Venetian Dreaming
by Paula Weideger
Overview
From the Library Journal
Similar to Adam Gopnik's
Paris to the Moon, this travel narrative offers a look at daily life in Venice from the perspective of a native New Yorker who knows only a little Italian. A frequent contributor to Town & Country, Weideger had always dreamed of living in Venice, and readers can feel her anxious delight as she describes every detail of her apartment in the Palazzo Dona dalle Rose a Venetian palace she had read about in a history book. Weideger deftly weaves Venetian history and the history of the Dona family (who still occupy the palace) throughout her yearlong explorations of the city's churches, markets, foods, and art. At times, the author as well as the narrative struggle with the landlord's rude attempt to dislodge Weideger to make room for members of a Merchant-Ivory production team. Unfortunately, those tense exchanges taint what is otherwise a wonderful portrayal of Italian life. Reading about how Weideger negotiates the rules, language, and etiquette of life in Venice would be helpful to anyone who plans to visit the city, and tempting for those who don't.
My thoughts
This book started out strong and then fell flat. I got bored with it before I could finish reading it. The author, who started out on a quest to understand the city she already loved, became, well, snooty. I didn't care to hear her through around names of wealthy Venetians. I didn't like her attitude towards her landlords and grew tedious hearing about her battles to get everything she felt she was entitled to received. I fell out of love with this book and was done with it, long before the end.
Interestingly enough, as I started writing this review and pulled up the review from Library Journal, I saw that it compares this book to Adam Gopnik's Paris to the Moon. I didn't actually enjoy that book either! While Gopnik is clearly a talented author, the book read more like essays than a book.
Passage
"The contract requires you to pay two months' security deposit. It's the law," she said.
The law? What law? I didn't ask.
The agreement we'd made, first verbally and then confirmed by a fax, all twenty-five words of it, was legally binding or so I supposed. I'd already given them one month's rent and the same amount as a security deposit. They had accepted it. What was all this talk about?
