Jerry's Thoughts, Musings, and Rants!

The City of Fallen Angels

The City of Falling Angels opens on the evening of January 29, 1996, when a dramatic fire destroys the historic Fenice opera house. The loss of the Fenice, where five of Verdi's operas premiered, is a catastrophe for Venetians. Arriving in Venice three days after the fire, John Berendt - famous for his book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - becomes a kind of detective-inquiring into the nature of life in this remarkable museum-city-while gradually revealing the truth about the fire.

In the course of his investigations, Berendt introduces us to a rich cast of characters: a prominent Venetian poet whose shocking "suicide" prompts his skeptical friends to pursue a murder suspect on their own; the first family of American expatriates that loses possession of the family palace after four generations of ownership; an organization of high-society, partygoing Americans who raise money to preserve the art and architecture of Venice, while quarreling in public among themselves, questioning one another's motives and drawing startled Venetians into the fray; a contemporary Venetian surrealist painter and outrageous provocateur; the master glassblower of Venice; and numerous others-stool pigeons, scapegoats, hustlers, sleepwalkers, believers in Martians, the Plant Man, the Rat Man, and Henry James.

by far the most important character int he book is the city herself. Venice, a city steeped in a thousand years of history, art and architecture, teeters in precarious balance between endurance and decay. Its architectural treasures crumble — foundations shift, marble ornaments fall — even as efforts to preserve them are underway. Venice is a city of masks and riddles, where narrow streets and passageways form a giant maze that confounds the uninitiated and deepens the sense of mystery

A few facts from this book about Venice that you may or may not know:

Venice has the cleanest air of any city because there are no cars and methane gas which burns cleanly is used for heating.

It is also the quietest city with a sound level of 32 decibels, while for the average city it is 45 decibels, again because of the absence of traffic.

There are 443 bridges in the city of Venice, although I have seen other figures bandied about, including 500.

During his occupation of Venice, Napoleon razed to the ground 176 religious buildings, 80 palaces along with their decorations and art treasures and his agents confiscated 12,000 paintings and sent them Paris where they now reside in the Louvre.

The Venetian Mafia control the water taxi business in Venice, along with the money lending operation in front of the Municipal Casino, which incidentally residents of Venice are not allowed to enter due to a very old statute still on the books.

The permanent population of Venice has now shrunk to 70,000 although an estimated 7 million tourists visit the city each year.

Well why don't you read the book for yourself? I do recommend it highly although the tone might be considered a trifle gossipy, however I found it fascinating.

You may also be interested in the list of the ten books that John Berendt thinks are essential reading on Venice and I found this fascinating site which has a fairly exhaustive list of books on Venice, both fiction and non fiction.

I found this book to be a witty and urbane tour through the private (as opposed to the tourist) Venice. It also had a godssipy tone. Along with Berendt we encounter an extraordinary roster of Venetians and expatriates--the people who actually live in Venice. And what a collection of eccentrics and oddballs! I was hooked from the very beginning in which Berendt describes the spectacular fire that destroyed the Fenice opera house, as seen through the eyes of the people who were on the scene, including the 87-year-old master glassbower of Venice, who watched from his bedroom window a mere 30 feet away from the blaze and then went to his glassmaking factory and started work on a series of bowls and vases representing the awful fire.  Couldn't put it down. Didn't want it to end. I'm sure that this has nothing to do with the fact that I love Venice!

World Without End

With his immensely popular The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett introduced an enormous, overbearing, and at times seemingly dangerous main character, a Gothic cathedral, the building of which consumed, in one way or another, the life of most of his 12th-century characters. I first read Pillars back is 1989 (NOT last fall when Oprah (hssssss) decided it was worthy of a Book Club nod) and loved it. I was fascinated by the depiction of Medieval society and in particularl the struggle to build the cathedral.

Follet returns to that same building, in the fictional town of Kingsbridge, for World Without End, but in the 14th century. Family lines remain but the cathedral is the only remaining character from the first novel. There's much the same group of brutal, uncouth noblemen and their much-tried ladies, set against the rising, inventive merchant class of the town, built on the wool trade, and the scrappy peasantry that supplies them.

