Florence: A Delicate Case (Writer and the City)

Florence: A Delicate Case (Writer and the City)
by David Leavitt

Florence: A Delicate Case (Writer and the City)
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Book Summary Information

Author: David Leavitt
Edition: Hardcover
Published: 2002-06-01
ISBN: 1582342393
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA

Book Reviews of Florence: A Delicate Case (Writer and the City)

Book Review: Florence Deserves Far Better
Summary: 1 Stars

The Writer and the City books are supposed to be idiosyncratic, and I greatly liked Edmund White's quirky but useful volume on Paris. However, with his "Florence, A Delicate Case," David Leavitt firmly crosses the line between idiosyncrasy and self-indulgence. His third chapter--40 pages of a book of only 176 pages, including notes--is devoted to mentioning seemingly every homosexual writer who has ever visited the city in the last 200 years. This exercise COULD have been fascinating--maybe, in a separate book--but Leavitt appears so anxious to squeeze the names and titles into this pocket-sized volume that we are given very little accompanying narrative which would bring this very interesting group to life.
With a city that is a mass of artistic treasure, Leavitt, who has lived there--lucky fellow--for years, would have done the reader a much greater service had he applied some better organization to this book. I wanted to like it (Leavitt has a good sense of syntax and vocabulary, and he is clearly a fund of knowledge), but ended up feeling cheated of better structural choices and the advantages of his educated vision.

Summary of Florence: A Delicate Case (Writer and the City)

David Leavitt brings the wonders and mysteries of Florence alive, illuminating why it is, and always has been, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world.The third in the critically-acclaimed Writer and the City Series-in which some of the world's finest novelists reveal the secrets of the cities they know best-Florence is a lively account of expatriate life in the 'city of the lily'. Why has Florence always drawn so many English and American visitors? (At the turn of the century, the Anglo-American population numbered more than thirty thousand.) Why have men and women fleeing sex scandals traditionally settled here? What is it about Florence that has made it so fascinating-and so repellent-to artists and writers over the years?Moving fleetly between present and past and exploring characters both real and fictional, Leavitt's narrative limns the history of the foreign colony from its origins in the middle of the nineteenth century until its demise under Mussolini, and considers the appeal of Florence to figures as diverse as Tchaikovsky, E.M. Forster, Ronald Firbank, and Mary McCarthy. Lesser-known episodes in Florentine history-the moving of Michelangelo's David, and the construction of temporary bridges by black American soldiers in the wake of the Second World War-are contrasted with images of Florence today (its vast pizza parlors and tourist culture). Leavitt also examines the city's portrayal in such novels and films as A Room with a View, The Portrait of a Lady and Tea with Mussolini.

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