufort, Roxane Stranger in Venice Beaussant, Phillipe Rendezvous in Venice Begley, Louis Mistler's Exit Benzoni, Juliette Marianne and the rebels Berto, Giuseppe. Anonymous Venetian Bowen, John The Birdcage Bowes, Florence Interlude in Venice Bradford, Barbara Taylor A secret affair Brent, Madeleine. Tregaron's daughter Britt, Katrina Strange bewilderment romance Brodkey, Harold Profane friendship Brophy, Brigid King of a rainy country Brophy, Grace A deadly paradise Calvino, Italo Invisible cities Campbell, David Venetian holiday Canning, Victor Venetian bird Carroll, Stephen Venetian cousins Carroll, Steven Twilight in Venice 4.2008 Carson, Anthony Any more for the gondola? 1950 Cartland, Barbara Golden gondola Chase, James Hadley See Venice and die Cleveland, David Adams With a gem-like flame a novel of Venice and a lost masterpiece Collins, Wilkie The haunted hotel Cooper, James Fenimore The bravo download Coover, Robert Pinocchio in Venice Corona, Laurel The Four Seasons: A novel of Vivaldi's Venice 11.2008 Cowan, James A Mapmaker's dream Coxhead, Nona Passionate search 1983 Crawford, F. Marion Marietta: a maid of Venice de Blasi, Marlena A thousand days in Venice de Facci, Liane Venetian years 1961 De Guise, Elizabeth Bridge of sighs 1992 Delalande, Arnaud The Dante trap 2007 Dessaix, Robert Night letters Dibdin, Michael Dead lagoon Dingwell, Joyce Venice affair romance Drake, Shannon Deep midnight DuMaurier, Daphne Don't look now Dunant, Sarah In the Company of the Courtesan |
 E-H Ehrlich, Max Reincarnation in Venice Elegant, Robert Bianca Eves, Douglas Jane 1984 Eyre, Annette Venetian inheritance Eyre, Elizabeth Dirge for a Doge Ferrand, Georgina Assignment in Venice House of glass Fleming, Caroline Dark Venetian Fleming, Ian Risico (in For your eyes only) Funke, Cornelia The Thief Lord Furness, A Some day I'll find you Gash, Jonathan The gondola scam Geddes, D. Grant Artifact: a Peter Grant mystery Gibbs, Mary Ann Most romantic city 1977 Gielgud, Val In such a night... Girardi, Robert Vaporetto 13 Godden, Rumer Pippa passes Goldman, William (as S. Morgenstern) The silent gondoliers Grant Geddes, D. Artifact: a Peter Grant mystery Grenville, Hilary Appointment in Venice Grey, Shirley Month with Cousin Garnet 1975 Griffin, Nicholas The Masquerade Griffiths, Paul Myself and Marco Polo Guinness, Bryan A fugue of Cinderellas 1956 Habe, Hans Palazzo Hammond, J. Silver Madonna Harcourt-Smith, S. Heart of a rose Harris, M. Pandora's gallery Hartley, L.P. Eustace and Hilda Simonetta Perkins White wand, and other stories Hayes, Karen A patch of green water Haythe, Justin The honeymoon Healey, Ben Last ferry from the Lido Stone baby The Vespucci papers Hemingway, Ernest Across the river and into the trees Henty, G. A The Lion of St. Mark: A tale of Venice in the 14th Century Hewson, David Lucifer's shadow The lizard's bite Highsmith, Patricia Those who walk away The rat of Venice (in The Animal-Lover's Book of Beastly Murder) Hill, Susan The man in the picture 2007 Hodge, Jane Aiken One way to Venice Hoffman, E.T.A. Doge and Dogaressa (in Tales of Hoffman) Hoffman, Mary Stravaganza - City of Masks Holme, Timothy Devil and the dolce vita Funeral of gondolas Gondola Gondolier Hunt, Dorothy Ashes of achievement 1959 |
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I-L Inchbald, Peter Short break in Venice Jacobs, T.C.H. Secret power Jaffe, Michele The Stargazer Jakeman, Jane In the city of dark waters James, Henry Travelling companions (short story) The Aspern papers (short story) download The wings of the dove The pupil (short story) read/download Jones, Belinda The love academy 2007 Jong, Erica Serenissima Shylock's Daughter: A novel of love in Venice Kanon, Joseph Alibi Keates, Jonathan Allegro postillions Keene, Carolyn Nancy Drew 72: The Phantom of Venice King-Hall, M. Meeting in Venice Kininmonth, C. Maze Kitchen, P. Blue shoe Lackey, Mercedes, et al The Shadow of the Lion Laker, Rosalind The Venetian mask Lamb, Charlotte Deep and silent waters Langton, Jane The Thief of Venice Lee, Tanith Faces Under Water Saint Fire A Bed of Earth Venus preserved Leon, Donna Death at La Fenice Death in a strange country 1993 A Venetian reckoning (aka Death and judgment) An anonymous Venetian (aka Dressed for death) Acqua Alta (aka Death in high water) The death of faith (aka Quietly in their sleep) 1997 (Strange that the American titles seemed to have been changed to include the word death, until one came along with death already in it!) A noble radiance 1998 Fatal remedies 1999 Friends in high places 2000 A sea of troubles 2001 Wilful behaviour 2002 Uniform justice 2003 Doctored evidence 2004 Blood from a stone 2005 Through a glass darkly 2006 Suffer the little children 2007 The girl of his dreams 5.2008 Leviant, Curt Partita in Venice Lewis, Matthew G. The Bravo of Venice Lewitt, Shariann Interface masque Lindsay, R. Affair in Venice Lovric, Michelle Carnevale Virago 2001 The floating book Virago 2003 The remedy Virago 2005 Low, O. Murky shadows |
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M-R MacInnes, H. Venetian affair MacCauley, Kay The Man Who Was Loved McCutcheon, H. Comes the blind fury McEwan, Ian The comfort of strangers Magrs, Paul Doctor Who - The Stones of Venice Mann, Thomas Death in Venice Mantle, Jon Arkin, or life in Venice Marchant, W. Gondolier Marshall, R. Mission to Venice Martines, Lauro Loredana: a Venetian tale Mather, A. Prelude to enchantment Maybury, A. Ride a white dolphin Meyer, Kai The flowing queen Mordden, Ethan The Venice Adriana Murphy, Haughton A very Venetian murder Murray, F. Heroine's sister Napoli, Donna Jo Stones in water For the love of Venice Daughter of Venice Walker 2003 Nelson, Karen Tea and tiramisu Ongaro, A. Excelsior Palandri, E Ages apart Pargeter, E. Holiday with violence Pasinetti, P.M. Venetian red Pears, Iain The Titian Committee Pemberton, Max Beatrice of Venice Pendower, J. Trap for fools Phillips, Christi The Rossetti letter Pincher, Chapman The four horses Pozzessere, Heather Graham The Di Medici Bride Powell, Anthony Temporary kings Prada, Juan Manuel de The Tempest Pressler, Mirjam Shylock's daughter Printer, Amanda The Cabalistic Prissily, H. Venetian love song Proust, Marcel In search of lost time Purves, Libby More lives than one Quackenbush, Robert Gondola to danger Quick, Barbara Vivaldi's virgins 2007 Quinn, Thomas The Lion of St Mark The Sword of Venice 1.2008 Raven, J. Venice ultimatum Raven, S. Survivors Rhodes, A. Ball in Venice Ricketts, R. Henry's wife Ringo, James Uncle Theodor Rivière, William A Venetian theory of heaven By the Grand Canal Roberts, C. Guests arrive Robertson, C. Venetian mask Rolfe, Frederick The desire and pursuit of the whole Three tales of Venice Romijn, André Hidden harmonies: the Secret Life of Antonio Vivaldi Rowan, H. Overture in Venice Rudorff, Raymond The Venice plot Runcie, James The colour of heaven Rylands, Jane Turner Venetian stories 2003 Across the Bridge of Sighs 2005 |