Because I had enjoyed Pillars so much I was happy to get World Without End for Christmas. It is a mammoth book, 1,104 pages in my edition, for a large historical frame - coverning the arrival of the Black Death and the beginning of the end of the feudal system.

For those who enjoy history as nonfiction as well as fiction-  this book is a learning experience about a distant time that gave birth to the first stirrings of what we call our modern world. On a good day, we inhabit a place of science, gender equality, and rule of law instead of superstition, enslavement, and free violence and degradation, well most of us do. That fact is due in large part to certain things that happened in the 1300s - especially the year 1348. If you are unfamiliar with the unpleasantness of that year, sorry, you are just going to have to read the book.

There are a couple of things I think might be the reason for some of the bad reviews I have seen elsewhere. One thing is that Follet is not primarily a historical fiction writer and a great many of his books have been thrillers. So his writing style tends to be pretty gritty - especially when he is writing about sex, violence or death. In Follet's view of the 1300's there was plenty of all three. Also, while there is a strong love story (and a couple of minor ones) running through this book it is not a romance novel. It's the story of a 14th century community in a cathedral market town and at times his vision of 14 century life makes me a little uncomfortable. Plausible, but still a little uncomfortable. Especially what passed for justice and fairness.

I caught myself being sympathetic to some of the less-savoury characers (as compared to the 'heroes') in the book simply because it seemed to me that the only way someone of the "lower classes" might improve their circumstances was with either brawn and hopefully a few brains thrown in. Luck played a huge part in this and I found I couldn't really blame some of the characters who seized any and every opportunity that came their way, fair means or foul (with the exception of Ralph!)

For some reading the book will feel as if they are stuck in a history lesson, but it's an interesting one. Follet is keen to bring out the inherent conservatism of the uppper class and church, and their overbearing maleness (yet in many respect the strongest characters are women who use the men in their lives to get what they want). He's also keen to emphasise the superstitions which govern local lives, and the climate of casual terror: murder and rape are commonplace, judgments are often rigged, and punishments brutal. The account of one miscreant being flayed alive is disturbingly precise (far too precise for me).

Follet also sketches the wider political world, most notably, if improbably, when the main female character, Caris witnesses the victory at Crécy – from the French lines! – and meets Edward III. Here too, he is determined to make a point: great battles are really tyrannous, booty-driven slaughter-fests. But not such virulent killers as the Black Death, which overshadows the central chapters, and which pits religious superstition against medical intelligence. The plague scenes are expertly handled. Happily for the townspeople, but again improbably for the readers, Caris, with no training whatsoever, invents modern medicine. Go Caris!

Where Follett excels is in telling a yarn. Yes it is a brutal one, the sex is graphic, and violence pronounced. There is also sufficient intrigue here, enough turns within double-twists, to hold readers through all the 91 chapters. Style takes second place to structure and plot. World Without End is exciting, full of sudden reverses of fortune – all the fun of the unfair. The comeuppances are surprising and satisfying. Assuming you can pick the novel up and plod your way through all of this, you won't be able to put it down.

The Queen of the Night

a shameless self-promotion . . .

One of our photos from Italy has been entered in a photo contest.

Our photo is currently number 15 out of 463 photos.

You can vote by clicking here

Remember a 10 is good!

Feel free to e-mail the link to friends and loved ones!

*smile*

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I had started reading this book a few weeks ago and I confess that I thought it dragged initially. I got over that quickly though and got hooked. Things have been so bloody crazy at work that I haven't done much reading lately though. I finally finished the book on the train ride home this evening.

Paul Doherty really is the master storyteller. It seem to matter not to Mr. Doherty whether the background to the book is Medieval England, Ancient Egypt, or in the case the eternal city of Rome in the 4th century AD.

I don't think it could possibly be Ancient Rome without the murder and mayhem that almost always seem to accompany any book that uses the city as its background. Doherty brings ancient Rome to live in a manner that informs and intrigues. The city very much becomes one of the characters in the story.

