The City of Falling Angels, John Berendt

The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt is the story of the loss of the Fenice theater to a huge fire in Venice, Italy.

Started:  February 7, 2011
Completed: October 27, 2012
Recommendation: Not recommended
Recommended By:  I found this in the office book exchange while I was waiting for coffee to brew.  The title intrigued me and my mother and sister had read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and raved about how good it was.  I figured I'd give it a try and just leave it at work to fill the spare moments while I was waiting for a meeting to start or coffee to brew.

Words I looked up:


exigent -- pressing or demanding

Review:


This book ends up being more of an adventure through Venice then just about the Fenice.  It feels to me that the Fenice story was just a short story and the author went to great pains to explore other avenues related to his tracking down the Fenice story in order to make this a book.  This is, in part, a mystery...why did the Fenice burn down?  There is a resolution to this mystery, but it seems as though the author is very much an observer.  Not a fly on the wall, but someone who recounts interview after interview without an ability to fill in most of the gaps between interviews.  It is as though we have a series of newspaper stories about an event intermingled with an autobiographical journey through Venice.  To me, it is an odd mix.

I did find out some fascinating things about Venice--things that should be obvious, I guess, but things I hadn't considered.  There are times when the canals stink and the tides cause the experience of traffic going by outside your window to be very different (the traffic can be well below you, or literally in your window!).  There are no cars, so everyone walks.  The walking causes people to interact highly and the nature of neighborhoods to be distinctly different from most other cities.  It is generally quieter without the background drone of cars moving about.  The walking is also hard on seniors making it necessary for neighbors to help out and knitting together the community a bit more.  The lack of cars also makes construction difficult as huge volumes of materials have to come by the boatload through the relatively thin canals.  Also, fires are put out using canal water (salty and sometimes muddy).

It is difficult for me to recommend this book to anyone else.  The pace was slow in both my reading and the book.  The drama that is present isn't really about the Fenice, but largely about things only slightly related.  In the end, it just wasn't that interesting and the prose was not compelling.

Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman is a book I picked up when Vertigo was closing.  I really enjoyed American Gods and Anansi Boys.  I saw this book before I had read Anansi Boys, but it caught my eye because of the advertising for American Gods that was on the cover.  I choose to read this book now with a little trepidation, because I have since learned that Gaiman started out writing horror and that is not a subject matter I particularly enjoy.

Started: June 4, 2011
Completed: June 4, 2011
Recommendation: Highly recommended
Recommended By:  I saw this on the shelves as Vertigo was closing.

Review:


Yeah, I read this book in one day.  Start to finish.  That was not the plan.  I had a lot to do.  The stars aligned, however, and I got time to read combined with a book that made turning the page not just a way to move the story forward but a hungry demand.  There is no "good place to stop" in this book.  The writing is engrossing, the plot and sub-plots are clever, the characters are compelling, and the author's ability to engross the reader is engaging.  As I sat in the dead of night with my book light illuminating the final pages, I experienced the deliciousness of the stolen moments from my childhood when a book drew me under the covers with a flashlight.  So, I liked it.

Who should read it?  Well, those who like a clever turn of phrase, "There were four ways for the astute observer to tell them apart [4 very distinct descriptions are given]....in addition, they looked nothing alike," will likely walk away from this book satisfied that the author has leveraged his craft.  Those who would like to believe that there is no such thing as a chance encounter or a sound in the night that is not caused by some unseen and potentially malicious "thing" that could only be properly removed from the world by deft knife work will not go unsatisfied.  A geek, nerd, klutz,  or other everyday person who knows in his heart that under the right circumstances, with just a little persuasion from an indifferent universe and a troop of friends who really want to help each other any obstacle can be overcome by reaching deep down inside themselves to become something they truly are not will find in this story a parallel.  Yes, Dungeons and Dragons fans, here is the "real life" nitty gritty embodiment of your obsession without the need to go to magic or creatures that live so far from reality that one might look back to find the bridge to the real world obscured by rolling hills.

The hero of this story is so nondescript that you never find out what he looks like.  The few descriptions that appear are so distorted by circumstance as to represent the situation more than the individual.  You know that he doesn't think much of himself and the world around him agrees.  He is not very good at living and his only outspoken trait is a mild compunction for those who are homeless.  This sole characteristic, however, drives the story forward and his own ineptitude--his willingness to be swept along by events rather then to craft a life of his own--draws him via one swirling eddy into a new world where he learns to live his life because death is around every corner and drifting is tantamount to suicide.  It is a delicious joy to see this person who struggles to exist become Someone.

There is a certain sickness to readers who become engrossed in this type of story.  It is a sadness about one's own sense of one's self, one's life, and the hope that if things were just "different" one might shine.  The characters in this book, for the most part, do not understand one another, are not compassionate towards each other, and betray one another with a nonchalance that is oddly breathtaking.  The small, fleeting moments when one character reaches out to another directly (the poor comfort offered Door as she returns to her home where her family has been murdered and Richard's compassion for the rat-speaker--examples that don't ruin the story) are sufficient to humanize an inhumane environment.  The social ineptitude of the cast of characters on all levels reflects the social skills of the engrossed reader and imply that the failings of the reader himself may, in some odd way, be an advantage.

So, if you read this book and like it then you are sick.  Your sickness does not coat your life with a stench that well-meaning people cannot help but avoid.  It does, however, leave you on the fringes of society looking in and aching for the teeming acceptance that the others seem to enjoy.  This book also suggests that the acceptance is as illusory as Springsteen's "Glory Days" and the way to feed your hunger is to go live your life rather then stare from the backwaters.  In this way, this book is a self-help tome for those who have this sickness.  The question is, do you have to pick up a bleeding woman from the street to go find your life?