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Michael Allen Mr Fenman's Farewell to His Readers If I start by stating that this is literary fiction I don't mean that it might win the Booker Prize, but that it's a story that's all about writing. It tells of a popular, but not literary, author's formative trip to Venice in 1786. He meets a French woman who is, of course, mysterious and who becomes his muse and lover. She guides his hand, in much detail, in the construction of his first novel and another part of his anatomy...but here there's much less detail. Then she disappears. The style is very much no problem and the detail convincing, although Venice is there in our minds rather than in the author's descriptions. I enjoyed the book a lot, but the plot left me feeling a bit disappointed in it's lack, for me, of resolution. But you don't have to rely on my opinion because even if you don't want to buy this in paperback from www.lulu.com you can get it as a free PDF download from Kingsfield Publications and make up your own mind. There's also an online 'review' which conjects about the nature of the 'truth' of the existence of Mr Fenman. Federico Andahazi The anatomist Renaissance physician Mateo Colombo is looking for the way to a woman's heart, and discovers the clitoris. He is branded as a heretic and charged with witchcraft. He looks back on the inspiration for his quest, and the course of his experimentation from his pre-trial confinement. His progress and its relation to the contemporary attitudes towards women, make fascinating reading and, although not described much, Venice makes an appropriate backdrop. It's the wicked libertine version of Venice this time, complete with decadent parties with the men in fashionably transparent hose showing off their genitalia, with ribbons and bells attached. The arrival of the object of our hero's obsession sets up a fair old tinkling. Federico Andahazi also wrote The Merciful Women  Mima Balia Ruskin's rose - A Venetian love story This book is a plush but thin thing, with well spaced text, telling of John Ruskin's famous late-in-life infatuation with young Rose La Touche, and suggests that he found solace from the relationship's non-consummation, and her death, in the paintings of Carpaccio. In particular the St Ursula paintings, which tell the story of a doomed virgin, you see. (The really interesting fact about St U, though, is that the story of her taking 11 thousand virgins on a trip to be slaughtered is the result of the misreading of a letter - the copyist interpreted the M in ' 11M' as a Roman numeral and not just standing for 'martyrs', as seems much more likely.) It's a pretty theory, and a pretty book, but the prose is a little purple in places, and you'll read it in no time. The wonderful St Ursula paintings are even reproduced in here, to pad the slim volume out a bit.
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 Honoré de Balzac Massimilla Doni This is a slim volume, currently only immediately available, via the Book Depository, from the Dodo Press, who print up copies of rare books as they're ordered, it seems. It's the story of love in Venice, involving a Duchess, her lover, her husband The Duke and his protégé the opera singer, who has a night of passion with the Duchess's lover, who is then riven with guilt, etc. The style is considerably more florid than I remember from past Balzacs, being lustrous in style to the verge of the Gothic. But it's all still pretty enjoyable and very Venetian, with much talk of the state of the country, and music - boy, is there talk of music! A quarter off the book is taken up with the Duchess talking a French visitor through a Rossini opera, and it's all very skippable, for me anyway, but at least it chimes with the novel's overall key theme of transcendence, be it in love, music, or opium. A treat for fans of Italian opera and Rossini but slim pickings for the rest of us. Louis Begley Mistler's exit In which a rich man diagnosed with soon-terminal cancer goes (surprise, surprise) to Venice and has sex with a pushy and randy female photographer and a woman he fancied at college. Pardon my terse précis but the gushing reviews plastered on this one made me expect much more than I got. The comparisons to Henry James I put down to the Venice setting and the long sentences. The comparisons to Proust can only be put down to drugs or madness. The first half contains some truly tedious stuff dealing with the finer points of squeezing as much cash as you can out of a company which is buying your company. (Now you never know when that knowledge is going to come in handy do you?) I expected this soulless tedium to serve as some contrast with the man of depth and feeling he becomes, but nothing so obvious or inspiring transpires. He stays a prick despite wandering around some fine Venetian art, locales and canales. It may be an American thing, because as a Brit I find a character who we're supposed to admire because he made lots of money rather hard to take. He agonises a bit over the choices he's made and the things he's done to people but truly regrets not a jot. Didn't like him, didn't like the book. Joseph Brodsky Watermark In which the Nobel Prize-winning poet tells us of his love for Venice in winter and makes obvious the depth of this love. The forty-eight short chapters tell stories, describe places and remember feelings. This is more biography than fiction , I think, but the life takes second place to the place. There's much evocative description and some memorable images in this short book. My favourite is the bit about the Venetian winter fogs, which are so thick that if you do pop out to shop you can find your way back through the tunnel your body carved through the fog on the way out. A more accessible and straight-forwardly Venetian alternative to the Calvino below. With thanks to kind correspondent Marzena Bomanowska for the recommendation. Grace Brophy A deadly paradise A reviewer on the cover compares Grace Brophy to Donna Leon, of course, but it's more interesting to spot the ways in which they differ. Commissario Cenni is not a family man - he's more your troubled and obsessed loner, but he thankfully doesn't write poetry or have a thing for the opera. (He does have a cat though, called Rachel - see left) As a character he'll remind you more of Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen and the story has a more muscular feel and more nastiness and bad people than Donna Leon gives us. The story progresses, revealing the life stories of the characters, good and bad, as Cenni investigates the murder and mutilation of a German woman who had been a diplomat, a blackmailer, bisexual, and nasty piece of work. The Commissario follows the trail of the victim's visitors and lover to Venice, where his own past and demons get a good stirring-up too. The lives and secrets reveal in a smooth, compulsive and faultless fashion and later there's another visit to Venice, and cats prove crucial. I loved this book. |
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Italo
Calvino
Invisible cities