The children of the rich and famous are being abducted and held for ransom. At the same time veteran legionaries who have served in Britannia with Constantine, particularly along Great Wall, in the more northern reaches of the island are being brutally murdered. There bodies are mutilated, a practice that was prevalent among the Picts, the people they were fighting against, so many years ago.

The Empress employs her secret agent Claudia to try to resolve these terrible happenings. However Claudia has her own problems. Her uncles garden has recently had the body of a young girl disinterred and she has the task of trying to solve both mysteries at the same time. The young girl was a Christian and her corpse was perfectly preserved.

Claudia must claw her way through a mist of politics, religion and violence. One false move could cost her much more than her job as a spy . . .

Playing for Pizza - John Grisham

a shameless self-promotion . . .

One of our photos from Italy has been entered in a photo contest.

Our photo is currently number 17 out of 417 photos.

You can vote by clicking here.

Remember a 10 is good!

Feel free to e-mail the link to friends and loved ones!

*smile*

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John Grisham spent a lot of time in Italy writing his legal thriller THE BROKER, and I guess he liked the country so much, he decided to write another novel based in Italy, and the result is PLAYING FOR PIZZA.

In the book the main character, Rick Dockery, is a 3rd string NFL quarterback for the Cleveland Browns. In the AFC championship game, the Browns are winning 20-0 when the top two quarterbacks are injured. Dockery enters the game and engineers an epic collapse and the Browns lose. Dockery is hated in Cleveland and laughed at everywhere else. Not yet ready to leave the game behind Rick, forces his agent to find a team that will take him. His agent does find a team that might actually want him, the Parma Panthers. The Panthers play American football in Italy, where the crowds are sparse, the fields are rough, and the players play for the love of the game and the pizza and beer afterward.

Rick joins the team in Italy, hoping for a new start in life, trying to avoid a paternity suit, and wanting to hook up with the team cheerleaders. His new teammates embrace him and Rick is given a tutorial in Italian culture, including the long four hour meals. The description Grisham gives of the meal reminded me of our Thursday night dinner at the villa we stayed in when we were in Tuscany last fall.

The team’s goal is to win the Italian 'Super Bowl' and they face many hurdles during their quest. They lose players to injuries or apathy, and they get sidetracked by women and partying. The ending of course is somewhat preordained.

Overall, I enjoyed this novel because Grisham is a competent writer. I don't expect a Grisham book to change the way I see the world but I do expect to escape for a bit - and I did. While I enjoyed reading about Rick and his escapades, I didn’t really care for Rick because Rick didn’t care for anything.

I’ve always enjoyed Grisham’s work, even if some of his latest novels have been a bit disappointing. For some reason, I think Grisham knows exactly what he’s doing. In Playing for Pizza, he created a novel about an American idol (football) in an Italian culture. That was the story. The characters were secondary. The book excels at covering Italy and even gets the football stuff right.

I applaud Grisham for not following the Frances Mayes cliche  . . . American travels to Italy, falls in love with the country, buys a home, moves, falls in love, and lives happily ever after. Since Mayes wrote Under the Tuscan Sun there have been so many books that have followed that formula. ENOUGH, I say, ENOUGH! While reading Playing for Pizza I recognized that while Rick was changing as a person it was the football experience that was changing the way he looked at his world - not Italy and all the country has to offer! 

I recommend this book to all Grisham fans. It would also be a good choice for a football nut.

David Hewson 'The Lizard's Bite'

Shameless self-promotion . . .

One of our photos from Italy has been entered in a photo contest. We are currently 21 out of 354 photos. You can vote by clicking here.

Remember a 10 is good!

*smile*

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Detectives Nic Costa and Gianni Peroni are nearing the end of their exile in Venice following a little bit of insubordination on a case in Rome. Their girlfriends are arriving shortly to join them for a holiday before they all return to Rome.

In a dilapidated glass furnace off the island of Murano the fire races out of control. Two people are dead, and for Leo Falcone, exiled to Venice, with Nic Costa and Gianni Peroni, the question is whether he's dealing with one murderer or two.The local police want to write it off as an accident, but some insist a murder suicide occurred.

