The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt
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Book Reviews of The City of Falling Angels
Book Review: This nonfiction reads like a novel...
Summary: 4 Stars
I picked this book up somewhere as a vacation read without realizing it was nonfiction. I was a bit disappointed when I discovered this, but determined to read it anyway. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this nonfiction was an artful tale of events which occurred in Venice, ingeniously retold by the author. Berendt is a masterful storyteller, weaving his own observations of Venetians and real events into a complex tapestry of a city most outsiders aren't privy to. I thoroughly enjoyed Berendt's follow-up to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.Book Review: Captivating!
Summary: 4 Stars
Traveling to Venice in the Fall for the first time, I have been reading everything that I can get my hands on to enrich my experience. This book has given me a wonderful insight into some of the more "contemporary" characters and their influence on the city. With the Fenice as the protagonist, Mr. Berendt takes us into the lives of many noteworthy characters in the Venician art world directly and indirectly affected by the tragedy and then beyond. It is a great read and I will certainly be on the lookout for Enrico.....!!Book Review: Great insight into an amazing city
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a thorough, fascinating view into the world of Venice. If you've been there, it comes to life through the people and history Berendt describes. If not, still a great story filled with interesting characters.Book Review: Great Expectations... None Fulfilled
Summary: 3 Stars
I know what I expected from a new book by Berendt. I expected something better than the last. I realize now that it was a lot to expect.
The City of Falling Angels does not come up to the standard set by his previous novel. It's not that Venice does not compare to Savannah (I am in no position to tell not having visited the latter), it is just that The City doesn't have a decent story to keep the book together.
Similarities are quite striking - in both books the narrator arrives within days of a crime being commited. In The City it is the fire of the Fenice, Venice's opera. You're not thrilled? Well, it isn't exactly a crime in which the finding of the guilty would keep you reading through the night. The book traces the opera's reconstruction to the re-opening but again that also wasn't anything most people would need to hear about.
The narrator spends years in Venice (the book isn't too specific about it - my guess is he drops by every now and then rather than waits for the Fenice to be reconstructed) talking to people. By the way - it is quite striking how almost everyone in Venice has nothing better to do but to talk to him at length... We get a number of (allegedly) true stories, none of which, however, is thrilling. Actually, after a while they get mildly disgusting - petty rivalries in Save Venice, quarrels over the will of a suicidal local poet, fight over Ezra Pound's letters... There is usually some money involved (actually, there is usually big money involved) and it is the money that most often becomes (I would say against the author's wishes - he is quite desperate to present a cultural and literary context) the real issue.
In short - a long and nicely written book without a decent plot and/or conflict. If you haven't read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - buy it immediately. If you have - wait for another Berendt. You may well skip this one.
Book Review: Better editing next time, PLEASE!
Summary: 3 Stars
How can anyone write a book about Italy and get so many Italian names wrong? Isn't the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, the Cathedral Church of Rome, First Church of Christendom, Seat of the Bishop of Rome important enough not to be called Church of San Giovanni LATERNO?
Did Hubert de Givenchy become Italian on page 325 and change his name to Hubert di Givenchy?
And on the same page Countess Marina Emo Capodilista is called Capodalista.
Enrico Carella, suspect in the fire of La Fenice (please, not THE Fenice, ever!) wears Fratelli Rosetti shoes (p. 244) instead of Fratelli Rossetti, thereby ruining the effect the author might wish to impart.
Besides, the narrative wanders. What is the theme of this book? Venetians are crooked? Things are not what they seem? What family does not have its ups and downs? Americans can't enjoy anything and the moment they arrive somewhere they want to fix it? Who knows?
Carlos Germano Ziviani Noronha de Vasconcellos