Marco Polo sits on cushions in the Kublai Khan's garden telling the aged Emperor about the cities he has visited, calling upon memory and imagination to dazzle and perplex us with their messages and identities. Each city evokes aspects of Venice without ever having places in them which share either the name or appearance of places in Venice. It is about Venice inasmuch as all the cities described reflect Marco's experience and knowledge of the city of his birth. So, not a book directly about Venice, but a book central to this site's idea of cities as things of the mind and heart, as well as of stone and water. Not an easy read, though. Key words: stilts and elephant David Adams Cleveland With a gem-like flame: a novel of Venice and a lost masterpiece When I tell you that this book revolves around a long-thought-lost Raphael painting, and one man's attempt to buy it and discover its secrets, not necessarily in that order, you'd be forgiven for thinking that you know what you're in for - another art-crime detective novel. But you'd be wrong and, like me, pleasantly surprised. For this book stresses the art above the crime, and is far more about the man on its trail, than the twists in the trail. And the lost Raphael Madonna is so lovingly described you know why he becomes obsessed. And there's a fair bit of raunchy sex, too, with a woman he meets and enlists, and you can see why he'd want her as well. Along with the art and the sex there's Venice, and they eat ice cream - what more can you ask from life? The prose style hits a few purple patches at the start, but soon settles down, with some fine business around our hero's mental state and life view. He's an odd, but believable, cove, who's sensitive to art but a bit of a bastard, and more than somewhat of a cynic. You'll care, I think, and be moved to visit Venice, eat ice cream, and...well, the rest's up to you. Historical note: this novel mentions that the famous and swanky Hotel Bauer Grünwald (now called the Hotel Bauer) was the Nazi's hotel of choice during WWII and that the Gestapo used it for torturing. I assume that this is an historical fact, but the period is skipped over on the hotel's web-page, funnily enough. Follow-up note: It is a fact - I've had an e-mail from David Cleveland himself confirming it.  Wilkie Collins The Haunted Hotel: a mystery of modern Venice One for committed fans of Collins or Venice only methinks. The plot concerns the suspicious death of an English lord who is stolen from under the pre-matrimonial nose of our heroine by a mysterious dark-haired woman (are blonde women never mysterious?) of a certain repute with her 'brother' in tow. They are married and go to live in Venice, where the aforementioned death follows. The tragic palazzo is then turned into a luxurious hotel conveniently part-financed by the lord's brother. Venice is thus an offstage presence until the family goes forth to inspect their investment half way through the book and spooky gruesome stuff ensues. The whole sorry business is revealed when the disreputable woman goes bonkers and, of course, writes a play about all that happened. Convenient. |
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James
Cowan
A Mapmaker's dream: The meditations of Fra Mauro, cartographer to the court of Venice A monk at San Michele di Murano, Fra Mauro is drawing a map of the World. The map is based on the tales told by the many and diverse travellers who come to contribute to his big picture. This is a book of stories and a book of philosophical enquiry. The nature of knowledge and the meaning of maps is discussed, and how both may be more matters of perception than fact. Not a strongly Venetian read to be honest, and a little dry, but interesting in a Sophie's World and Longitude sorta way. Arnaud Delalande The Dante Trap In an almost stupendously lean year so far for fiction set in Venice this one can't fail to stand out and impress, but it would've done this in other years too, I think. OK so it's set in 18th Century Venice and features courtesans, Casanova, political intrigue and masked balls, but our hero's a kind of swashbuckling James Bondish rake, who has to be sprung from jail (leaving his old mate Casanova behind) to solve some gruesome ritualistic murders committed by the Chimera, a shadowy figure who leaves behind quotes from Dante. Our hero is known as The Black Orchid, and was thrown into the cells of the Doge's Palace for loving unwisely. So the author is pleasingly mixing things up a bit, if nothing else. But there is lots else, not the least a fair bit of literary bravado, even if this sometimes tends towards melodrama, and often adds one flourish too many, and the women are sometimes a bit too too gloatingly gorgeous, it's better than the plain and lifeless alternative. And it gives very good Venice, in historical detail, description, and atmosphere. I'm trying not to use the word gothic but this one does supernatural and spooky very effectively, like this year's Florence fiction highlight The Third Heaven Conspiracy. So if the idea of a tastefully overwrought and somewhat gothic supernatural murder procedural with added political intriguing floats your gondola give this one a go. Robert Dessaix Night letters To say that this book is about a man's travels through Northern Italy after being told he has AIDS is to suggest a grim book about death and fate and regret. But no - our hero may find himself in Venice, writing home about his adventures so far, but Venice's reputation as the capital city of decay and death is here underplayed. What we have instead is people and places and stories written about with a sharpness of observation and language suggestive of revelling in, rather than saying goodbye to, life's joys. Casanova and Patricia Highsmith get looks in. It glows, it shines, it makes you glad to be alive, and want to be in Venice. Ian Fleming Risico This is a short story found in For your eyes only and it features Venice only very briefly, with a bare few paragraphs, and one good joke. Then it's off to Alberoni on the Lido which gets the benefit of more plot and description and a leftover land-mine accident. If you've only ever seen Bond films, like me, then this is a good place to sample and start and be surprised at how good a writer Fleming is. |
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David Hewson The lizard's bite The story here begins with murder in a Murano glass foundry, like the last Donna Leon, but this one is very different - it's harsher and more gruesome in its details, in contrast to Ms Leon's recent lack of any real deaths. Other differences include the fact that Hewson's detectives, Nic Costa and Gianni Peroni, are not the charismatic and eccentric characters here, they are his deputies. (Presumably these names were chosen to subliminally suggest the characters when you buy a coffee or a beer.) Also they're helped by their respective girlfriends, who are ex-FBI and a pathologist, and so do not live in a state of domestic bliss. Nic Costa's ex-FBI girlfriend is introduced in a somewhat leeringly sexy way early on, but she soon confounds our doubts at Hewson's sexism by becoming one of the strongest and more well-defined characters. There's art-crime, corruption, and inter-departmental wrangling as we'd expect, all wrapped in an unexpectedly toothsome plot and some good writing. The other books in this series are set in Rome, but here Venice crumbles and shines as you'd expect with the wrought-iron strangeness of the glass-makers' palazzo HQ adding architectural interest. The somewhat convenient random-violence ending of the plot bugged me a bit, but the subsequent winding up of the various emotional turmoils of the main characters was convincing and impressive. Superior stuff. Patricia Highsmith The rat of Venice (in The Animal-Lover's Book of Beastly Murder) A short story about the rats of Venice, and about how one hard-done-by rat exacts his revenge. A nasty tale that doesn't anthropomorphise and so has a ring of truth to life(!) It is nonetheless slight, albeit with a strong smell of Venetian canals to it. Susan Hill The Man in the Picture For quite a while this small book seems as if it's never going to visit Venice, but it does eventually, twice. It's all about a painting of Venice, a scene of the carnival, which acquires the faces of people whose lives it curses. It's a suitably macabre tale, well told but without much of the descriptive detail one might crave, or the gothic excesses one might dread and love guiltily. It's a very readable mix of Henry James with M.R. James which easily holds the attention, but for me it lacked shocks and texture.