For Costa, life in Venice is more perplexing on other fronts too. His relationship with Emily Deacon is deepening, and she is missing the law enforcement work she's abandoned for a different, quieter career. Slowly, the sluggish world of the lagoon begins to enfold the Romans in its sinister grip, as they try to untangle the complex family ties of the tragic Arcangeli family on a private island falling into ruin.

Costa and Peroni are ordered to rubber stamp either "truth". Instead the pair finds evidence to the contrary especially when seeking a motive as to to why Uriel would kill Bella or for that matter visa versa especially torching their beloved glassworks factory; an accident has been relegated to the realm of fantasy. The sleuths soon learn that Isolo di Archangeli glassworks was in the middle of a somewhat hostile takeover bid with Uriel as the toad in the road. Could someone wanted to remove the obstacle to the sale and is that the motive for a double homicide?

In their latest Italian police procedural, Costa and Peroni get in trouble with the brass for doing their job of running a valid inquiry. Fans of the series will enjoy the top rate investigation into whether an accident, a suicide, or a homicide covered up by arson occurred. Newcomers will become engrossed with this superior thriller and seek out their previous caseload (see THE SACRED CUT).

This is not the tourist venice of San Marco and the Rialto. The book focuses on the glass-making island of Murano where, in real life, many firms and families are facing difficult economic times due to changing tastes in modern glass. Another neighbourhood which features is Castello, the last real working class community of Venice.  Castello was one of the areas of Venice where Paul and I spent hours exploring the twisting turns of the walkways and canals.

Venice is awash with fictional detectives. It's the birthplace and spiritual home of Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen as well as Donna Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti. It's an easy market to enter – Venice has so much to offer the aspiring novelist with its historic city and dubious politics – but a difficult one to conquer. David Hewson hasn't conquered the market but there is promise there.

He has Venice to perfection – the dying city which is being turned into a theme park to attract yet more of the tourists who are strangling the place. He has the murky politics too – the place where not being corrupt is quaint and rather strange and it's accepted that those who rise to the top are likely to be crooks, with the only worry being the advantages which might flow from this. He has the insularity of the outlying areas – Murano, where even the Arcangelo family who have been glass blowers on the island for decades are despised as newcomers, or the farmer from the nearby mainland who takes pride in the fact that he is not Venetian.

Suffer the Little Children

Have you voted in the photo contest yet? Remember a 10 is good! *smile*

I first got to know the work of Donna Leon when I was planning our trip to Italy last year. there was a posting about mystery novels set in Italy and Leon was recommended. On a leap of faith, I ordered her first book off of amazon.ca and was soon hooked! Her 16th book was recently published.

Commissario Guido Brunetti is one of the most sympathetic police detectives in crime fiction. His commitment to justice and truth frequently leave him at odds with the sometimes corrupt Italian government and social systems, and this conflict often drives the plot of the novels. One of the most delightful aspects of these stories is Brunetti’s interactions with his wife, Paola, a university professor, and their two children. Leon uses the contrast between the loving home life of the Brunetti family and the often dark lives of the people the Brunetti encounters in his work to build tension in the stories.

The city of Venice plays an equally important role in the stories, and Leon writes with an obvious love for and an intimate knowledge of the Queen of the Adriatic. The side streets and canals and small eating places all come alive in Leon’s stories, and she describes the seasons and changes of light and weather in Venice in beautifully descriptive prose.

Attacking corruption seems to be a favorite theme of Donna Leon. And along the way, there's usually a murder or two to solve. And in the case of her latest Commassario Guido Brunetti thriller, Leon is, once again, on target.

This time the venerable Venice police officer is confronted with the issue of illegal child adoption practices and the accompanying ramifications therein. As in the previous 15 Brunetti novels, Leon looks at her home city and addresses one or more of its myriad problems, social and otherwise. Still, this series is not about Venice, which she loves, but those characters and issues that attack the sheer beauty and even moral turpitude of the Pearl of the Adriatic.

