A Thousand Days in Venice: An Unforgettable Romance
by Marlena De Blasi
Overview
From the Publisher
"When Fernando spots Marlena in a Venice cafe, he believes he's found the one. Marlena is less sure. A divorced American chef and food writer traveling in Italy, she thought she was satisfied with her life. Yet within months of meeting Fernando, she has sold her house in St. Louis, quit her job, given away most of her possessions, kissed her two grown children good-bye, and moved to Venice to marry "the stranger," as she calls Fernando. Once there, she finds herself sitting in sugar-scented pasticcerie, strolling through sixteenth-century palazzi, renovating an apartment overlooking the Adriatic, and preparing her wedding in an ancient stone church." "But nothing perfect is ever easy. Fernando speaks no English. The only Italian Marlena speaks is the language of food. He's a buttoned-up pessimist. She's a serene optimist. She wears bright red lipstick and vintage Norma Kamali. He finds her lipstick too bright and the meals she makes too much for him. It's "festival cooking," he says. Fernando likes things simple, and there's nothing simple about Marlena." As this transplanted American learns about the peculiarities of Venetian culture, we are treated to an honest, often comic view of how two people, both set in their ways but also set on being together, build a life. In the end, Marlena shows Fernando how to let go and live well. And he shows her that tenderness really does exist. Filled with the foods and flavors of Italy, A Thousand Days in Venice is the true story of a woman falling in love with both a man and a city.
My thoughts
I bought this book last fall when I went to Seattle. There's a wonderful bookshop in the downtown area called Elliott Bay Books. I could spend hours in there! I wasn't looking for yet another travel book but this one caught my eye on their used books shelf. It was quite enjoyable. I liked it.
It's not so much a travel journal as it is a love story. The author spent some time in Venice and on one trip in particular, she met a stranger and shared an attraction. She ended up giving up her life in the US, moving to Venice and marrying the stranger.
Yes, there are some tips on what to see and do in Venice, but most of the book deals with the culture as it relates to the local people. Venice apparently has their own "island time" as you'll see in the part I've shared below.
Overall I thought the book was entertaining. It wasn't what I expected but that's OK!
Favorite Passage
I walk over to our apartment each day, but the workers are almost never there. I'm learning another fact that affects the Italian work ethic. The working-class Italian, the average small businesman, wants less from life -- from his earnings life -- than do many other Europeans in similar situations. What a working-class Italian can't do without he usually already has. He wants a comfortable place to live -- whether rented or owned makes no difference to him. He wants an automobile or a truck or both, but they will be modest. He wants to take his family to Sunday lunch, up to the mountains for a week in February, and down to the sea for two weeks in August. He wants to offer a good grappina from the Friuli to his colleagues when it's his turn on Friday afternoon. He'd rather have money in the bank than in his wallet because he'd never spend it anyway. What he needs costs relatively little, so why should he work longer or harder to get more when he thinks himself already well-off enough?