Mary Hoffman
Stravaganza - City of Masks
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Henry James
Travelling companions |
Joseph Kanon
Alibi I’ll admit to never having heard of this author before but, what can I say but ‘my mistake’. It’s 1946 and Adam Miller leaves the army and his job tracking down Nazis and goes to stay with his mother newly relocated to Venice. His mother has met someone she wants to marry, it seems, and then Adam meets a Jewish woman at a party who tells a story that makes him violently unwilling to let the marriage go ahead. Venice sparkles as ever, and everyone has their dark secrets and much is not, as you might imagine, what it seems. The period is a fertile setting for those old Venetian themes of death and deception but this novel has ambitions beyond murder-mystery plot twisting and it achieves them, with satisfying amounts of moral ambiguity and believably conflicted characters. The quality of the writing grips you from the off, and Venice is integral and lovingly conjured. The blurb mentions the ‘piazzas and canals of Venice’ even though, as most of us know, there’s only one piazza in Venice. But that’s just the blurb – more puzzling is the novel’s recurrent use of a location near the Accadamia called San Ivo, when it seems to mean San Vio. But I pick nits, and this is one of the best Venetian reads you could hope for – because it’s much more than just a book that happens to be set in Venice: it’s about Venice at a particular point in its history, and how lives were being lost and ruined in ways both particular to the time and horribly familiar and universal. Jane Langton The thief of Venice In which Homer's wife Mary takes centre stage, as she wanders Venice, photographing every corner, and comes under the spell of a handsome murderer, whilst Homer fondles rare books. Another plot strand involving one of Homer's colleagues gets woven in, all towards a satisfyingly exciting denouement. This is still cosy stuff, to be sure, but acquires some quite stirring emotion as Mary confesses to her lapse, and later when some tragic history emerges. But both of the Homer Kelly mysteries I've read (the other is set in Florence) have had our supposed hero sidelined by other characters. Is this what I get for coming to a series late? Shame about the standard of proofreading too - we get Haydn referred to as Hayden, twice! And I can’t believe that someone scientifically testing Venice’s irreplaceable holy relics would be allowed to take them home. Good Venetian atmosphere, though, and the problems of getting around during the acqua alta are well evoked and worked into the plot. Tanith Lee Faces under water This is the first of a series of books set in a fictional city based not-loosely on Venice. The city is called Venus, it's full of canals; it has gondoliers, but they are called wanderliers; and it has a carnival where all must go masked, on pain of death. Making it not the real city means Ms Lee can take liberties - not least with geography and place names - whilst retaining the spirit of the place. And retain it she does, and turns it up a few notches into darker territory and deeds, darker even than are usual for Venetian Gothic fictions. It means that she can also create another island, lost under the sea, with sea-weed draped statues and fish-infested palazzos. The plot plays with not-unusual Venetian themes of deception and masks and magic and death. But it's all cranked up a few notches, as I say, and nasty and sexy. Some good vivid writing, too, if you can forgive occasional bursts of the incomprehensible and the overwrought, which I can when there's as many bits of glowing and sensual writing as you get here. Horrible cover though. |
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Death in a strange country This was only the second of Donna Leon's Venetian murder mysteries, featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti, but it shows all the elements and excellence of the later episodes, pleasing on so many levels. There's the plot, involving a dead American found floating face-down in a canal, loathable industrialists, and official obstruction and corruption making the Commissario's job much harder. We get nearer to a fuller understanding of the hidden power of money and then the Mafia things get genuinely scary. And then there's Ms Leon's fab way with family life, and Guido's believable relationship with his fully-rounded wife and kids. Policemen just don't come more straightforwardly likeable and admirable than Guido Brunetti. The death of faith The iniquities of the Catholic church are explored and exposed, as a visit from a nun who cared for his sick mother puts Commissario Brunetti on the trail of many an unworthy cleric and pious hypocrite. Real people populate Donna Leon's novels and Brunetti and his familiar family and colleagues are here forced to face up to Italy's mother church and it's many failings: priestly proclivities, greed, and Opus Dei amongst others. She just gets better with each one - the bizarre image of the very small man living in a flat full of very large furniture and his collection of very small (snuff) boxes cannot fail but lodge in your mind. A noble radiance The discovery of bones in a field at the foot of the Dolomites starts the Commissario poking his procedural stick into the wasps nest that is the Venetian aristocracy. And, as he opens up an old kidnapping case - that most anti-family of crimes - our hero delves again into matters familial whilst plagued by his aristocratic father-in-law's accusations regarding the state of his own marriage. The incompetent superior and his oily familiar are familiar figures, as is the smart and connected secretary Signorina Elettra. Venice, too, is strongly in place, if never quite fragrantly evoked. Then, towards the end, all sorts of odd stuff emerges and the meaning of the title is clarified. You can rely on Donna. Fatal remedies Brunetti's wife Paola is getting increasingly angry at the reports of sex tours taking men off to places like Thailand to have violent sex with poor children. She decides that action is called for, and that an implicated local travel agent needs his window breaking. After the second such attack Brunetti can't prevent her arrest. As the couple argue over right and wrong, and where the law stands with regard to these concepts, Brunetti's current case takes a tragic turn. This is what we want: sexual politics, discussion of what makes a marriage strong, typical Italian corruption, the typically bad postal service, and all played out against our favourite backdrop, evoked in a low-key, but strongly. Paola is undoubtedly a strong woman: she has her own career and does what she thinks needs to be done, yet strangely she still finds time to cook and wait on Brunetti hand and foot, while he lies around and reads. Now why can't I find a woman like that? Friends in high places Drugs and building regulations figure largely in this one. Brunetti's apartment is found to not officially exist and then the bureaucrat who'd told him of this dies suspiciously, as do some drug addicts. The whole mess is stewed up by the presence of some loathsome loan-sharks, and the descendents of doges, and we're set for more insights into the unchallengeable corruption of the Italian state, set against the backdrop of the city we love, featuring characters we care about. A sea of troubles A fishing boat explodes and sinks out on Pallestrina and two clam fisherman are found dead in the sunken hulk. So begins a case for Brunetti which combines the familiar themes of corruption, bureaucratic blind-eyes, and obstructive witness with new concerns like the confusing strength of his concern for the welfare of Signorina Elettra, the Questore's secretary, who insists on going undercover to help. Although she uses the same characters in each of her novels Ms Leon never exactly covers the same ground, with the allegiances and prejudices of a small fishing community providing the flavour here, and Brunetti is as prone to confusion at his emotions as the rest of us. And all rounded off with a tragic and truly gripping climax. There's a video interview with Donna Leon about Pallestrina and this book and about how crime-free Venice