With Brunetti's ace team (Signorina Eletra and Sgt. Vianello, especially), the cases eventually come to a conclusion. Of course, as is usual for a Leon book, the endings are not always satisfying to the reader who is looking for the "happily ever after" approach. Brunetti (and Leon) do not solve the corruption and other socially significant issues, as, of course, these issues continue right along, but they do work on "justice, one person at a time." The murderer usually pays for his (or her) crime. Leon, though, says she's not about to give up on Venice, but sometimes "political corruption is simply a way of life there."

When Commissario Brunetti is summoned to the hospital bedside of a senior pediatrician whose skull has been fractured in a brutal attack, he is confronted with more questions than answers. Three men have burst into the doctor's apartment in the middle of the night, attacked him and taken away his eighteen-month old son. What can have motivated such a violent assault?

As he investigates Brunetti begins to uncover a story of infertility, desperation, and an underworld in which babies can be bought for cash. Meanwhile, Inspector Vianello has uncovered a money-making scam between pharmacists and doctors in the city. But one of the pharmacists is motivated by more than thoughts of gain - the power of knowledge and delusions of moral rectitude can be as destructive and powerful as love of money. And certain information about one's neighbours can lead to all kinds of corruption and all sorts of pain... Donna Leon's new novel is as subtle and gripping as ever, set in a beautifully-realized Venice, seething with small-town malice.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Review

It has been a week since my copy of HP arrived and almost a week since I finished it. This book was a literary phenomenon (of course the debate rages regarding whether or not it was literary genius). It has been amusing watching folk pouring though the book on the train and subway. Last week my assistant even gave up her lunch hour to sit at her desk and read. It was fun sneaking up on her and asking if she wanted to know who died. I am aware of at least twenty people I know who are reading this book right now. That is not something I have been able to say since the tired days of English class!

If you're a Potter fan, you've been waiting for this book for a very long time, and, if you haven't read it yet, you may be wondering if it’s worth the wait. The short answer is: yes. As final books go, The Deathly Hallows wraps things up quite nicely indeed - far better than many 'finale' books usually do.

I did my usual re-read of all the previous books prior to starting this one and I am glad I did. Phrases, situations, and characters from the previous books took on new significance in this final installment of the series. I don't think that I would have gotten as much out of the book had I not refreshed my memory - I mean really, it has been almost 10 years since the first book was published!

Throughout this book Harry returns to many places we've seen in earlier books: Gringots, The Shrieking Shack and The Ministry of Magic, among others. Each of these places plays a small role in the Harry's quest to defeat Voldemort. We also get to visit the house where Harry lived when Voldemort attacked his parents. This visit gives us some more insight into the events that happened that night, and show how prepared Voldemort is to find Harry and his friends. Rowling does a nice job of weaving all these places into the story, as Harry, Ron and Hermione try to find all of Voldemort's Horcruxes and figure out what the Deathly Hallows actually are.

As far as the plot goes, it’s basically a quest, with Harry and company running from encounter to encounter, trying to stay ahead of Voldemort and his cohorts. In fact, the first 2/3 of the book is basically Harry on the run, trying to figure things out while staying out of sight. Unfortunately, while there is some action during this period (the infiltration of The Ministry for example), this section tended to drag quite a bit, as it takes quite a bit of time for Harry and friends to figure out what they want to do, and how to do it. At one point Ron leaves Harry and Hermione, frustrated by their lack of direction and purpose. I wanted to cheer because I felt that same!

Once the siege of Hogwarts begins, however, the last part of the book is all action, and moves quite quickly toward its satisfying showdown between Harry and Voldemort. Rowling obviously took some time to figure out how this showdown would occur, and weaved the pieces needed throughout the earlier parts. The twist that occurs is obvious in hindsight, but was executed quite well. This final section of the book is so fast paced that you'll likely not be able to put it down. Be forewarned though because it lasts for more than 100 pages.

