Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Venetian Stories by JANE TURNER RYLANDS ISBN: 0-375-42232-3 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 06 May, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.71 (14 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: A missed opportunity...
Comment: Jane Turner Rylands has lived in Venice for thirty years and, according to the jacket copy of this collection of short stories, her husband is the director of the Peggy Guggenheim Museum of modern art. One can assume therefore that Ms. Rylands is fairly well positioned to write a perceptive account of what really happens in Venice. The surprising and disappointing thing is how many of the stories in this book involve unpleasant people stabbing each other in the back and jockeying for social position.
To be fair, Rylands' writing is polished and she can tell a story well. But she has an annoying fatal flaw: it's her irritating condescension, which never lets up. Really talented story-tellers are truly engaged with their characters; Ms. Rylands' haughty tone sets her apart and puts the reader off at the same time. In addition, she often strains for effect with awkward or even downright silly results--as in the book's very first sentence: "When the last quarter of the twentieth century opened throttle for the millennium and the Venice of today...."
Rylands would probably have been better off writing a book of nonfiction about her own life in Venice and the lives of other real people who live there. But then, maybe she did and this is it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Bravo! Encore!
Comment: I've been to Venice a few times, and Ms Rylands' book is funny and moving and most of all, gives you a real feel for the city. I think it's really sympathetic to the inhabitants. My favourite has to be the story of the Countess-a woman who is struggling against the collapse of her family and what she perceives to be the slow death of Venice, as tourism ruins life for the local inhabitants, who are leaving for the mainland. Like one of her famous courtesans, her beauty has brought Venice tourism and wealth, but at what cost?
Like all Turner-Rylands' depictions of family life, the outcome of the Countess story is very touching, and definitely optimistic. She clearly has adopted the italian reverence for the family.
...I don't know if these are real people she's based her book on as the Iowa reviewer seems to think (perhaps he/she knows something I don't), but it's to the author's credit that they seem so utterly real. If they are, I'd love to meet them...Venetian Stories certainly made me wanna go back to Venice soon!
Rating: 5
Summary: Wonderful! It brings me back
Comment: These vignettes really did bring me back to the place I love the most. The smells, the vitality, the corruption, the moral decay, it's all here. Wunderbar!
 |
Title: A Thousand Days in Venice by Marlena de Blasi ISBN: 0345457641 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 03 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
 |
Title: The Last Gondola: A Mystery of Venice by Edward Sklepowich ISBN: 0312290497 Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books Pub. Date: July, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
 |
Title: A Venetian Affair by ANDREA DI ROBILANT ISBN: 037541181X Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 23 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
 |
Title: Uniform Justice: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery by Donna Leon ISBN: 0871139030 Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
 |
Title: Paradise of Cities : Venice In the 19th Century by JOHN JULIUS NORWICH ISBN: 0385509049 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 07 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $32.50 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