actually is here Uniform justice The uniform being military and the justice being about as elusive as usual. A cadet is found hanged in the showers at an elite military academy and suicide is the easy answer. You will not be surprised to learn that Brunetti is sceptical, and rightly so. The boy turns out to be the son of a Venetian politician known for his honesty - that rarest of qualities in politics generally, let alone Italian politics - who had retired suddenly many years previously. This retirement had coincided with his wife's getting injured in a hunting accident, and resulted in an investigation into military procurement shenanigans being dropped. You can see generally where this is going, but it is the emotions and issues stirred up in Brunetti and the other cast members that provide the meat in the tale. Signorina Elettra is again essential, and seems about to reveal some backstory, but remains as enigmatic as ever. The usual blend of cynicism and humanity make Brunetti as lovable as ever, and we continue to care and want to know what'll happen to him next. Wilful behaviour The murder of one of Paola's students sends Brunetti chasing leads all the way back to World War II, as long-forgotten, or long denied, episodes in Italy's fascist past are dug up, often by people who haven't forgotten, but who still deny. Fascinating insights into country-wide amnesia, and the lack of any reliable histories of the last World War in Italian, mix it up with a fashionable foray into art-crime in another reliable gripper. And all the stuff I usually say about the truthful and touching family and human stuff is here as usual, if not more so. |
 Doctored evidence As twisty as ever the story, beginning with the death of a grumpy old woman and taking in the oppression of immigrant workers, blackmail and a comprehensive selection of the old seven deadlies, is at once familiar and surprising and full of very real people. I found a couple of the plot devices a little laboured but this is as convincing and involving as ever. And Signorina Elettra just keeps getting more and more of an enigma. Blood from a stone As the Christmas lights sparkle in bitterly cold mid-December Venice an African seller of fake designer bags is murdered. And so Brunetti begins an investigation that'll reveal racism, uncover conspiracy and show us more of the Italian state's labyrinthine levels of corruption. But Ms L. keeps the blend as fresh as ever with Brunetti's family life reflecting the issues and that easy style breezing you through the very present-day concerns with wit and perception. Another good one. An early title for this one was Vu cumprà, the faintly derogatory name for the African bag sellers, but a bit out of keeping with the usual cliché-centric titling of this series, I suppose. Through a glass darkly This one begins during a peaceful Spring stretch for Brunetti as, for the first hundred pages, he gets to investigate a crime that's not been committed, only threatened, but which has worried the daughter of the owner of a Murano glass works. Her father has been heard to say he'd like to kill his son-in-law, her husband, whose eco-concerns are somewhat contrary to the old man's business ethic. So there's much discussion of the harm being done to Venice's waters and workers, and some nice glassy stuff. Eventually someone's found dead by a furnace Suffer the little children And this new one's even more murder-free, as our favourite Commissario looks into a carabinieri raid on a paediatrician which results in concussion and a baby taken into care. He uncovers baby-trafficking, misuse of computerised records and some men with some very nasty views. But even with such un-gruesome material we're still drawn in and gripped by the effortlessly human beings Donna Leon puts our way, including old favourites like Signorina Ellettra, who gets to play an even more crucial, and active, role this time. This all feeds into the series' recurring theme of the family; with Venice, food, morality and corruption all pondered too. And fig flavour ice cream. The girl of his dreams This one starts out all low-key and domestic again, with no real crime committed for the first third of the book. But we do eventually get the real thing this time, with the shock of authentic death by drowning. The non-crime bit concerns itself with organised religion, with the topics of East European immigration and gypsies all stirred up by political correctness and corruption as the book progresses, making for a good topical and typical brew. As ever it's Brunetti's way with people, his way with conflict and politeness, his humanity and perception which provides the meat and keeps us turning those pages. All our favourite characters are here, and there's that comforting feeling of catching up with the lives and gossip of acquaintances. New developments include a map showing the places where the action takes place, and Brunetti admiring, and visiting, a fair few churches. As my tribute to the use of clichés for the recent titles I have to say: she makes it all look so easy. |
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 Michelle LovricCarnevale The young daughter of a Venetian merchant is taking a bath, drinking fragolino, and eating chocolate cake, when a cat appears and, to the sound of a lone violin, lures her into the gondola and arms of Casanova. The girl, called Cecilia, blossoms under Casanova's tutelage into a seeker of pleasure and a painter of portraits which bring out the sitters' inner sensuality, or at least the fact that they've just had a shag. The first half of this book is The Life of Casanova told again, and told in a bit of a rambling fashion, it has to be said. It holds your attention, just, and is unquestionably well written with evocative bits of Venetian business. It just needs a bit of pruning, I think. Casanova here is the Casanova who loves women, not the one who loves them and leaves them. Cecilia is his last true love - the love of his decline who came too late to be included in his memoirs. In the second half of the book she meets and becomes smitten with, George Gordon Lord Byron - a man whose love of women takes a different form. We're talking large contrast here, as Byron uses Cecilia and leaves. She spends the rest of her life, and many many pages, pining for this man who treated her worst...then he turns up in Venice to treat her badly some more. (He brings with him the tales and friends dealt with in Federico Andahazi's The merciful women.) Carnevale gives good Venice but it could have done with some editing. It is long and mite long-winded; but I couldn't stop reading it, and in the end I finished it feeling I'd really read something. The remedy And this one's even better, and leaner and just as flavoursome! The action switches between Venice, where a daughter of the aristocratic Venier family is confined to a convent, very much against her will, and London where later Valentine Greatrakes' quack-remedy and 'importing' business is stuck a blow as his partner is killed in Venice. There will be more murders, lies, romance, sex and travel before the plot to this one plays itself out. There's also much vivid description of the streets and low life of the Thames Bankside and dank Venetian canal sides - The Remedy gives good 18th Century Venice and London, with descriptions you can almost taste, and not just of the food. The hint of decadence in the writing and nastiness in the plotting I find much to my taste too. And if you want to know how you can use any peacock dung, faeculae of cuckow and ox galls you might have about the place in remedies and other useful potions this book will tell you too, with handy recipes at the start of each chapter. None of them tell you how to cure 'putrefaction of the tripes', however, so I'll have to keep on looking. The Floating Book And the one which was published between the two above is the one that I've read last. It tells a tale spun around the arrival of the first printers from Germany in 15th Century Venice, and the controversy they caused making books more widely available, and daring to print the arousing poems of Catullus. This narrative framework of printers, scribes and writers, though, is supported by the women in the story, basically a wife, a prostitute and a nun. And refreshingly it's not the woman of God or the woman of pleasure who one admires most. This is all perfect grist to Ms L's sensuous mill, if you'll pardon the expression, and she goes excellently to town with the poetry, the printing, and the passions. It's a story of love misdirected and love spoilt for lovers of books and Venice. There's witchcraft too, to add spice, some effective use of bird (and egg) imagery and a very believably blighterish cat. The life of Catullus himself features as an introduction to each of the seven parts of the book and Giovanni Bellini, one of my Venetian heroes, makes an appearance too, but not in a showy-offy way. Not a short book but so full of Venice, atmosphere, feeling and characters to care about that it's soon over and leaving you breathless and sated. And wondering about owls. |