We also get answers to many previously unanswered questions as the story unfolds. As I mentioned, even things mentioned only in passing in earlier books constitute as the missing pieces in the jig-saw puzzle. We discover things about Lily Potter, Snape (I always knew that a character as enigmatic as he had a story to tell, I had been rooting for some goodness in him and yes folks, it is there) and…Dumbledore - the haloed wizard who we was human with human frailties after all.

While the book isn't as light and 'magical' as the early Potter books are, I do think the ending leaves the series on a high note. We've seen Harry move from innocence and naiveté into a competent, self-assured adult. In fact, he matures far more than the characters around him. This maturation may be a result of the burdens placed upon him or more likely is a result of Rowling's 'relationship' with her central character.

So ended the journey we begun with Harry 10 years ago. The journey has had its ups and downs but well… all is well that ends with a well written book.I close it with mixed emotions as I say goodbye to Harry - the boy who lived and still lives on.

Reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

This was me last Saturday afternoon enjoying the last of the Harry Potter series (well, until JK Rowling runs though her cash and needs to write a prequel or sequel). For the record . . . I loved it but found the middle dragged a bit. review tomorrow (or sometime soon - I have started, HONEST).

Firstly, some back story on the photo. Yesterday my pal Palma from the slowtravel message board posted a pic about her swollen ankles on her blog. Recently back from three weeks in Italy, she had the nerve to tell us about her truly amazing trip and then bemoan her swollen ankles. What was I to do but post a snide comment? I know, you can't imagine that from me. What can I say, it was a weak moment!

She responded by posting a comment on the message board about my white legs in my pic. She said that the pic was on my blog and in 3 hours I have had 70 people click though wanting to see my lily white legs (I believe was the descriptor). Sadly the pic was never posted on my blog - in fact I have never posted a pic of me at all as I am as photogenic as dirt and the world needs more beauty, less dirt. I had, however, posted the pic in the July book thread on the message board because hardly anyone every goes there!  LOL

Sadly, Palma (who people have called my twin sister separated at birth because we are so alike) was confused. Excessive sun and coffee will do that to a gal I have heard!

However, in the interest of satisfying the purulent wishes of those who click through wanting to see my lily white legs I have in fact now shared this pic with the world.

I take offense to the term lily white though, that is tanned. In fact that is me after 12 days of running about Maine in shorts and a bathing suit. This is as tanned as I get. If I wanted to be nice and bronze I would need to slather BBQ sauce about me . . . talk about a horrid mental picture!

Anyway. Enough nonsense. Have a swell start to the weekend folk!

Oh, Palma - I do hope those ankles 'slim' down shortly and when they do tell me how you did it because it might work wonders on my gut!

It Has Arrived

The doorbell rang this morning but looking out the window I noticed that there was no UPS truck in front of the house. It couldn't be it. I assumed that it was just someone selling something.

A short while later I went downstairs to check and look what I found sitting on the porch!

It is here.

I have told Paul that I am not to be disturbed for the next 24 hours . . .

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I came home today and had a lovely e-mail from amazon.ca informing me that my order has been processed and will be shipped shortly. This can only mean that at some unknown time on Saturday some delivery guy will bring a package to my door. I, like millions of others around the world, shall rip it open and hop on the roller coaster known as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!

In preparation for the big event I have been rereading all of the books in the series. I got behind a bit (bloody work) but am on track to finish # 6 tomorrow. Whew

I have tried to avoid all of the spoiler sites that have been appearing on the internet like gnome's in the Weasleys garden. I know that reading the book will be a challenge. Characters that I have 'known' for ten years will be killed, others I have despised will turn out to be heroes (I predict).

Who will play a roll in the final book that is different than what they have played to date? I predict Draco Malfoy, Snape, Dudley, and Aunt Petunia for starters. Luna and  Neville will play a significant role as well. my sense is that Dobby will be a significant chacter and yes, even Kreacher.

The final question - will Harry die? Of course not. Heroes never die.

And a scandal. Today the New York Times posted a review of the book on its website . . . here. Apparently some books were being sold well before the Friday at midnight release. JK Rowling is NOT amused.