Venice: Tales of the City

by Michelle Lovric

Book Overview

Elusive and fantastical, Venice is a many-layered confection of history. The writers here have captured what is most important to them in pieces ranging from the city's foundation up to the present... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 034911899X
• ISBN13: 9780349118994
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Abacus (UK)
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.2" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

You can smell Venice, but its taste eludes.

This is my first encounter with Michelle Lovric, and it is probably unfair of me to comment on her writing, since this volume is an anthology of other writers on the city (but see below). The blurb on the back states, "Elusive and fantastical, Venice is a multi-layered confection of history. The writers here have captured what is most important to them in pieces ranging from the foundation of the city up to the present time. The voices, entirely diverse, are both international and native." That's as maybe, but to hope to meet a reader's expectations in this way is never likely to prove successful, for any city's charm is bound to be too personal for an anthology to cater in a meaningful way to the tastes of the denizen or visitor. The anthologist can only ever skim the surface in her own chosen part of the lagoon and hope that her tastes match those of the reader. Now it is quite clear that Michelle Lovric has drunk deeply from the well of writings of both visitors and Venetians alike. The breadth of her reading is also clearly on show, not only in the choice of entries and in her informative and insightful introductions, but it is also clear in the eight pages of her select bibliography at the book's end. We are told that she lives in both London and Venice and has written three novels based in the latter. To her I can only bow in wonder at the extent of her knowledge and be envious of the time she has spent devouring books from such a diverse range of writers, from such a diverse range of times. But, alas, I felt, once I reached the end of her presentation, that her choice would not have been mine, and that the length of her choices were so fleeting as to convey little more than a mere indication of the riches that might be found by digging deeper into its context; in short, I could smell the food but could not taste it. In a sense, this can count as a success, since, armed with the bibliography, I can now - and I will - explore further into the depths offered by certain chosen writers, the range of which is indeed wide. It did not bode well that the introduction to the very first set piece by Francesco Morosini gives his dates as 1619-94 and then proceeds to refer to his surrender of Candia in 1469. But this is, as far as I can tell, one of only two errors I came across. (The other is in the bibliography where Bernard Berenson's four-volume history is of the 'Italian (i.e. not the Venetian) Painters of the Renaissance'; the Venetian volume is but the first of the four.) She divides her book into topical chapters so that we have writings about gondolas and gondoliers grouped together, and one on artists, and one on Carnevale, etc etc. Each chapter is preceded by a short collection of Venetian proverbs ("First Venetians, then Christians" being for me the cardinal one of all) and some short extracts that act as an antipasto to the main course. Many of these are amusing. I particularly enjoyed Horatio Brown's sardonic riposte to a Venetian doc

First-person encounters present warm and exciting tales which are both fun and informational

Venice has a lot of history behind it, and any traveler to the city is bound to want to know more - and in a more exciting presentation than the usual travel guide or history can offer. Enter the literary Venice: Tales Of The City: an anthology of both international and native Venice folk who discuss the city's history, culture, and unique travel adventures. First-person encounters present warm and exciting tales which are both fun and informational.