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Kay MacCauley The Man Who Was Loved These things come in waves, I suppose. There was a time when Venice-set novels were all about death or Renaissance art, and just recently nuns and prostitutes have been popular. This one shares some of the apothecary concerns of The Remedy above but otherwise ploughs its own mysterious furrow, being concerned with a boy whose face makes people oddly happy and reminds them intensely of loves lost. He is taken from the foundling hospital of San Barnabo in 1546 by a nun and as his luck decays and brightens he becomes a beggar, a Contessa's plaything and a beggar again, and makes many friends and enemies along the way. These include a collector of corpses who cannot die, a would-be sorcerer who is decaying with the pox, and a castrato whose ups-and-downs rival our hero's. Venice is all around, as you might say, as our boy lives and lurks in various corners, mostly around the Rialto Bridge, but it's left to our experience to provide the pictures as there's not much description of these places. Not that there aren't very sense-arousing descriptions of people and smells and rooms and activities, because there are - very. This verges nicely on the gothic, in its otherness and physicality, and won't soon leave your imagination. Ian McEwan The comfort of strangers Boring Brit couple (imagine Natasha Richardson and Rupert Everett) fall into the clutches of a predatory Italian Christopher Walken type in an unnamed but self-consciously evoked Venice. Paul Magrs Doctor Who - The Stones of Venice This is an 'audio drama' - it comes in four parts on two CDs and it can't be bought as a book, as far as I know. The Doctor is played by Paul McGann, the one who resurrected the dying franchise a fraction before 2005's big rebirth, with India Fisher as Charley Pollard. The story has the duo heading off in the Tardis for a weekend break in Venice, but turning up far into the future just as the city is about to sink in a cataclysm brought about by the curse of the Duke's murdered wife, who the Doctor's assistant is forced (by a web-footed gondolier) to impersonate ... Well, all is murky and crumbling and decadent in this more-than-slightly Gothic view of Venice, which is not unprecedented, but which is done well, with much dialogue, of course, and some of it quite clever. The intelligent chat quite makes up for a somewhat thin plot, in fact. The four parts all end with authentic cliff-hangers, and there's much dry humour. The actors all speak un-accented English, which is OK, but the church bells which ring in the background of outdoor scenes are plainly English church bells, which is far from OK, especially given the BBC's famously comprehensive library of sound effects. Lauro Martines Loredana: a Venetian tale The clever conceit of a sixteenth-century Venice with two layers - the under layer being where the poor live, of course - attracted me to this novel. I was also impressed that it was by the historian responsible for the recent book about the Pazzi conspiracy against the Medici. It's also interestingly c0mposed of the letters and confessions of the protagonists, with second-hand reports interspersed. But the story, of the forbidden love of a woman and a priest against a backdrop of political revolt, took so long to get going I gave up a third of the way in. And if I have to read another book set in the Renaissance where the female protagonist's husband prefers the company of other men... I was, in short, ungripped. |
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Lisa Jean Murphy The Red Priest of Venice (play) Another contribution to the range of theories explaining Antionio Vivaldi's relationship with Anna Giro and Paolina Trevisana, this is a play performed in San Francisco in July 2007. It's both a convincing theory and an entertaining piece of drama. The bare bones of the play's take on their relationship is that Paolina first meets Vivaldi when she becomes his secretary whilst he's working for the Prince in Mantua, develops an attachment, and eventually agrees to return with him, with her little sister Anna, to Venice. These bones are fleshed out believably and with dramatic conviction, and without any of the preciousness, anachronisms or name-dropping that one dreads with this kind of story. The explanation of the relationship is less startling then the one put forward by the novel Hidden harmonies, but the frisson here when Vivaldi first kisses Paolina is still strong, and well handled. The play is admirably well written and well acted, and you can watch it on youtube here. The actors all have day jobs and the budget is small, but allowances only really need to be made for a couple of intrusive accents, and you soon forget this limitation too. There's quite a bit of humour too, and it's nicely done. I especially liked the composer humming and scribbling and then saying exasperatedly to himself 'I've written this before!' Very well worth watching. Donna Jo Napoli Daughter of Venice Donata is one of the daughters of one of Venice's richest families so she wants for nothing. Except knowledge. The torment of a girl with an enquiring mind who isn't expected to need an education, and who isn't even allowed to explore the city she loves, is convincingly evoked. She takes to the streets dressed as a boy and her horizons broaden swiftly. The street life of 16th Century Venice is new to her, and fascinatingly daunting. We learn as she does, and if sometimes this knowledge seems a little false in the convenience of its telling, it's always interesting, to her and us. That noble families in renaissance Venice could only afford for one daughter to marry, and that her sisters would be condemned to maiden-aunthood or a convent, is a sadly convincing piece of knowledge. That only one son was also allowed to marry, so as not to confuse the line of descent, is more surprising. Donata's story is emotionally involving too, as she takes her destiny in hand, and falls in love with a man who thinks that she's a boy. That her adventures take her first to the Ghetto is not unusual in recent Venice-set fiction, but she learns and feels fresh things here too. And, like the best novels set in Venice published in 2002/3, this one too was written for older children - see also Stravaganza and The Thief Lord.  |
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Iain Pears The Titian Committee
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Juan Manuel de Prada The Tempest A naive young Spanish art historian arrives in Venice to study Giorgione's 'The Tempest', a painting which has obsessed him for years, and about which he has written a long thesis explaining its many mysteries. But his arrival in a damp, misty, wintry Venice is marked by a murder, and he soon becomes embroiled in a plot involving forgery, theft, murder and marriage. Our hero is an annoyingly pompous and sexist prig, whose experiences serve, of course, to shake his intellectual prejudices and teach him to feel a little more, and to suffer. The book is admittedly a page-turner for its evocation of damp and misty canals and its satisfyingly twisty plot, but the suspicion remains that it may not just be the hero who is revealing his pomposity and un-PC attitudes, and the author does look more than a little self-obsessed in his back-cover photograph. This was filmed in 2004, but it didn't make it to UK screens (or DVD boxes). A DVD is available in Germany. |
