Book Review: The City of Falling Angels

I discovered this book while looking at the Barnes and Noble page for Roll the Bones. Apparently, people who buy my book there also buy this one, along with histories of happiness and night-time. Being interested in Venice, I thought I’d give it a read, not really knowing what to expect.

Author John Berendt doesn’t tell a story, so much as paint a portrait in The City of Falling Angels–appropriate, perhaps, since the American view of Venice is so colored by art and architecture. The reader gets a protrait of a Venice that is simultaneously cosmopolitan–the playground of nobility, titled and untitled–and provincial–Berendt’s Venetians are often distrustful of outsiders, and frequently resentful of the millions of tourists who throng the city, bringing traffic, environmental decay–and money. Though it was once the seat of an empire, Venice today is as much a tourist town as Las Vegas or Orlando.

Berendt interweaves several stories throughout a surpisingly quick 414-page read. The investigation and rebuilding following the catastrophic fire at the Fenice opera house is the book’s main story, and the author does a great job of bringing several voices–and his own shrewd eye for controversy–into the mix. Along the way, the reader is introduced to a host of characters, from Venetian counts to ne’er-do-well subcontractors. And the reader sees, through Berendt’s prism, the engimatic character of Venice. Count Girolamo Marcello tells the author, in the preface, that “everyone in Venice is acting…Venetians never tell the truth. We mean exactly the opposite of what we say.” Unravelling a mystery (was the Fenice fire arson, or just plain negligence) is a necessarily difficulty task in such a city. Marcello’s quote makes you wonder, on every page, just what is real, and what is only a facade.

There’s some neat stuff on the inner workings of the Venetian social scene. If you go ga-ga over palaces, counts, and princesses, this will have you positively weak at the knees. If not, it’s a not-so-offensive look at how the other half lives.

On a related note, you might be surprised to know that, even though the city houses architectural and artistic treasures that seem removed from the grind of mundane politics and petty rivalries, the conservators of Venice’s heritage are not at all disinterested in the power and perks that access to them–and the city’s exclusive social set–can provide. The stories Berendt tells of machinations at the Guggenheim, and the travails of Ezra Pound’s lifelong mistress, Olga Rudge, are both fascinating tales of personal rivalries, and dispiriting anecdotes of arrogance and power-hunger.

One of the book’s strengths is that it shows many sides of Venice: readers get to know Archimede Seguso, an incomprable glassmaker and artist, and Massimo Donadon, who made his fortune from selling a better rat poison.

I don’t know if this is an accurate picture of what Venice is “really like.” I don’t know if that matters. One thing’s for sure: it’s not the story of the guy washing dishes in a hole-in-the-wall restuarnt–it revolves around some of the city’s wealthiest and most famous citizens. But it is a compelling read, filled with interesting (if not always likeable) characters. If it was more tightly focused, I would say that it’s non-fiction that reads like a novel, but as it is, it’s non-fiction that reads like very well-written non-fiction.

The book is hardly a travel guide to the city (nor was it meant to be), though it does give intriuging backstory for some of the city’s landmarks. Watching Globe Trekker’s Venice show (which was coincidentally on the week I read this), I was thrilled to see many of the places Berendt describes in living color. So if you are thinking of travelling to Venice, and are of a literary bent (if you read book reviews, I’ve got to assume you are), this makes a fun read, maybe combined with a more straight-forward history of the city. It’s definitely recommended.