Diary of impressions.

The book opens with a tragic event that no lover of Venice will ever forget: the fire at the Fenice. Having arrived in Venice the evening before, John decided to pay homage to the city’s grief.

A fire in Venice is no ordinary fire – it’s a permanent wound, it represents a risk, the death of a city perched on wooden piles in the waters of its canals. Its theatre is one of the most magical symbols of that risk.

The mourning city struck the author and beckoned him down its intricate alleyways, revealing itself through intriguing stories and portraits.

The lives of Volpi, Ezra Pound, the Guggenheims, the diatribes between the various heirs of Seguso, the walks, the portraits of ordinary folk: this is all woven into the enquiry into the fire headed by Casson, a magistrate. In the end the culprits are convicted.

Berendt’s loving description of the city-state and its people is captivating. With the advantage of a foreign eye, he is sensitive to the Venetians’ dual nationality: first Venetian and then Italian. Their isolation, originally geographical (Venice is in a lagoon, a unique kind of territory), became intellectual and sentimental too.
This book, this notebook of impressions, is difficult, almost impossible to define in terms of genres, it floats in and out of several. It’s the fruit of five years lived in a city that’s easy to see but hard to get to know.