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Barbara Quick Vivaldi’s Virgins |
Christi Phillips The Rossetti letter
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Thomas Quinn The Lion of St Mark Book One of The Venetians I was initially worried that I wouldn't like this one as it looked very maritime and martial - much as I love Venice I'm not much into sea stories or war stories. But I needn't have worried. This story of the Siege of Constantinople and its aftermath for a pair of patrician families in conflict has all the narrative drive of an adventure story, with characters you'll care about, and description and detail to conjure up the places and the era with an efficiency bordering on the sensual. It's a cliché to say it's like being there, but here it's true, even when it's places you'd rather not be, like dank and rancid cells and the thick of battle. The comparisons with more recent conflicts involving a western power and Islamic states can be made, but should not be laboured, and they're not in the book itself. This is a painless and pleasurable way of familiarising yourself with some grim and important episodes in Venice's history whilst immersing yourself in some fine prose and a ripping yarn. I can't wait for the next one of the trilogy, due later in 2007. The Sword of Venice Book Two of The Venetians And this one carries on the tale (two decades later) of Venice's history and battles, with the Turks and others closer to home, again seen through the eyes of the Ziani family, and featuring their continuing feud with the Soranzos. Antonio Ziani and wise little Seraglio are back, but the focus here is more on Antonio's son Constantine, and the brunt of the brutal feud passes to him too. There are more land battles this time, but a big nautical engagement ends the book spectacularly. As in Book One years of history, political manoeuvring and battles are made winningly digestible by being humanised and paced expertly, so emotions never take second place to dry facts. If I was a nit-picker I'd mention the odd surprise of a disappointingly clichéd turn of phrase, but these are very few and soon forgotten as the pacey plotting keeps you happily turning pages to the end. Roll on Book Three. |
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James Ringo Uncle Theodor Well here's an odd one. It's a slim novel from a man who is described in his blurb somewhat grandly as 'one of the last true Renaissance men of our times'. What this seems to mean is that he wrote music as well as this one novel, and that 'his friends and acquaintances included many art and music giants such as Truman Capote, Olivier Messiaen and the Sitwells'. There's a photo in which he looks like a 1960s home handyman or maybe an atomic physicist. The novel begins with an older woman entering Piazza San Marco with a painful stone in her shoe. She makes for the statue of St Theodore on his pillar, there to reminisce about her Uncle Theodor, who loved her the most when she was a little girl, but who had a lasting impact on her by loving her inappropriately. She was his favourite, and she loved him more than she loved her parents, but he was a paedophile. The book deals in a quiet, understanding and unhysterical way with a subject that is still so rarely dealt with without spittle flying, so it's to be congratulated for that. The style is certainly no problem, and there's perception and sensitivity at work, but the story lacks any real surprises or sparkle. Interesting but not essential then, in itself and as a Venice novel, as the Venetian content is not crucial, or much. William Rivière By the Grand Canal The First World War has just ended and its toll is still sinking in as the treaties are being signed. Hugh Thurne is a British diplomat who has gotten into the habit of using Venice as a base and refuge. He has friends there, in the Venier family, and a lover in the shape of a gorgeous young singer at the Fenice. His wife doesn't love him, his best friend has been killed in action, and his best friend's wife comes to live with him. His best friend's son falls for the dark-eyed daughter of the Venier family and old Giacomo Venier's health is failing. The viewpoints change, the making of history is discussed, love and lust is pondered, and love and death haunt the past and the future. This book reminded me nicely of early Iris Murdoch, in its ambitions if not its achievement, but it's a fine non-usual exploration of its time and of timeless concerns. It gives damn fine Venice too, both inside crumbling palazzos and out in gondolas. It really could have been set nowhere else. |
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André Romijn Hidden harmonies: the Secret Life of Antonio Vivaldi I must admit to not approaching this book with high expectations. The racy title, the small publisher, and not least beginning to read and finding it written in the present tense - like an annoying American TV documentary - all these factors conspired against it on first impression. But to say that these thoughts were soon overturned is a sore understatement: they were pushed to the ground, beaten senseless and dumped in a canal. The book begins with an episode crucial to Vivaldi's rediscovery in the 20th Century and then slips back to the 18th Century and the man himself, as he staggers drunk back from a party and an encounter with a mystery woman (and Handel) and ends up unconscious under a bridge on a frozen canal. But as the book progresses more, and fascinating, attention is paid to Vivaldi's musical life than to the naughty stuff suggested by the title. This romantic element is kept afloat throughout, but never drowns out the music, as it were. The story is firmly based on the real events of the composer's life, but obviously a fair amount of fleshing out is needed, and it's all done in a warmly believable and involving way. The composer is painted as pretty insecure and self-centred, but then again we artists usually are aren't we? There's poetic license involved, of course, with the Anna Giro enigma explained in a way which sweetly swaps one sin for another. Anna Maria, one of Vivaldi's star pupils at the Pieta and the subject of Vivaldi's Virgins above, is in here too. I'm not sure if you need to be a Vivaldi fan to be gripped, I think that the story is eventful and well told enough that you don't. And the Venetian atmosphere and detailing is spot on. In short - a Venetian and musical treat. |
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Jane Turner
Rylands Across the Bridge of Sighs It wasn't easy approaching this book of stories with an open mind, after all the fuss of the author's feud with John Berendt, which I reported here. But I must have managed it, because I enjoyed it. The stories cover oddly similar ground to Berendt's book as they deal with the lives of present-day Venetians and the various plights facing the city itself. The characters are mostly prosperous, be they old money or new media types, and their lives and the stories are linked by events and palazzos - the most pervasive of the former being that most un-Venetian of tragedies, the fatal car crash. There's a tinge of the glitz-novel in places as the money flows and grows, but it would be unfair to class this as embossed-cover fare. The characters live and do real stuff - the trip to the hypermarket by the woman who ordinarily would send a servant has an authentic whiff. And as for the character who's supposed to represent John Berendt, a journalist called Cad Peacock, well I wouldn't have expected a hate-figure to have been represented as quite such a likeable character, for a journalist.  |
Lisa St Aubin de Terán
The Palace The story begins with Gabriele del Campo, a young stonemason, in jail and about to be shot for fighting for Garibaldi's unified Italy. He escapes the bullet, and with the help of his cellmate Colonel Giovanni Vitelli, survives and learns the ways of the gentry. Upon his release Gabriele goes to Venice and waits for Vitelli, all the while amassing riches using his luck and gambling skills. He dreams of building a palace worthy of his lost love Donna Donnatella and of having it ready for her return into his life. The names and ambitions and means to ends all give this book an allegorical feel, and a scope we like in such tales. Venice is evoked so that you can almost feel and smell it - unfortunately it's evoked as a thing of slime and decay, so you don't really want to stroke it, but let's not carp at such a fragrantly evoked version of our favourite city. I liked the detail that Gabriele likes Venice because he fears horses and Venice is free of horses. If you like your books with the feel of a fable about them you'll like this one. Vikram Seth An equal music A story of love foolishly lost, and later foolishly revisited. The life and music of a London-based violinist in a string quartet is evoked in close musical detail. And music's part in the central relationship of his life is the convincing core of the book. A visit to Venice is an important, but short, and blissful, episode. Venice is there on the cover, and is vividly and brightly described enough to more than warrant a place on this page. But music is what this book's all about, and love, and life, and fate, and you should read it if you're passionate about any of these things. |
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Edward Sklepowich |
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Death in a serene city This is the first Urbino Macintyre mystery, which is out of print but can be picked up online second-hand pretty easily. My interest in it was piqued by the author revealing in a recent interview that Urbino was conceived by him as a sort of Henry James Goes Crime Hunting, and mentioning how this one has elements of the Henry James/Miss Woolson affair dealt with elsewhere on this site, along with the stealing of the remains of St Lucy. The writer who comes to Venice following the supposed suicide of a close female friend is here a modern-day author called Clifford Voyd, who has a somewhat insufferable personalityand an attached mysterious male companion. The parallels are close, with the theft of the remains of the fictional Santa Teodora evoking the theft of those of Santa Lucia from the church of San Geremia in 1994. The contemplative tone and strong Venetian flavour are here from the off, with maybe a bit more literary allusion at this stage and a higher death-count. But for entertainingly urbane and civilised crime-solving the series pretty much started as it was set to continue. Death in the Palazzo A fine old-fashioned country house murder set in a Venetian palazzo cut off by bad weather and full of convincing characters with convincing historical reasons for hating each other. American author Urbino Macintyre is a refreshingly undomesticated crime-solver who isn't happily married but is the 'friend' of English widow Contessa called Barbara. And a nicely louche Nick & Norah-esque couple they make too. But why are Sklepowich's novels so barely in print, and not published at all in the UK? Deadly to the Sight Urbino's been in Morocco for a couple of years and returns to Venice with a protégé, a young painter called Habib. He returns to the side of the Contessa like a thirsty man given a glass of water, but her joy at his return masks her worry that a witch-like lace maker from Burano is threatening to blackmail her, maybe. The old woman spooks Habib too, with her 'evil eye', and the Contessa's new boatman may also be involved. Then someone dies. Wintertime Venice is breathably evoked here, and the odd relationship between the writer and the Contessa is written believably. But the characters' use of innuendo when talking about Urbino's relationship with Habib is matched by a similar coyness from the author - is Urbino gay or not? The pace is stately but the resolution satisfies. |
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The last gondola This is the story of an obsession - Urbino wants to write a book about Samuel Possle, a fellow American with a shady past and a gaunt silent servant. Our hero talks (and has disturbing dreams) about little else until he eventually gets an invite. Then the difficulties, and deaths, of his acquaintances begin to become linked with the enigmatic Possle and his dark palazzo. Urbino spends a lot of time walking around and pondering, and visiting sites convenient to the themes and the atmosphere, which is decidedly gothic and broadly literarily decadent this time. Habib is away for the length of the book, but the coy hints, and the lingering descriptions of Urbino's slim and lithe gondolier, continue the sly suggestiveness of Urbino and the Contessa's previous outing above. An involving read, full of literary reference and Venetian flavour but more full of thought than action - as usual - which is fine by me. Frail Barrier When three people die in unsuspicious circumstances, but with suspicious swiftness and connectedness, Urbino begins to wonder. Two of them are acquaintances of Urbino and the Countess and so the marriages and predilections of some of their fiends get a bit of a raking over as Urbino puzzles things out. As ever there is much pondering and sparse action - most of the murders happen off screen, as it were, and the focus is on Urbino's thought processes as he wanders and walks around Venice. He far from fails to notice where his wanderings take him, and so this novel gives some very good Venice, as ever. Dorsoduro is the central sestiere here, but events and characters range far and wide. There are storms and a regatta, to add colour and event, and some colourful characters too. As restrained and elegant a novel as the people and places it deals with, and as you could wish for. With thanks to Mr S for sending me a copy himself from Tunisia (after I'd had trouble getting one from his publisher) with two truly mouth-drying sheets of stamps attached! |
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Catherine Smith
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Barry Unsworth
Stone virgin A somewhat pompous and spiky restorer of statues gets to use his new technique on a Virgin in Venice and starts to feel the long-lost passions carved into the stone, which makes him then prone to some present day passion of his own. His story is book ended by the story of the original sculptor's love for his model, and his arrest and incarceration for her murder. Another tale interwoven is of an old man looking back through tinted spectacles at his passionate adventures around the statue. The time-shifting and unreliable narrators place this novel in it's era - a time in the late 70s and early 80s when every 'serious' novel had to be a temporal switchback - but reading in in 2007 also makes one nostalgic for a time when books this dense and deep were more common. Oh and Venice is solid and stony and all around. Salley Vickers Miss Garnet's angel A no-longer-young spinster finds herself having the holiday that she and her companion had long promised themselves, but alone now, following the death of said companion. It's refreshing for a tale of Venice to begin with a death rather than end with one, and there's much else that's refreshingly original here. Miss Garnett reacts strongly to the spirituality of the Catholic religion and becomes fascinated by the story of Tobias and the Angel and moved by the art the story has inspired. As Venice works its magic on a 
sensibility more used to Ealing, she also
gets caught up in the lives of various Venetians and visitors, and her
life begins to take on aspects of the Tobias story. This is a novel with
that strange indefinable extra special something. I found it disappointingly fusty when I tried to re-read it a few years after I wrote the above, though. |
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Christopher
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Barbara Wilson
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Venice
continued... |
he seems - now how unusual is that in novels set in
Venice! - and the big job that's going to make their fortune soon turns strange
and dangerous. The underlying theme of the adult vs. the child is well played
out, and is even explored in the magical developments later. And magical is, for
once, a word that can safely and truthfully be used to describe
this book. 
